Who would win a fight between a Neanderthal and Human

[JarodRussell]

Christopher wrote:

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Except that every time someone tries using kryptonite to defeat Superman, they somehow manage to fail, unless it's an imaginary story or an alternate reality.

But it's always hilarious to see how stupid Superman really is.

"What, do you think this leaded box is going to stop me?" Opens the box. "Oh, Kryptonite." Faints.

[junxon]

so why do they have to fight? thats the important question here. can't they be friends?

[Carcazoid]

Merry Farrell wrote:

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can't they be friends?

No.

[Satyrquaze]

Carcazoid wrote:

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By the way, Capt. Kirk beat up a dinosaur guy. A caveman should be no problem.

Of course, Kirk is not a modern day homo sapien.

I would expect humans of the 23rd century to be a smidge smarter, faster, and stronger than their modern day counterparts.

Case in point, how many people had broken the 4 minute mile 200 years ago?

[Mr Silver]

Garrovick wrote:

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Comparing Neanderthals to Homo Sapiens as they are today - as a general rule, most of us aren't really used to fighting since it isn't a part of most of our lives. Most of us lead rather sedentary lives and we don't really have any experience at having to hunt and kill our own food. On the other hand, people sich as boxers and other athletes, and especially people with military training, could almost certainly take a Neanderthal in even unarmed combat, unless there were some other random factor stacking the deck in the Neanderthal's favor.

Well, it's not like we'd send in your average man or woman as our Human combatant in this hypothetical fight. Rather, we'd try and find the best physical specimen from each side, in order to leave out the majority of doubts that either side "could have found a better specimen".

With that reasoning, it would probably mean putting an Olympic level athlete(be it boxer or otherwise, as long as they are trained to fight), against the master hunter of a Neanderthal community.

[Gov Kodos]

Solsticequaze wrote:

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Of course, Kirk is not a modern day homo sapien.

I would expect humans of the 23rd century to be a smidge smarter, faster, and stronger than their modern day counterparts.

Case in point, how many people had broken the 4 minute mile 200 years ago?

Diet, training methods, and modern equipment are why, not evolution.

[Satyrquaze]

^Of course it's not evolution, 200 years is far too short of a time for those sort of changes to come about naturally.

Captain Kirk is still not a modern day homo sapien. And therefore has no more place in the conversation than Superman.

[Gov Kodos]

Solsticequaze wrote:

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Of course, Kirk is not a modern day homo sapien.

I would expect humans of the 23rd century to be a smidge smarter, faster, and stronger than their modern day counterparts.

Case in point, how many people had broken the 4 minute mile 200 years ago?

Here you imply evolution would give Kirk an advantage over modern humans, yet...

Solsticequaze wrote:

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^Of course it's not evolution, 200 years is far too short of a time for those sort of changes to come about naturally.

Captain Kirk is still not a modern day homo sapien. And therefore has no more place in the conversation than Superman.

Here you say the time is too short for evolution to be a factor. We can discount Kirk as easily as Superman as they are both fictional, though.

[Carcazoid]

Gov Kodos wrote:

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Here you imply evolution would give Kirk an advantage over modern humans, yet...

Here you say the time is too short for evolution to be a factor. We can discount Kirk as easily as Superman as they are both fictional, though.

Not to mention Batman and the dinosaur guy.

[Satyrquaze]

You can think I was implying whatever you like.

As I wrote, I was mentally comparing athletes of the past century and how it was kind of a big deal when Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954. and now its a standard.

A guy on my school track team ran under a four-minute mile semi-regularly.

My intended implication was that by Kirk's time the human race would have improved physically and mentally many times over comparatively, and therefore should not be part of a Caveman/Astronaut competition.

My implication was not that the humans of Star Trek might be different species than we are today through evolution.

[Christopher]

Carcazoid wrote:

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No.

The evidence of human-Neanderthal interbreeding would argue that, yes, they could be very close friends indeed.

[Carcazoid]

Christopher wrote:

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The evidence of human-Neanderthal interbreeding would argue that, yes, they could be very close friends indeed.

That doesn't mean they're friends.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Venardhi wrote:

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Thinking of Neanderthals as an entirely different species is mostly just a holdover from early theories that they were bestial hunch-backed brutes. They had speech, they took care of their old and injured, they probably had burial rites and thus some concept of religion, etc. etc. etc.

As far as a fight, it would probably just depend on the individuals but I would give the edge to the Neanderthal. They weren't notably shorter than their Sapiens cousins (a couple inches on average) and were considerably more robust.

There is a series of sci-fi novels (can't remember the author) which partly take place on a parallel Earth which is inhabited by Neanderthals. They are as intelligent as humans are on our Earth.

[Christopher]

Carcazoid wrote:

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That doesn't mean they're friends.

But it does mean they had other forms of interaction than fighting. Probably ran the whole gamut of interactions, including trade and cultural exchange along with the rest.

[EmoBorg]

Neanderthal and homo sapiens mated with each other and those unions produced offspring. That makes us humans closer to Neanderthal than we think. I wonder how was the mating was like? I would bet it was hot.