The Extinct Human Species That Was Smarter Than Us

wildcat

3-24-2008 2:49 PM

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/5e6f2612-a25f-4a16-8a49-abba6505ba44/6E953ABA-9761-4844-8EA2-EBF309803ED8/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/21-the-extinct-human-species-that-was-smarter-than-us?utm_campaign=DISCOVER%20Magazine%20Human%20Origins%20Newsletter%203%2E24%2E2008&utm_content=tygerx9@gmail.com&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_term=The%20Extinct%20Human%20Species%20That%20Was%20Smarter%20Than%20Us" href="http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/21-the-extinct-human-species-that-was-smarter-than-us?utm_campaign=DISCOVER%20Magazine%20Human%20Origins%20Newsletter%203%2E24%2E2008&utm_content=tygerx9@gmail.com&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_term=The%20Extinct%20Human%20Species%20That%20Was%20Smarter%20Than%20Us" style="font-size: 11px;">discovermagazine.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/21-the-extinct-human-species-that-was-smarter-than-us?utm_campaign=DISCOVER%20Magazine%20Human%20Origins%20Newsletter%203%2E24%2E2008&utm_content=tygerx9@gmail.com&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_term=The%20Extinct%20Human%20Species%20That%20Was%20Smarter%20Than%20Us"><H3>The superintelligent Boskops had small, childlike faces and huge melon heads.</H3></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/21-the-extinct-human-species-that-was-smarter-than-us?utm_campaign=DISCOVER%20Magazine%20Human%20Origins%20Newsletter%203%2E24%2E2008&utm_content=tygerx9@gmail.com&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_term=The%20Extinct%20Human%20Species%20That%20Was%20Smarter%20Than%20Us"><P>“Sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of dreams,” says John Merrick in the play <I>The Elephant Man</I>. He might have been speaking for the Boskops, an almost forgotten group of early humans who lived in southern Africa between 30,000 and 10,000 years ago. Judging from fossil remains, scientists say the Boskops were similar to modern humans but had small, childlike faces and huge melon heads that held brains about 30 percent larger than our own.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/21-the-extinct-human-species-that-was-smarter-than-us?utm_campaign=DISCOVER%20Magazine%20Human%20Origins%20Newsletter%203%2E24%2E2008&utm_content=tygerx9@gmail.com&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_term=The%20Extinct%20Human%20Species%20That%20Was%20Smarter%20Than%20Us">ust as we’re smarter than apes, they were probably smarter than us,” they speculate. More insightful and self-reflective than modern humans, with fantastic memories and a penchant for dreaming, the Boskops may have had “an internal mental life literally beyond anything we can imagine.”</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/21-the-extinct-human-species-that-was-smarter-than-us?utm_campaign=DISCOVER%20Magazine%20Human%20Origins%20Newsletter%203%2E24%2E2008&utm_content=tygerx9@gmail.com&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_term=The%20Extinct%20Human%20Species%20That%20Was%20Smarter%20Than%20Us">They also explore what the Boskops’ big brains tell us about evolution (why didn’t they survive?) and about the future of human intelligence (can we engineer bigger brains?</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/6E953ABA-9761-4844-8EA2-EBF309803ED8/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

tags:

boskops, brains, intelligence

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3-24-2008 10:09 PM

AcesLucky

Perhaps they lived too much in their internal world to escape the hostile external world? Sometimes dreams and hallucinations, delusions and such can portend an alternate world that "feels" like real. And so they sought that one, instead of this one.

3-25-2008 4:54 PM