Book Description
Boogie the caveman is on a quest to understand how his people have become stuck in beliefs that drastically limit their ability to share insights and make progress. Join his hilarious journey of discovery and learn how to surface, share, and challenge your own and others' hidden beliefs and to recognize how they inform--and often misinform--what we do. With its engaging use of metaphor and detailed discussion guide, Shadows of the Neanderthal is a must-have resource for any organization on its own quest for clear and open communication.
Customer Reviews:
Perfect book for a half-day seminar in business management.......2007-05-01
Plato's allegory of the cave is a story that everyone must read in order to claim to be educated. In it, people are permanently located in a cave with their back to the entrance. The shadows of what takes place outside the cave appears on the wall and the residents use that information to reach conclusions regarding what is outside. It is designed to show you that much of what you think you know is only a faint shadow of what the world really is.
This story begins in that vein; Unga, Bunga, Oogie, Boogie and Trevor are cave dwellers with a fear of the outside. They watch the shadows and reach conclusions and each has a different opinion regarding what terrible fate would befall them if they ever set foot outside their domain. They eat only what blows into the cave, so their diet consists largely of dried plant life and dead insects.
Eventually, Boogie expresses a desire to explore the exterior world, an opinion that immediately gets him ostracized. When he leaves, he discovers an amazing world of animals and vegetation. He wanders until he encounters a wise man named Mike, who tells him how it used to be.
In the old days, there was a major civilization that built towers to see what was beyond their immediate vicinity. In one direction, there were enormous herds of wild animals and in the other direction there were abundant fruits and vegetables there for the harvesting. There were two groups, each of which looked in only one direction. This led to an immediate split, one group wanted to build spears and other hunting tools while the other wanted to build baskets for gathering. Neither side would budge from their position, which led to a battle for control. This battle led to separate groups retreating into caves, where they remained to this day.
After the initial story of the cave dwellers, there is a serious discussion of the meaning of the tale. You are asked to ponder the significance of the story and how it relates to the modern business world. With the advent of global markets and the instantaneous transfer of information, for most companies a strategy of staying put is suicide. Each and every day, someone in the company must be examining all of the fundamental assumptions used to justify the business decisions.
This is a short book that is perfect for the half-day management seminar. Illustrated and only 81 pages long, it can be read in about an hour and is packed with information designed to get you thinking about your approach to life, work and career.
Shadows of the Neanderthal.......2006-11-05
Fun and easy read but compelling! This is a book that I will want to keep on my bookshelf and revisit. A must read for managers, educators, and leaders.
Just as enjoyable and illuminating, Outlearning the Wolves, again, by David Hutchens.
Pocket Wisdom.......2003-02-24
Simple, yet powerful. A fun way to learn and very effective for group discussion.
An excellent resource!.......2000-07-03
I really enjoyed this book! The author's clever sense of humor and the great illustrations make a difficult subject--mental models--fun and easy to learn about. I think the book would help any company, family, or even couple get better at exploring why they think the way they do, and how to communicate better with colleagues and loved ones. The discussion guide at the end of the book makes it easy to start using the ideas in your day-to-day life.
Should be required reading if responsible for company growth.......1999-08-13
David Hutchens brings new insight and twists to an age old metaphor. This book begins with a humorous tale whose analogy, to the world in which we live and the mental models which we hold, will hit you between the eyes. The writer quickly points out problems every organization battles with to improve performance and grow. While the business culture has become so overwhelmed with change, many leaders have embraced their current state of affairs. Holding tight to what we have, we spend much of our energy trying not to lose market share. This book gives insight into why and when this happens and how to move from there. "In a world of chaotic information, the mind instantly locks onto that which it already knows--and simply filters out other data." (from Shadows of the Neanderthal) I'm glad I bought it. Thom Hazelip, Arthur Andersen LLP
Book Description
The propensity to make music is the most mysterious, wonderful, and neglected feature of humankind: this is where Steven Mithen began, drawing together strands from archaeology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience--and, of course, musicology--to explain why we are so compelled to make and hear music. But music could not be explained without addressing language, and could not be accounted for without understanding the evolution of the human body and mind. Thus Mithen arrived at the wildly ambitious project that unfolds in this book: an exploration of music as a fundamental aspect of the human condition, encoded into the human genome during the evolutionary history of our species.
Music is the language of emotion, common wisdom tells us. In The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen introduces us to the science that might support such popular notions. With equal parts scientific rigor and charm, he marshals current evidence about social organization, tool and weapon technologies, hunting and scavenging strategies, habits and brain capacity of all our hominid ancestors, from australopithecines to Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals to Homo sapiens--and comes up with a scenario for a shared musical and linguistic heritage. Along the way he weaves a tapestry of cognitive and expressive worlds--alive with vocalized sound, communal mimicry, sexual display, and rhythmic movement--of various species.
The result is a fascinating work--and a succinct riposte to those, like Steven Pinker, who have dismissed music as a functionless evolutionary byproduct.
Customer Reviews:
Clever Title, Serious Book.......2007-04-21
Mithen is a well-published serious evolutionary psychologist, and this book is therefore carefully grounded in current understandings of biological evolution and its relevance to the development of human capacities. His argument is that musical and linguistic abilities are separate evolutionary developments and that whereas in Homo sapiens the linguistic has undercut the role of the more primordial musical; Neanderthals exploited the musical but did not develop linguistic capacities. Mithen's argument is admittedly speculative: he often argues from silence, for instance. But these speculations are informed extrapolations, and exploring them with his help is a highly stimulating, mind-expanding experience.
Wishing it doesn't make it so.......2007-04-14
This book so wants to demonstrate that music was a crucial component of human evolution, as if the author, Steven Mithen, wants to explain why he felt the subconscious need to spend so much money on CDs by Queensryche, but he ultimately fails to prove causality. There is nothing inherent in music creation that helped the human species survive the ravages of hunger, disease, pestilence, and war. There was no "battle of the bands" being waged on the prehistoric Serengeti plain to demonstrate defiance of environmental pressures to adapt. Much of this book is pure conjecture, and Mithen again demonstrates that scientists are the worst group of people to explain music to anyone.
Yabba-dabba-do! Fred Flintstone would give this book two thumbs up!! .......2007-03-14
+++++
"The Neanderthals who inhabited Europe and south-west Asia had brains as large as those of modern humans but behaved in a quite different fashion, one that indicates the absence of language...So, what were the Neanderthals doing with such large brains?...Answer: the Neanderthals used their brains for a sophisticated communication system...[that I call] `Hmmmmm'...
'Hmmmmm'...proved remarkably successful: it allowed them to survive for a quarter of a million years through dramatic environmental change in ice-age Europe, and to attain an unprecedented level of cultural achievement. They were 'singing Neanderthals'--although their songs lacked any words."
The above quotation comes near the end of this fascinating book (and explains its title) by Dr. Steven Mithen, Professor of Early Prehistory (at the University of Reading, England), archeologist, and leading figure in the development of `cognitive archeology.'
What is the aim of this book? Mithen explains:
"We can only explain the human propensity to make and listen to music by recognizing that it has been encoded into the human genome during the evolutionary history of our species. How, when, and why are the mysteries that I intend to resolve [in this book]...This book sets out my own ideas about how music and language evolved, and evaluates the proposals of others by exposing them to the archaeological and fossil evidence...The result is a complete account of not only how music and language evolved but how they relate to the evolution of the human mind, body, and society."
As one who thoroughly enjoyed this book, I can validate what Mithen says above. He does examine a large array of data and proposals from many others and critically analyzes this information. Be aware that to understand the book's conclusions (one of which is quoted above), you have to carefully read and comprehend all the material presented beforehand. Mithen proved (at least to me) that he was well-adept at sorting through all the neurological, linguistical, psychological, biological, and archeological information (to name just some disciplines he delves into). (Don't worry! Mithen explains everything quite well so you're not expected to be an academic with a Ph.D.)
The book itself is divided into two parts. The first part (excluding chapter one which is an introduction) is concerned with what we understand about music and language today. Part two uses those features presented in part one to explain the evolutionary history of language and music.
To give the potential reader an idea of the breadth of this book, I will give the sub-title of each chapter:
Part I: The Present
(2) The similarities and differences between music and language
(3) The brain, aphasia (loss of using or understanding words), and musical savants
(4) Acquired and congenital amusia (inability to recognize or reproduce musical sounds)
(5) Music processing within the brain
(6) Brain maturation, language learning, and perfect pitch
(7) Music, emotion, medicine, and intelligence
Part II: The Past
(8) Communication by monkeys and apes
(9) The origin of `Hmmmm' (an acronym) communication
(10) The evolution of bipedalism and dance
(11) Communication about the natural world
(12) Is music a product of sexual selection?
(13) Human life history and emotional development
(14) The significance of cooperation and social bonding
(15) `Hmmmmm' communication by "Homo neanderthalensis" (Compare this acronym to that of (9) above)
(16) The origins of "Homo Sapiens" and the segmentation of `Hmmmmm'
(17) Modern human dispersal, communicating with the gods, and the remnants of 'Hmmmmm'
There are twenty figures peppered throughout this book. These are interesting and aid the discussion.
Finally, did I agree with everything I read in this book? Of course not. What Mithen is attempting to do is extremely difficult. There has to be some speculation and there is much of it in this book. However, it is reasoned speculation and I was impressed with how Mithen put everything together into a coherent whole.
In conclusion, this book attempts to explain the mystery of "the origins of music, language, mind and body." If you like mysteries like I do, then you should thoroughly enjoy this fascinating book!!
(first published 2005; 17 chapters; main narrative 280 pages; notes; bibliography; picture acknowledgements; index)
+++++
top notch performance of classic guitar literature.......2007-03-09
This is a beautiful album, incorporating some of the most famous guitar works, exquisitely performed. The sound quality is excellent, pairing guitar and string orchestra with fine control. The Warlock suite is new to most hearers, and its rhythmic rendition of folk dances is fun to play over and over.
Let's make music together.......2007-01-14
It is a nice model about the origins of music and language, called Hmmmmm. Hominid history is clearly written and very informative relying on a huge range of sources.
It is a great work to write such a book and it is fortunate to read such a book. In my opinion, Hmmmmm model is as convincing as the author's domain-specific model (in his book 'prehistory of mind') in understanding the pre-history mind.
Average customer rating:
- More excellence from Sawyer
- high praise, indeed
- Enter the World of a parallel universe
- Excellent Parallel Universe Story
- For fans of Neanderthals.
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Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax)
Robert J. Sawyer
Manufacturer: Tor Science Fiction
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Sawyer, Robert J.
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ASIN: 0765345005 |
Book Description
Hominids examines two unique species of people. We are one of those species; the other is the Neanderthals of a parallel world where they became the dominant intelligence. The Neanderthal civilization has reached heights of culture and science comparable to our own, but with radically different history, society and philosophy. Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist, accidentally pierces the barrier between worlds and is transferred to our universe. Almost immediately recognized as a Neanderthal, but only much later as a scientist, he is quarantined and studied, alone and bewildered, a stranger in a strange land. But Ponter is also befriended-by a doctor and a physicist who share his questing intelligence, and especially by Canadian geneticist Mary Vaughan, a woman with whom he develops a special rapport. Ponter's partner, Adikor Huld, finds himself with a messy lab, a missing body, suspicious people all around and an explosive murder trial. How can he possibly prove his innocence when he has no idea what actually happened to Ponter?
Customer Reviews:
More excellence from Sawyer.......2007-09-22
I've read several of Sawyer's books, and this book is as enjoyable as the others, if not more so. Sawyer's got a clean smart style thats easy to read, and he keeps the pages turning.
This books strengths (great characters, social commentary, solid world building) far outweigh any weaknesses.
This is SciFi thats should appeal both to SciFi fans, as well as mainstream fiction readers; or readers of Joe Haldeman and Robert Charles Wilson.
high praise, indeed.......2007-08-05
I'm not usually much for science fiction, but I loved Hominids. The concept of an alternative universe in which it is the Neanderthals who surived rather than Homo sapiens sapiens is incredibly clever. And Sawyer's assumption that, had they survived, Neanderthals would have, like us, evolved science, culture, and civilization makes perfect sense.
Sawyer spins a modern tale of Gulliver among the Lilliputians, a naif who is both inspired and appalled by the good and bad in human civilization. I won't spoil the novel by giving too much away -- suffice it to say that the reader comes away re-evaluating much of society.
When someone who doesn't usually read SF likes a book this much, it's high praise, indeed.
Enter the World of a parallel universe.......2007-07-15
Hominids
In Hominids Robert J. Sawyer introduces you to Ponter Boddit and Mare. Ponter is from a parallel universe to Earth where Neanderthal Man won supremacy over Homo Sapiens or Glikskins as Ponter calls them. In this fascinating world Sawyer introduces you to life among the Neanderthals. One wonders if Sawyer is actually advocating this life. A life that includes homosexuality as the norm, absolutely no privacy. and many other Liberal ideals. Sawyer is, after all, a Canadian. In Hominid you spend most of your time in the Neanderthal world. This is the first in the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy. It is followed by Humans (Volume Two of The Neanderthal Parallax), then Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax).
Gunner July,2007
Excellent Parallel Universe Story.......2007-06-16
I recently discovered Mr. Sawyer's work. Undoubtedly, he is a great hard Sci-Fi writer, I think one of the best among the newcomers. Hominids is not up the quality of "Calculating God", but still a good novel, and his setting of the Neanderthal World is really excellent. The rape story I considered unnecessary and really a distraction on the main plot, but I guess Mr. Sawyer wanted to put an emphasis on the social differences between the two parallel Earths. Also the trial for the supposed murder is hardly credible, as it is driven by feelings and circunstancial evidence only. Overall, once again Mr. Sawyer did his research and came up with a very interesting story based on hard scientific facts and plenty of his imagination.
A good read for hard Sci-Fi fans, and I still wondering if it is worthy to read the whole trillogy.
For fans of Neanderthals. .......2007-03-14
Hominids is about two Earths, one which is ours and one which is a parallel world full of Neanderthals. Or maybe we're the parallel Earth? Anyway, Ponter Boddit ends up trapping himself in our universe as a result of a failed experiment with a quantum computer. On the other hand, he invented a perfect way to travel between universes.
But while he is on our side of the barrier, being hounded by reporters, picking up germs his immune system can't handle and having a great time his male-partner is being put on trial for murder.
That's right. Without a body, or even any solid idea of what happened, Adikor Huld is being put on trial for Boddit's death. All he has is a messy computer lab, a history of violence and a missing partner.
A great sci-fi book and a book for anybody who enjoys Neanderthal related books.
Average customer rating:
- Disappointing
- The Camel is in the tent
- More a romance novel than science fiction
- All right, having read the previous ones...
- Excellent continuation, have to read if you've read the others in this series.
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Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax)
Robert J. Sawyer
Manufacturer: Tor Science Fiction
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 076534906X
Release Date: 2004-11-02 |
Book Description
In the Hugo-Award winning Hominids, Robert J. Sawyer introduced a character readers will never forget: Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist from a parallel Earth who was whisked from his reality into ours by a quantum-computing experiment gone awry - making him the ultimate stranger in a strange land.In that book and in its sequel, Humans, Sawyer showed us the Neanderthal version of Earth in loving detail - a tour de force of world-building; a masterpiece of alternate history.Now, in Hybrids, Ponter Boddit and his Homo sapiens lover, geneticist Mary Vaughan, are torn between two worlds, struggling to find a way to make their star-crossed relationship work. Aided by banned Neanderthal technology, they plan to conceive the first hybrid child, a symbol of hope for the joining of their two versions of reality. But after an experiment shows that Mary's religious faith - something completely absent in Neanderthals - is a quirk of the neurological wiring of Homo sapiens brains, Ponter and Mary must decide whether their child should be predisposed to atheism or belief. Meanwhile, as Mary's Earth is dealing with a collapse of its planetary magnetic field, her boss, the enigmatic Jock Krieger, has turned envious eyes on the unspoiled Eden that is the Neanderthal world . . . Hybrids is filled to bursting with Sawyer's signature speculations about alternative ways of being human, exploding our preconceptions of morality and gender, of faith and love. His Neanderthal Parallax trilogy is a classic in the making, and here he brings it to a stunning, thought-provoking conclusion that's sure to make Hybrids one of the most controversial books of the year.
Customer Reviews:
Disappointing.......2007-09-08
Very disappointing - I waited a long time for all three of these to be in paperback so I could read them all together. They weren't anywhere close to as good as the rest of his work and I'm a big Robert Sawyer fan as well as a feminist. Mary, the primary female character, was not a very sympathetic person although I'm sure she was meant to be. Lots of potential that just never quite got there.
The Camel is in the tent.......2007-08-06
Hybrids
Hybrids is the book Sawyer has been leading up to all along. You should definitely read all three books in this trilogy. Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax)], ][[ASIN:0765346753 Humans (Volume Two of The Neanderthal Parallax), and now Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax).
I mentioned in an earlier review that with respect to Sawyer's Liberalism" he let the nose of the camel come peeking under the tent. Well, in Hybrids the camel is all the way inside the tent and it has taken a dump in the middle. I'm going to have to hold my nose if I read any more of his stories. In fact I'm going to go read[ [ASIN:0743499204 A State of Disobedience]] just to balance out Sawyer.
Points include the old Military Industrial Complex as the boogieman.
Universal homosexuality being apparently espoused.
Anyhow it is a good story ,but...
I noticed that it didn't win any awards like the other two. Now I know why.
Gunner August,2007
More a romance novel than science fiction.......2007-04-27
I thought long and hard over how many stars to give this book and eventually opted for two because it's just not quite good enough for three but it is a fairly strong two. The first books in the trilogy are better however and I would rate them each three stars.
Without going into too much detail about the story, the three books cover what happens when a link to an alternate universe where Neanderthals supplanted humanity as the dominant hominid race opens up. Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist, is transported to our universe and Mary Vaughan, a genetic expert, is appointed to study him and over time they fall in love. As humanity learns more about the Neanderthals, dark forces plot to take their universe over for the human race. Of course everything turns out okay in the end.
Sawyer paints an interesting picture of how different the science and culture in the Neanderthal universe is compared to ours but spends too much time on religion. Apparently the Neanderthal brain is structured in such a way that religious experience is beyond their understanding. What irritated me the most though was the concentration on the love story. At times I thought I was reading a Mills and Boon romantic novel and some of the romantic interaction later in the book came over as just plain silly.
I think that the Neanderthal Parallax could just as well have been fitted into two books. This book has its occasional moments but isn't a real winner as far as I'm concerned.
All right, having read the previous ones..........2006-07-31
Reviews of this book seem to belong to two categories:
A. very negative ones, usually written by ultra-religious folks and
B. very positive ones,written by non-religious folks who had read the other two instalments.
It is my belief one should be somehow more considerate in reviewing this book.
Obviously, it has not got the inventiveness and the fast pace of the first, or of the second.
It does, nonetheless, ask uncomfortable questions and provides also some food for thoughts.
It therefore should not be dragged down.
You need to read the two other volumes first, but once you do, if you are not from a ultra-strict religious upbringing, you are most likely to enjoy this book, which is, inter alia, about tolerance, something in very short supply these days...
After reading all the negative reviews, I first hesitated about buying it and then I expected it to bomb.
I was actually wrong. I quite liked it for the reasons I mentioned above.
Thank you, Mr Sawyer.
Excellent continuation, have to read if you've read the others in this series........2006-07-27
If you read one of this series, you have to read them all. They're very well writte, flow smoothly and provide such a relaxing, quick, and upbeat read (for the most part)at the end of the day.
Customer Reviews:
Kudos!.......2007-05-25
A great deal of credit must be given to Dr. Cuozzo who is one of a very select few individuals who have ever been allowed to study actual Neanderthal skulls--as opposed to the plaster copies that litter universities and museums around the world.
His studies--from an orthodontic perspective--shine great illumination on the biases and presuppositions that plague much of modern evolutionary science. Biases that still live--yet are rooted in the Victorian "sciences" of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The original skulls and jaws, when studied objectively (and not "assembled" so as to appear deliberately ape-like) show evidence of extreme longevity based Dr. Cuozzo's dental studies and other research which is included in great detail in this book.
Also, the sheer excitement of watching the French government try to shut him down as he threatens to expose some of the misrepresentations and even frauds that he discovers is a great read. Heaven forbid that the Neanderthal tourist industry be threatened as Dr. Cuozzo attempts to excavate the truths which, for so long have been deliberately "Buried Alive"!
His agenda drives him to a highly selective use of evidence. . . ........2006-10-30
First, let's clear something up: An evolutionary process is perfectly compatible with the revelations of Genesis.
To understand how this is possible, you must put Genesis in the context of the society in which it was written. It is a cosmogony. The cosmogony was a literary genre utilized in ancient societies for the purpose of telling the WHO and the WHY of creation. Cosmogonies were not written to tell scientific and historical facts. And no ancient person reading a cosmogony would ever have thought to force one of these accounts into use as a scientific or historical account. It has only been in the centuries since the cosmogony genre fell into disuse that readers, unaware of its context, symbolism, and purpose, began to read Genesis with the earnest literal-mindedness that results in its abuse as a straightforward play-by-play of Creation.
This sort of explanation makes many Christians nervous and even angry because it is assumed that if the work is not literal, scientific fact, the only other conclusion is that it is mythology. Why? The ancient world, in which context it was written, would never have been forced to such conclusions. Genesis reveals truth _within its genre_, and that is that God is the sole Maker and Master of an ordered creation--however He chose to establish that creation (evolution being one hypothesis). That is what Genesis was intended to tell us, not scientific fact, not a historical timeline--but Jack Cuozzo does not seem to know this, and the entire book proceeds from this fatal misapprehension of revelation. Had he been willing to examine Genesis in its context, he might well have discovered that there is no dogmatic reason Homo sapiens could not have been brought to be from lower animals, and that fossils which seem to reveal this are nothing that need to be explained away (see Father John Hardon's The Catholic Catechism, pp 91-102; Cuozzo presents his reasons against evolution on pp 98-99, most of which are evidence of a lack of instruction in theology).
As for the book itself, Cuozzo is an egregiously sloppy writer. The text rambles away within poorly structured, carelessly punctuated sentences. All right, we can forgive him for not being a natural writer--but that the publishing house (Master Books) allowed the book to be presented to the public in such a state of undress leads me to question its credibility as a serious work. As other reviewers have pointed out, Cuozzo is also unnecessarily pedantic, which means that even had he solid scientific conclusions to draw, the layman would not be likely to comprehend them. And, yes, he is extremely paranoid. Each time a fossil is mislaid, poorly studied, or improperly diagrammed or reconstructed he throws out asides equivalent to a wink, since "we" know what "they" were up to with all that. (An example, from p. 42: "This could truly be called evolution after death. . . . Pretty imaginative, wouldn't you say?") What's hilarious is that amidst all his talk about the political reconstructions of "the evolutionists," anytime he finds a fossil not meeting his own expectations we find him conjecturing that it simply must have been "doctored-up" or "deliberately damaged" so that no one would know the truth (see, for example, his study of the tympanomastoid fissure on pp 187-189).
Credit should go to him, however, for his honesty. Cuozzo has an agenda, and that agenda is to prove that Neanderthal man was post-Flood man with the morphology of long-lived men. He states, "I really hesitate to call the 'absolutes' [sic] of the Bible 'assumptions,' but this is only done in a quest for continuity of scientific thought . . . . Underlying both positions is a basic faith upon which a scientific model is built" (p. 81).
However, he makes such a point of the agenda, and therefore untrustworthiness, of the opposite side that it really must be asked why we're supposed to think Cuozzo's agenda and resultant conclusions are any more trustworthy. And if anything, the book reveals a great deal of evidence-lassoing, viz.:
1. Cuozzo's hypothesis is that Neanderthal fossils are actually the fossils of the long-lived descendants of Noah. Projecting the rates of growth of the modern human crania and the rate of wear on teeth, he claims that the evidence proves that the shape of the Neanderthal crania--sloping forehead, brow ridges, lack of chin--and the worn-down teeth are actually the normal shape and condition of the Homo sapiens crania and teeth at the biblical ages of, say, 500 and up. Since this sounds good, and since these are the only features discussed by Cuozzo, the unsuspecting reader may then be under the impression that except for these two features, Neanderthal morphology is not otherwise different than Homo sapiens morphology.
This is not the case, and even Cuozzo has to refer to this from time to time, as on page 96: "They did try to make a different species case as well, on the basis of the labyrinth of the inner ear. . . . I can't say they were too convincing, either." But why should we believe you, when we know you have an agenda, too? In fact, Neanderthal morphology differs in a number of ways, to wit, pelvic dimensions and the phonetic apparatus.
In the case of the first, Cuozzo does make reference to the larger Neanderthal pelvis, but, weirdly, states that this is because Eve's broad hips would have been designed to facilitate a painless childbirth. But if this is so, they why on earth would Neanderthals, who are supposed to be post-Flood humans and therefore well removed from Eve, still exhibit a characteristic only typical of the single pre-Fall female?
In the case of the second, Cuozzo also makes reference to the discovery of a Neanderthal skeleton with a modern hyoid bone: "Kebara II had the only hyoid bone ever found for a Neanderthal. . . . It is essential for speech and the Kebara hyoid was that of a normal human" (p. 252-253). What he doesn't tell you is that based on the placement of this very bone and the associated apparatus as revealed by the Kebara fossil, Neanderthal speech has been reproduced via a computer program--and it is not the speech of modern humans at all. In fact, the Neanderthal was incapable of producing the long e, the long u, and the short o--the cardinal vowels. If Cuozzo's hypothesis is correct, then the vocal apparatus of these long-lived sons of Noah would with age migrate into such a position as to make basic Homo sapiens-level communication pretty darn near impossible (which, incidentally, interferes with a later supposition he makes about the true meaning of some Sumerian texts).
2. He presents a single Neanderthal tooth (an upper bicuspid) with indications of having been precisely carved, apparently to resharpen a worn edge, as evidence that Neanderthals possessed the dexterity not normally attributed to them. But . . . if this were evidence of regular Neanderthal dexterity we would expect to see the same work done on other teeth--and the carving is not repeated on any of the multitudes of teeth Cuozzo examined. (Why did he attribute the work to a Neanderthal in the first place? I'll come back to that.) What's interesting is that in his research notes, Cuozzo admits that the physical evidence is not in favor of Neanderthal dexterity; he writes, "[I]n comparison with a modern man's thumb, the end bone of the Neanderthal thumb is longer and the next bone of the Neanderthal thumb is shorter; therefore, the muscles were at a disadvantage in the thumb grip" (p. 286). No matter, he says, that just means they had to work harder at it. (And wait a minute, do our thumb bones change with age, too?)
Well, ok: Neanderthals were as perfectly capable of executing finely wrought works of art and ornamentation as Homo sapiens turned out to be. If that's the case, then Cuozzo would not need to rely on a single tooth to make his case--their teeth would regularly exhibit dental work, Neanderthal burials would regularly turn up hand-crafted goods, and, of course, there would be cave art associated with Neanderthal occupation.
We've already exhausted the dental record; as to burials, the French site Grotto du Renne is so far the only site that I'm aware of to reveal Neanderthal craftsmanship beyond tool-making, turning up beads, rings, and necklaces. While this is interesting, the fact remains that because almost all Neanderthal sites lack intricately carved goods, we still must conclude that they did not routinely practice craftsmanship--and unfortunately for his hypothesis, Cuozzo does not provide any evidence to the contrary.
Now, remember, Cuozzo wants us to believe that Neanderthals were the long-lived grandsons of Noah, and therefore capable of fine art, so he must find examples of this art to support--not create--this predetermined hypothesis. Burials don't provide it; dentistry doesn't provide it; therefore, cave art must provide it. So, brazenly, he asserts that the real reason scientists say Neanderthals had less manual dexterity than a Cro-Magnon would have had is simply because they want to eliminate them as possible creators of the lovely Upper Paleolithic cave murals, and, of course, that way we can make them into a separate species (wink, wink). (Astonishing, given his own admission that the physical evidence supports the conclusion that the Neanderthals could not execute such art!)
He offers as proof of Neanderthal dexterity a handful of examples of cave art which in his opinion (which is all it is) that Neanderthals practiced imaginative art. First, he relates his illegal trespass in the off-limits cave of Bernifal, France, and reproduces for us what I'm sure he considers his ace, what he describes as a depiction of a dinosaur battling a woolly mammoth. Now, he does raise a very good point: if man as we know him ever co-existed with dinosaurs, where are the depictions in cave art? None have ever been produced (and I will agree that it's definitely possible none have ever been produced for purely political reasons). However, this ill-gotten photo he provides us with is, well, pathetic--it looks nothing like a dinosaur. Besides that, woolly mammoths and dinosaurs existed millions of years apart in time anyway--how could anyone therefore have drawn such a battle?
Second, he collects three strange Upper Paleolithic sculptures of men with very long noses as proof that the nose "does grow in old age. . . . ancient men knew this was happening to them and wanted to document it" (p. 241), thereby attributing the works to Neanderthal ("post-Flood") men. It is worth noting that two of the three faces are executed without brow ridges; the third is reproduced for us in an illustration drawn by him, and contains lines near the forehead which he says are a "series of elevations. . . . portraying future growth of the brow ridges and frontal area" (p.242). Not only is that a huge assumption, but since the ridges aren't evident on the other two sculptures, why associate them at all as a body of Neanderthal cave art? Even if all these WERE depictions of Neanderthals, first, that would hardly be a vast body of evidence constituting proof of Neanderthal dexterity, and secondly, it is not exactly wild theorizing to attribute them to Cro-Magnon man instead, since cave art all over Europe is known to have been worked by them. (He dismisses the idea of a Cro-Magnon authorship without much explanation as to why; more on that in a second).
3. But the most egregiously manipulated piece of "evidence" appears in Chapter 29, "Creation Model Predicts Downward Path." Cuozzo believes that age at the onset of puberty is falling, and will keep falling, due to devolution. First, he quotes a handful of classical and medieval sources which mention the age of puberty as around fourteen (none of these sources appear to be medical works), and then cites several studies from different nations showing that the average menarche (age at first menstrual period) has fallen. Finally, he brings in the condition known as Precocious Puberty; those with PP mature sexually at abnormal ages, even as young as ten months.
What's wrong with this chapter? First, he does not have any reliable data for actually establishing the age at onset of puberty for the last, say, six thousand years. So, how does he know it has _consistently_ fallen from an average age of about 30 circa the Flood (4459 B.C., the date he gives)? More to the point, though, is that most doctors DO agree that the age at menarche is falling--for one group of modern humans, and that is Westernized girls. Why? Better nutrition. This is what his cited studies actually show: all of them are from Westernized nations! One in particular proves my point: Japanese women born before 1900 were compared to Japanese women born during the 1960s; the age at menarche fell from 15 yrs for the first group to 12.5 for the second. What had happened in Japan by 1960? Western influence, that's what! And, in fact, among non-Western modern societies the age of menarche still holds steady in the upper teens--but, wink, wink, did you expect him to tell you that?
He wraps up the chapter with a solemn warning about Precocious Puberty, apparently because he thinks that what is classified as an abnormal condition is actually evidence of devolution. If PP is the shape of things to come, then the age at onset of puberty will continue to fall until an age of ten months is normal for sexual development--come on.
Cuozzo has a few other bizarre theories to share with you; he uses the book of Job as proof of post-Flood man's healing saliva, which we have lost (apparently unaware that Job was written after the return from the Babylonian captivity, and once again being excessively literal with a poetic text). He also performs an exegesis (more like esegesis) on a handful of Sumerian texts which refer to "the big brothers" and "big foreheads," linking them to a text which refers to "the first generations.," of whom we are to inquire (p 247). These are, of course, the long-lived sons of Noah, with the heavy brow ridges of age. Leaving aside how presumptive it is to interpret with assurance a figure of speech used 5,000 years ago, if we are to inquire of them we won't get much out of them, since according to the Kebara II fossil record, Neanderthal man couldn't communicate much of anything!
But, besides the above examples of evidence-lassoing, it is also clear that Cuozzo's interpretation of that evidence is being warped, first, by a refusal to acknowledge the paleoanthropological consensus that Neanderthal man and Cro-Magnon man co-existed for many thousands of years, and second, by a puzzling ignorance of the relationship of Neanderthal man to Homo sapiens. Beginning with the first, he touches on this archeologically attested fact by mentioning the Mt Carmel sites, which provide evidence that "both modern man and Neanderthal were thought to co-exist for 50,000 years" (p. 97). Instead of dealing with this evidence, he first makes a joke about Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons dealing with each other as the Palestinians and Jews do today, and then, returning to the subject later in the book (p. 253), explains that the reason Neanderthal fossils have been found at levels higher than Cro-Magnon burials is not because of co-existence, but because Neanderthals (the grandfathers, so to speak) would have been longer-lived than the Cro-Magnons (actually their devolving grandsons), and so would have outlived them, thus been buried after them.
His inability to work a Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal co-existence into his hypothesis leads him, therefore, to make several weird comments. First, discussing the aforementioned carved upper bicuspid, he states, "Unless La Chapelle had visited the local Cro-Magnon dentist, it appears as if he attempted to sharpen his own upper tooth" (41). One can't help but wait for the punchline, because, well, La Chapelle could very well HAVE visited a Cro-Magnon dentist. In another passage dealing with cave art, he remarks, " I doubt if a Neanderthal sat and had his portrait carved by a Cro-Magnon in France" (p. 243). Why? Cro-Magnon man frequently made artistic representation of the life abounding around him--why not his Neanderthal neighbor? Again, if Neanderthals were capable of artistic representation comparable to Homo sapiens, then their teeth, burials, and cave sites would all exhibit it--but they don't.
That's minor, however, when compared to his astonishing ignorance of the relationship of the Neanderthal to Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens is not, repeat, NOT, supposed to have descended from Neanderthals. Rather, H. sapiens and Neanderthal man both descend, but separately, from Homo antecessor. I do not know how he could have written this entire book under the impression that anybody still thinks Homo sapiens is evolved from Neanderthal man, yet he makes the following statements:
"[Regarding the Mt Carmel sites] According to evolution, the order should be the more modern skulls on top and the primitive or archaic ones on the bottom. Because they are found in reverse or too close to the same levels on Mt. Carmel, one could not have simply evolved into the other, so they were thought to co-exist" (p. 97)
"I believe that this child was not a Neanderthal but most likely in the group devolved from Neanderthals called modern man (Homo sapiens)" (p. 248).
"The older evolutionists like McCown and Keith would have liked to see a nice passage of archaic Neanderthal features into a modern Homo sapiens to make evolution smooth" ( p. 251)
"They would expect that this phenomenon happened all over the world with all moderns going through a Neanderthal 'phase' although not necessarily at the same time" (p. 251).
Overall, his work is a sloppy, disjointed embarrassment proceeding from a pre-determined agenda. Like the evolutionists he frequently lambastes, he has his story and he's sticking to it, no matter what the facts say. Sure, the "other side" has an agenda too. For that reason, and that reason alone, this book should be read, along with respectable paleoanthropological works: because somewhere, between Darwinism and six-days literalism, you can come to the truth.
Good Work.......2006-09-23
To put it simply this book is very eye opening in showing some of the great lengths the Evolutionists will go to cover up and hide their deception. it shows just how much will twist the evidence to suit their goals to deceive everyone about evoluton and great ages. Cuozzo has done excellent dective work in helping expose the lies. I also commend him upon showing the reader that Neanderthals were not some kind of primitive pre-human but rather extremely old humans. He uses scientific studies and evidences upon the skulls of Neanderthals he was allowd acess to as well as statments and claims from the Bible to back up his finds.
A book I found hard to put down.
Well researched, thought out, and supported with evidence........2006-06-21
Having almost killed myself through boredom reading paleo everything type books, I have found Jack Cuozzo's book a real breath of fresh air. It is well written, well researched, and has carefully supported conclusions. Something that is becoming increasingly lacking in today's world of science. Although there are minor points in the book I wish were covered in more detail, it is so well written even layman can walk away from this reading knowing it has been well worth their time invested. Excellent book, good writing, and now that I've heard him speak, I would say he is an even better speaker.
The book buried me alive!!!.......2005-12-29
Buried Alive was written by a dentist who obviously suffers from a really severe persecution complex. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a clue about how to write a book.
However, being a layperson when it comes to paleoanthropology, I must admit that the title of the book is appropriate: the author absolutely buries the reader with irrelevant minutiae throughout the disordered book. More importantly, he never presents a single intelligent conclusion (from the tons of data in the book) that might be considered to be even marginally significant.
Being a true-blue creationist, the author makes statements like: "Neanderthals were descendants of Noah" (p. 230). But the question the writer never bothered to answer is if Neanderthals were descendants of Noah, whatever happened to the advanced tools that Noah used to build his ark and to the reading and writing capabilities that Noah and the people of his time apparently possessed? It is generally accepted that Neanderthals had very limited communication capabilities and had only "stone-age" tools to work with.
The author dismisses Australopithecines (africanus & afarensis) and Homo erectus as apes (p.101) but fails to mention Homo heidelbergensis that many paleontologists believe were the immediate ancestors of both Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis.
Even if you are a creationist and reading the book to support your beliefs, the book is absolutely worthless. If you can find a book seller on the web who is offering the book at no charge with free shipping, buy it. Otherwise, it's not worth it
Book Description
The history of Neanderthal influence from Atlantis to the contemporary era
• Provides evidence of Neanderthal man’s superior intelligence
• Explores the unexplained scientific and architectural feats of ancient civilizations
• Presents an alternative history of humankind since 7500 B.C. with an emphasis on esoteric traditions and the history of Christianity from the Essenes onward
In Atlantis and the Kingdom of the Neanderthals Colin Wilson presents evidence of a widespread Neanderthal civilization as the origin of sophisticated ancient knowledge. Examining remarkable archaeological discoveries that date back millennia, he suggests that civilization on Earth is far older than we have previously realized. Using this information as a springboard, Wilson then fills in the gaps in the past 100,000 years of human history, providing answers to previously unexplained scientific and architectural feats of ancient civilizations.
Wilson shows that not only did Atlantis exist but that the civilizing force behind it was the Neanderthals. Far from being the violent brutes they are traditionally depicted as, Wilson shows that the Neanderthals had sophisticated mathematical and astrological knowledge, including an understanding of the precession of the equinoxes, and that they possessed advanced telepathic abilities akin to the “group consciousness” evident in flocks of birds and schools of fish. These abilities, he demonstrates, have been transmitted through the ages by the various keepers of the hermetic tradition--including the Templars, Freemasons, and other secret societies. In the course of his investigation, Wilson also finds new information about historical links between the Masonic tradition and the Essenes that indicate that America was “discovered” long before Columbus set sail and that Jesus actually survived crucifixion and fled to France with his wife Mary Magdalene.
Customer Reviews:
Atlantis and the Kingdom of the Neanderthals.......2007-09-07
This is a hard review to write. Did I enjoy reading Atlantis and the Kingdom of the Neanderthals? Absolutely, without a doubt. Did I feel that the author made a good case for a connection between Atlantis and Neanderthals? No, not really. He never really got to that part in any real depth.
I started reading Atlantis and the Kingdom of the Neanderthals with great interest and enthusiasm. The author discussed the concepts that in the past our continental plates have shifted and that the earth's tilt has also changed. These are scientific facts that most people learn in high school. I was eager to see an examination of this movement as relates to Antarctica, how the author would place Neanderthals on Antarctica, how he would connect the two.
Unfortunately, the book quickly evolved in an attempt to present as much information as possible about every ancient mystery know to man: the pyramids of the Piri Reis map, Egypt, Mu, the Biblical floods, the man in the iron mask, the death of Jesus, and the Priory of Sion. Information about these topics ranged from scientific reports and solid data collection methodology to popular ancient mystery books and PBS specials to hearsay and theories by author friends.
My best advice is that you don't pick up this book because you wish to find out the connection between Atlantis and Neanderthals. Instead, pick up this book because it is full of interesting theories, summaries of information collected about a number of ancient mysteries, and contains a really great bibliography of like minded material.
Stick to the thesis and have some courage..........2007-08-29
Some great ideas here, but very little real meat to sink your teeth into. I live and view the World by 2 basic principles: 1) It has been shown historically that at least 90% of the belief systems or opinion based knowledge of the majority of the people who live in "modern" societies is false. And not just a little off base, but completely 180 degrees away from what later became discovered as "the truth". It doesn't matter if we're talking about Neanderthals, Atlantis, JFK's assassination, why the stock market crashed in 1929, if Vitamin C can cure cancer, or what happened on Sept 11th, 2001. If you look at what the "average" person believes (which is derived from various mass media sources) at the time of the event, and indeed often many years afterward, it will (at least 90% of the time) be completely at odds with the later exposed facts, evidence, and ultimately the truth. But for those who recognise this statistical FACT, looking in the exact opposite direction of what the "man in the street" thinks is very often an excellent predictor of the truth; and 2) Where there is smoke, there is always fire.
Therefore, because of the above 2 principles, Neanderthals, Atlantis, and what occured over the past 100,000 years is no doubt crucial to our development and where we find ourselves in modern times. And because there has been such a well organised "conspiracy" (and I don't use that word lightly here) by the mainstream media over the last 150 years or more to discredit the importance or even existence of Neanderthals, Atlantis, and human history beyond 7 thousand years ago, then I now assume that there is much more than smoke; there must be a raging fire of truth within these related topics. Unfortunately, Colin Wilson doesn't take us there to roast our marshmellows.
WARNING! DISINFORMATION!.......2007-08-12
I like Colin Wilson's work but I must warn you! He has made a BIG mistake here in saying that the people of Atlantis were Neanderthal. WRONG! Atlanteans were peace-loving pagan CRO-MAGNON. The Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal were both intelligent but the Neanderthal were the ones responisble for the 'evil' gene...responsible for war and hate and control of people. Cro-Magnon later blended in with the Neanderthals and Bushman and Mongoloids, etc creating us....
The Neanderthal ones were and are the white monotheistic Jews that still control the world today. They stole the Atlantian knowledge and pagan beliefs of the Goddess and her Shepard Consort and twisted them into the christian ones of Jesus and Mary today.
For more info on this check out books by Michael Bradly like:
The Iceman Inheritance
Swords at Sunset: Last Stand of North America's Grail Knights
...and his website with a specific article on this very subject and more:
http://www.michaelbradley.info/
Disappointing.......2007-01-25
Let me begin this review by saying that I have enjoyed many of Colin Wilson's other books. I was first introducted to his writings through the land-mark work, "Mysteries." That, as well as similar books, impressed me with Wilson's sober scholarship and his willingness to have an open-mind that was nevertheless tempered with a good deal of academic research.
That being said, I'm not quite sure what happened between Wilson's other work and this. I myself have some pretty radical theories about lost history, but there is a point where certain notions must be presented with at least a grain of salt. Wilson displays an incredible level of credulity for tenuous fringe theories, wholeheartedly swallowing and then regurgitating highly debated beliefs such as the antiquity of Freemasonry (as put forth by Lomas and Knight) and the now widely popularized Baigent and Leigh theory of the holy bloodline of Christ. These aren't presented as ideas or possibilities, as I would have expected in any of Wilson's earlier, more respectable works, but simply put forth as fact. In addition to the overly-credulous tone, throughout the book, there is this general feeling that most of Wilson's material is simply a restatement of other works. In fact, there is little Wilson to be seen in this book. He spends much more time extensively quoting or rewording material from other sources. The theories about Neanderthal man which posit a different sort of intelligence are certainly intriguing, but for as much new material as Wilson presents, I think these ideas would have bee more at home in a magazine article, not a full-length book. If you have read Wilson's other books, I can't say you'll be missing much if you skip this one.
Apples and Oranges.......2007-01-10
This book is an entertaining read, but potential purchasers should not be misled by the title. Wilson does discuss Atlantis, and he does discuss Neanderthals, but he does not offer proof that connects the two, and such does not appear to be the book's premise. "100,000 Years of Lost History" would have been a more appropriate title. Nor should readers anticipate that this book builds on "The Atlantis Blueprint," which Wilson co-authored with Rand Flem-Ath. Instead, Wilson discloses that he disagreed with Flem-Ath on a major premise of that book. This book is a mishmash of chapters on various subjects, loosely connected if connected at all. The information may not be the most up-to-date in all instances. As entertainment, however, it's a worthy purchase.
Average customer rating:
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Neanderthals Revisited: New Approaches and Perspectives (Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology)
Manufacturer: Springer
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Recent years have witnessed exciting and important scientific breakthroughs in the study of Neanderthals and their place in human evolution which have transformed our appreciation of this group’s paleobiology and evolution. This volume presents cutting-edge research by leading scientists re-examining the major debates in Neanderthal research with the use of innovative state-of-the art methods and exciting new theoretical approaches.
Topics addressed include the re-evaluation of Neanderthal anatomy, inferred adaptations and habitual activities, developmental patterns, phylogenetic relationships, and the Neanderthal extinction; new methods include computer tomography, 3D geometric morphometrics, ancient DNA and bioenergetics. The diverse contributions offer fresh insights and advances in Neanderthal and modern human origins research.
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The Max-Planck-Institute Subseries in Human Evolution coordinated by Jean-Jacques Hublin, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Human Evolution, Leipzig, Germany
Average customer rating:
- Knights are Meant to be Respected
- Poor langauge and inappropriate humor
- A little too much like magic tree house
- Let's Do the Time Warp Again
- Great for boys!
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Time Warp Trio Gift Set, Books 1-4 (Knights of the Kitchen Table; The Not-So-Jolly Rodger; The Good, the Bad, and the Goofy; Your Mother Was a Neanderthal)
Jon Sczieska
Manufacturer: Puffin
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ASIN: 0142300586 |
Book Description
The first four books of the wildly popular Time Warp Trio series are now in one value-priced boxed set! Whether the gang's fighting off the Black Knight in the middle of Camelot, practicing magic tricks on Blackbeard and his pirates, stampeding cattle in the Old West, or running from a woolly mammoth, one thing is for sure: no one's ever bored when the Time Warp Trio's around!
Customer Reviews:
Knights are Meant to be Respected.......2006-12-19
I didn't like Time Warp Trio because when it began it was mostly about the knight. As you read on, it tells about the giant and the dragon. It made the knight look not very smart and like he had no power. The kids basically looked like they had all the power, even without armor. If I were the author, I would have had more action with the knight and the kids and the knight would have been the greatest fighter or he would have been up there with the greatest heroes. -LL
Poor langauge and inappropriate humor.......2005-12-31
I was very shocked when I read this book to find that so many people deem these appropriate for children. They do have some information for the kids to learn from (the reason I chose them originally) but the way the children talk and act is terrible! I had only thumbed through one and chose it from the library from my son, then I let him read the rest of the series and suddenly had him calling names and being disrespectful and LAUGHING about it!
I was really disappointed. I think things can be funny without name calling and using poor language. I am just glad I haven't ever purchased any.
A little too much like magic tree house.......2005-09-01
These books are really nice, but my daughter has already read a bunch of the magic tree house books and these are just too much like them.. she thinks these are funnier but the idea has no sparkle for her any more.. but I would recommend these books if you haven't started reading the tree house series..
Let's Do the Time Warp Again.......2004-09-23
I was going through some old books the other day when I happened upon my "Time Warp Trio" collection. What began as thumbing through "Knights of the Kitchen Table" ended with my reading all four of the stories right then and there. They were terriffic when I was little and they are terriffic now.
Great for boys!.......2004-03-26
It's hard to find books for boys that really turn them on to reading but these did the trick. My son insisted that I read them too so we could talk about the plots. Entertaining and well written, perfect for a second or third grader.
Average customer rating:
- Justice triumphant
- Not as good as the first one
- Candide gets on his soapbox
- Good continuation of Volume One
- Not as good as the first book in the series!
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Humans (Volume Two of The Neanderthal Parallax)
Robert J. Sawyer
Manufacturer: Tor Books
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Sawyer, Robert J.
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ASIN: 0765346753 |
Book Description
Robert J. Sawyer, the award-winning and bestselling writer, hits the peak of his powers in Humans, the second book of The Neanderthal Parallax, his trilogy about our world and parallel one in which it was the Homo sapiens who died out and the Neanderthals who became the dominant intelligent species. This powerful idea allows Sawyer to examine some of the deeply rooted assumptions of contemporary human civilization dramatically, by confronting us with another civilization, just as morally valid, that has made other choices. In Humans, Neanderthal physicist Ponter Boddit, a character you will never forget, returns to our world and to his relationship with geneticist Mary Vaughan, as cultural exchanges between the two Earths begin.As we see daily life in another present-day world, radically different from ours, in the course of Sawyer's fast-moving story, we experience the bursts of wonder and enlightenment that are the finest pleasures of science fiction. Humans is one of the best SF novels of the year, and The Neanderthal Parallax is an SF classic in the making.
Customer Reviews:
Justice triumphant.......2007-07-15
Humans
In Humans, the second book of the Neanderthal Parallax Sawyer has Ponter Bodditt spend most of his time in the world that we know along with a dozen or so of the Neanderthal best scientist. In the first book,Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax)Sawyer spends most of the time in the Neanderthal world.
Sawyer does introduce a novel method for dealing with crime. Treating it as a genetic disorder. Sounds interesting to me. Be sure to tune in for the third book in this seriesHybrids (Neanderthal Parallax)
Gunner July 2007
Not as good as the first one.......2007-02-23
Humans is not as good as the first book in this trilogy, Hominids. However, much of the book still takes place in the intelligent and imaginative alternate universe populated with neanderthals created by Sawyer. This book focuses on the developing relationship between Ponter and Mary and the obstacles of their separate worlds and cultures, as well as Mary's past sexual assault. The ending alone makes this book worth reading.
Candide gets on his soapbox.......2006-10-15
After the excellent Hominids, Humans is somewhat of a let down. The series remains above the average SF fare, both in terms of contents and execution. But Humans wouldn't win any awards on its own though (PC award excepted).
Rather than exploring new ground, Mr. Sawyer has Ponter (the main Neanderthal character) repeatedly asking questions that highlight how we humans are so unpleasant to each other. This is not a bad thing in itself, but it is not a substitute for a plot either. By the time Ponter asks his 4th or 5th such question, with Mary providing an uninspired pro forma defense, the trick is as stale as my hiking socks. I especially "liked" the cocktail discussion with Mary's colleagues, with verbatim quotes from Jared Diamond's excellent Guns, Germs and Steel.
The Neanderthals' policy of castrating criminals and their immediate relatives smacks of eugenics, despite recent statistical research on the hereditary component of criminality. How did they avoid judicial errors, before the oh-so-convenient alibi machines? Is that policy ever defended? Nope, no need to, they are perfect after all.
Like others, I wonder how the Neanderthals can have such advanced technology, without our population base, our manufacturing base, or indeed our wars. I see several possibilities, and I would have welcomed more insight from the book.
a) Not having civilization collapses is more efficient in the long term (tortoise vs. hare).
b) The Neanderthals are smarter as they have bigger brains. What is Ponter doing with Mary then?
c) Technological research has been long been driven by the military, though nowadays, consumer/business oriented research seems to be more important. But pure science may be less influenced by military spending.
d) Having one language/civilization might speed up the transfer of ideas. More likely, it would introduce serious groupthink.
e) The Neanderthals' socialism implies universal access to education which could maximize the potential of gifted individuals.
All in all, the author rests on his laurels and Humans doesn't add anything fresh to Hominids' storyline. Instead, he falls back into his usual habit of throwing "subtle" barbs at our southern neighbours. Gee, Mr. Sawyer, you live in Canada and prefer it to the US. Living in Canada, I sympathize, to an extent. But, need we be reminded, at length, in _all_ your books??? Hominids was much the better for being unusually subtle on that matter.
Good continuation of Volume One.......2006-07-27
I love this series, it's got just enough science fiction mixed in with reality to make it a very quick and enjoyable read. I recommend this series to anyone from 12 to 112.
Not as good as the first book in the series!.......2006-06-24
I enjoyed reading this, but it was not on par with the first book in the series. Characters were not as believable and the story was not as solid. I'd rate this as average.
Customer Reviews:
engrossing, all round exploration of the Neandertals.......2007-03-26
This book is probably already outdated, but it is still a good read. Everything about the Neandertals, as the book make clear, is the subject of often heated controversy. The author does a good job of giving all sides in the story their say, even if the to-and-fro arguments make it hard to come to come to a conclusion. There's plenty of information here in a not too-hard-to-read book.
a good primer for the beginner.......2005-06-24
This is a great book to get you started on more serious writing about paleoanthropology. Shreeve gives consideration to many theories without taking sides. His writing is clear & easy-going. I would have loved more illustrations & maps.
Not just about Neandertals.......2004-05-19
The best thing about this book is that it is not just about Neandertals or Human origins. It covers enough from peripheries of science and the humanities as well as detailed natural history to make it accessible and interesting to anyone who has the slightest interest in this confusing subject.
Though Shreve identifies the complex issues allowing us to doubt everything, the book is far from confusing and there is an enormous amount of travel and biographical notes of the people he has met that Shreve has marshalled in. By all accounts this was an expensive and time consuming book to put together and almost no stone has been left unturned.
I think the fascination with this topic is because it asks the big question - What makes us human? Fortunately, though many answers are offered, Shreve takes care not to make any dogmatic assertion and provides a balanced overview of all the ideas, key workers and key debates.
As a student, I liked the way he discussed the basics of the biological species concept showing how difficult separating species can be at times, especially if using fossils. He also shows us how lots of ideas can be manufactured only to be holed by later workers or evidence.
Most of the book is very fluid. My only criticism is the lack of more illustrations of neandertals - perhaps in colour and a lack of any detail on the classic illustration showing Ramapithecus leading to Cromagnon which has been shown so many times, though this famous picture is discussed.
I think this book shows what science is not. It is not about a solution to the problem that you can believe and cling to. Rather, it is a provisional statement of current understanding and if it seems to explain things, all the better (speaking in the context of human origins).
So many people and ideas are mentioned that this is true journalism, no holes barred, sharp, comical, witty and above all accessible.
I thouroughly recommend it to anyone.
Every armchair anthropologist should read this book!.......2004-04-30
I read this book many years ago and it is still one of my all-time favorites. It combines an anthropologist's journey to answer questions about neanderthals with the scientific debates over human evolution. It is suspenseful and thought-provoking. Mr. Shreeve is a creative, objective and often witty science writer who will make you want to read more about this fascinating science.
Though the mitochondrial DNA evidence was just starting to be accepted when this book was written, it is still an excellent resource. It will also enlighten new anthropology enthusiasts about the separate battlecamps of multi-regional and replacement theorists in the human origins debate.
If you are on this page, you should just buy the book already. Then go get The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes!
Intimations of our distant past.......2002-08-22
During the great space race of the cold war, Sergei Korolev, the visionary architect of the failed Soviet lunar program, included a writer as an essential part of any expedition to the moon, displaying an informed sensibility of the role of artists in interpreting the philosophical impact of science for the masses. In the spirit of Korolev's unrealized, intrepid writer, James Shreeve explores the enigmatic rise and fall of our vanished first cousins, the Neandertals, and their significance in understanding the origins of modern humans. Shreeve's work on the subject is distinctive for its highly engaging pace and style, reading like a sprawling, pan-millennial detective story, but ultimately, it is his own speculation on the nature of Neandertal consciousness - well deserved after so much exhaustive research - that makes this work such an essential read. After an absorbing globe spanning search for clues, Shreeve's odyssey though the ever shifting revelations and counter-revelations of the scientific community culminates in the brave, intuitive synthesis of facts and mysteries that is the calling of a great writer, revealing the philosophical - and spiritual - dimensions of our interest.
Shreeve's roots are in fiction, and his novelistic sensibilities are what bring this story alive. The Neandertal Enigma is testament to how essential the poetic perspective is in divining the deeper implications of science for our own self-understanding.
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