Quote from: RPGPundit;867122Well, I can't personally recall the period, it was a bit too long ago. So I really don't know, but I suspect I personally had nothing to do with the survival of our species.

You did not. But you did assume, with little evidence, that our ancestors prospered due to intelligence rather than other less flattering causes like faster and more flexible population growth due to our females being in heat year round or being able to survive a wider number of diseases than our less gregarious hominid cousins. You are indulging in another version of evolution results in progress or survival of the fittest has anything to do with morality or individual superiority.

Quote from: RPGPundit;867121If you were talking about two species of insects, or canines, or even monkeys, sure.  But that classification falls apart when you talk about sentient beings, and the Neanderthals were certainly sentient.

If they had been more intelligent than the Cro-Magnons, they could have used that intelligence to figure out a way to survive.

It may well have taken them thousands of years to go extinct, this wasn't some Armageddon (or Independence Day) movie scenario. I bet the Neanderthals were less intelligent, all the evidence points that way. But there's no law of nature that more-intelligent is always more evolutionarily adaptive than less-intelligent; intelligence has costs and it depends on the environment. Maybe the highly intelligent Neanderthals were pathological altruists who welcomed the Cro Magnons as refugees from Global Warming...

Quote from: RPGPundit;867121If you were talking about two species of insects, or canines, or even monkeys, sure.  But that classification falls apart when you talk about sentient beings, and the Neanderthals were certainly sentient.

If they had been more intelligent than the Cro-Magnons, they could have used that intelligence to figure out a way to survive.

Both of these points are incorrect. There is no particular evidence to suggest that the former is the case. And the latter is simply silly. As an analogy, if you were smarter than you currently are, would it allow you to avoid death from a pre-existing terminal genetic condition? Perhaps. Or perhaps not, depending on the nature of that genetic variation. You might simply be doomed to die from it, in spite of any greater personal intelligence, never mind the unimaginably increased capabilities of our society over that of Neolithic hominids.

Lastly, I'll point out that presuming that evolution equals progress is exactly the idea that Darwin overturned with his "natural selection." Suggesting otherwise throws out exactly what is most brilliant about his ideas.

Quote from: Bren;867138You did not. But you did assume, with little evidence, that our ancestors prospered due to intelligence rather than other less flattering causes like faster and more flexible population growth due to our females being in heat year round or being able to survive a wider number of diseases than our less gregarious hominid cousins. You are indulging in another version of evolution results in progress or survival of the fittest has anything to do with morality or individual superiority.

Evolution does not necessarily result in progress. Intelligence usually does, in the long run.

Quote from: S'mon;867203It may well have taken them thousands of years to go extinct, this wasn't some Armageddon (or Independence Day) movie scenario.

That strengthens, rather than weakens my point. If evidence pointed to aggressive cro-magnons coming in, with superior numbers, and launching in a barbarian-horde style campaign of rapid brutal aggression that would not have given the Neanderthals time to adapt, then it could have been entirely possible that even if the Neanderthals were smarter they wouldn't have had time to figure out how to save themselves.

But that's not what happened. There was a period of tens of thousands of years, generations longer than all of recorded history, where these two species were in the same places. There was enormous amount of time for either species to adapt to anything the others did, or to changes in their environment. The humans adapted, the Neanderthals did not; and right now the best evidence we have is that the humans did not strictly speaking play the main role in the Neanderthals' extinction (though a competing species in the area might have been a factor); it was that humans were better at making complex social bonds, they were smarter at figuring out abstract systems by which they could engage in things like trade, than the Neanderthals. They were thus better able to use their wits and their connections to survive brutal ice-age conditions.

QuoteBut there's no law of nature that more-intelligent is always more evolutionarily adaptive than less-intelligent

Always? No.
But it is one huge fucking advantage.  Especially with enough time and resources to use it.

Regardless of what the reality was regarding their intelligence, I think when most people think of a Neanderthal based fantasy race, they are going for something crude and a bit aggressive. It is based on the Hollywood image, so if you deviate from that, it is potentially confusing. It may still be a great addition to your setting but there is that added step of explanation. Generally I think I prefer my Neanderthals a bit Hollywood in a fantasy game. In a time travel game where pcs go back and bump into Neanderthals, defying their expectations sounds a bit more fun.

Quote from: Bobloblah;867237Both of these points are incorrect. There is no particular evidence to suggest that the former is the case. And the latter is simply silly. As an analogy, if you were smarter than you currently are, would it allow you to avoid death from a pre-existing terminal genetic condition? Perhaps. Or perhaps not, depending on the nature of that genetic variation. You might simply be doomed to die from it, in spite of any greater personal intelligence, never mind the unimaginably increased capabilities of our society over that of Neolithic hominids.

Wow, did your argument get dumb real fast. I'm not talking about the intelligence of any single individual.
If I had a pre-existing terminal genetic condition, there'd probably be fuck all I could do with my own intelligence to save my ass.
The age we live in, however, is showing exactly how HUMANS, as a species, are able to use their intelligence, given sufficient time to do so, to end up being able to beat all kinds of pre-existing genetic conditions.

That's the difference that sentience-level intelligence affords: animals have to adapt to survive within their environment as it is.  Human beings have the power to CHANGE their environment, to manipulate it, intentionally, in ways that no other animal could do.

No other animal alive today, that is.  The Neanderthals could clearly do it too.  So at that point, the question of survival was all about who could do it better.

QuoteLastly, I'll point out that presuming that evolution equals progress is exactly the idea that Darwin overturned with his "natural selection." Suggesting otherwise throws out exactly what is most brilliant about his ideas.

I'm not suggesting evolution equals progress. I'm suggesting Intelligence generally leads to progress over large spans of time.

I know its very fashionable in some circles to believe everything humanity does is purely a product of vagaries of random luck and that no agency is possible at either the individual or collective scale, but that's frankly a load of crap.