atjones111 t1_ja9uk4t wrote
Reply to comment by PerformanceNow in Revealed: Europe's Oldest Humans had Surprisingly Frequent Intermingling with Neanderthals by OptimalCrew7992
To people within the anth world this has a commonly known understood and accepted fact/theory for the past 50, it’s just all the non scientific people who doubt it, a certain group of people love to stifle or research and progress, hell we’re just sort of reaching the point where evolution is a commonly held belief
alphaphilomath t1_jaar59w wrote
I was taking Anthropology courses in the mid nineties and not one of my professors agreed with my opinion that there was no way sapiens weren't hooking up with Neanderthals repeatedly. As if they'd never met a human. So, I'm not sure where those who held that belief were especially 50 years ago, but I didn't meet them.
atjones111 t1_jaas2vc wrote
It’s not something promoted in intro courses as it opens up a conundrum, that being well what do you call the archaic/modern human that comes from it and so forth, probs not taught in 90s due to evolution bad hysteria then, colleges don’t like losing funding, maybe your profs sucked or were just of the 5% conservative anthropologists, idk odd they would say that
Point_Forward t1_jab2r9i wrote
Scientists and those trained in the scientific method tend to be conservative in what they admit when there is a lack of evidence one way or the other. In other words, if there isn't good evidence to support it then the default position is disbelief.
It really is a more sensible approach to the accumulation of knowledge, to not get our beliefs ahead of the evidence. It is better to require a high bar to accepting new theories than to too easily accept them.
It's fine for lay people to have pet theories and believe in things and ideas that are fun but not well proven but it isn't a good attitude to have for a professor or expert. If the new models prove themselves correct then the next generation can build on them, but they should be good enough to convincingly beat out the old theories before they are adopted and taught as the mainstream.
That's my thought at least, but it's a point that have a lot of people angry at what is accepted as the mainstream among academics because it seems slow and is skeptical of exciting new claims.
atjones111 t1_jab3cja wrote
You’re not wrong and that’s a good point, lol I’m even nervous to tell people I’m an anthropologist because they then know I believe in evolution. But yea I agree better to have a high bar to accept theories than a low, because if it’s something that’s true it should be easily replicated with success to prove it, if not you may be grasping on a theory
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