Summer 07 Kosmos Chapter 10

The author claims that Humans and Neanderthals didn't have "nookie" together because we have almost no evidence that they ever cross bred to produce children with traits like both parents. But maybe we did have nookie with Neanderthals, but that the DNA is just different enough that no amount of nookie would ever produce a well-formed baby that could survive in the real world... or that the few babies that may have been born were sterile and thus only one generation--easily lost, after all not every long dead Neanderthal was fossilized--of Neanderthal/Human babies were ever born. Maybe Humans and Neanderthals were sort of like donkeys and horses are now; if they have nookie you'll get a mule, but a mule can't ever have offspring, except that noone was breeding human/neanderthal mules to do heavy labor for them and the humaniod mules were considered a waste of time and a drain on thier tribes because they'd never reproduce young to care for them as they aged.

And while we do not share the same sexual habits with creatures like the chimpanzee, as the text points out, many scientists have expressed interest in our similarities, sexually, with the Bonobo and other animals that appear to have sex for reasons other than just reproduction. (It'd be really hard to prove whether or not they did it for fun/pleasure like humans sometimes do rather than doing it as a form of communication or currency, but it's interesting to compare them never the less.)

I had to giggle at the line "Humans might have even had trouble telling Neanderthal males from the females when they were bundled in clothing." It reminds me of the Tolkien's darwves.

His theory that Humans and Neanderthals just weren't sexually attracted to each other is pretty cool especially in light of the differnces between human sexual organs and other primate genitals and breasts.

And a few (far too many, if you ask me) humans actually do have sex with non-human living beings. We just consider them to be sick preverts and fortunately they don't produce centaurs or anything like that after the deed is done. And animals will do the same thing to us if they are horney enough... like dogs, they hump human legs and small children all the time unless you smack them with a newspaper on the nose or something like that. Maybe we did have nookie with the Neanderthals, but those that did were outcasted for their sexual preversions.

As for his request to get someone to look at Neanderthal pelvic bones and compare them to Humans to see if they produced tons of babies and let nature sort it out ("like that of modern humans") or if they only raised 2 in a decade, I'd don't see how that it like or unlike modern humans. After all, some humans only have one or two children in a lifetime if any at all. And many native tribes practice birth control (including chemicals in herbs to control female ovulation so that they can still have sex without becoming pregnant) so it isn't reasonable to assume that modren humans just "churn out a herd and let nature sort it out."

It's an interesting theory, but I think it has an aweful lot of holes and bad assumptions...