Not From Adam's Rib- Neanderthal Rib Cage Study Shows Differences With Humans

I have noticed a full-court press in science media to make Neanderthals "human". They keep saying it over and over and over again as if it were an established fact. They repeat it even as they report of facts which show there were substantial differences between us and them.

The attempt to stretch and re-define the term "human" to include other hominids such as Neanderthals is so broad that a contrarian like me automatically wants to resist it. Especially when this rush to redefine words comes in tandem with a stream of evidence indicating this attempt is incorrect.

The ability to make a fancy flint scraper is not what makes us human. When we say "he's inhuman" we don't mean that a person can't make a fancy flint scraper. We don't even mean that they can't draw a picture or think abstractly. We mean that they lack the moral and empathetic condition, the ability to connect on a level deeper than instinct, which is typical of our species, and so far as we know our species alone. We can connect to each other, and our Maker, in a way that animals cannot. Even hominid animals.

In previous articles I showed that Neanderthals were genetically distinct from humans and that despite claims to the contrary they almost certainly did not do cave art in Spain 64,000 years ago (again not that the ability to do so is what makes us human).

This article noted..

"The differences between a Neanderthal and modern human thorax are striking," said Markus Bastir, senior research scientist at the Laboratory of Virtual Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History in Spain.......

 "The wide lower thorax of Neanderthals and the horizontal orientation of the ribs suggest that Neanderthals relied more on their diaphragm for breathing," said senior author Ella Been of Ono Academic College. "Modern humans, on the other hand, rely both on the diaphragm and on the expansion of the rib cage for breathing."

They didn't even breathe like us. The differences were "striking". And yet this article made haste to dismiss the significance of its own findings, declaring "Neanderthals are a type of human that emerged about 400,000 years ago, living mostly from what is today Western Europe to Central Asia." Well, why do they keep saying that when the closer they look, the more differences they find? Why the dogged determination to make "human" broader? The title of the article is a good example of the bias with which science reporting on this issue is done. It said "Neanderthals Might Not Be Hunched Over Cave Men", which while technically true also implies they were more like us than believed. But what the researchers were really saying is that they were less like us, and the differences were striking. 

The rib cage of a gorilla also has ribs which are curved at the back, along with a funnel shape in its overall structure like a Neanderthal. The article implies that Neanderthals walked even more upright than humans because of this feature. The back may have been straighter, as with that of the gorilla, but the head of the Gorilla still has a lean to it lacking in humans. I think its an example of ruggedness with an attendant lack of flexibility. Perhaps Neanderthals charged straight ahead like gorillas do when they fight. That aspect, rather than an even more "erect" posture than humans seems to me to be a more reasonable consequence of this discovery.

Rib cage of a gorilla from the inside. Note the curves of ribs at spine attachment.

I've seen so many articles repeating that this or that hominid is some kind of "human". It seems to me the fundamental question of what we are is too important to be established by mere repetition and propaganda tactics. It should be addressed on the basis of evidence, not emotional impulses in either direction.

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