Tayler:
Neanderthals are suggested to have had fur.
This is, as usual, utter nonsense, and I'm surprised that you compare Neanderthals to chimps when such link-comparisons have already been fully discredited years ago. In fact, Neanderthals, according to current scientific thought, are not thought to have had fur at all, with hominids having lost their fur c. 1.2 million years ago, well before Neanderthals arose:-
http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/15/science-seat-you-could-have-been-a-furry-beast/I never claimed neanderthals had a shorter lifespan. I never implied it or discussed anything about lifespan of neanderthals.
You had previously, quite wrongly, stated:- "Regardless, neanderthals died out because of a cold period, and they had one of the shortest existences of any large primate in terms of years of survival. Hardly a case story for "successful adaptation"." In that text, you make it rather clear that you thought that Neanderthals had shorter lifespans(re "shorter existences").
Your insinuations re the Yaghans are also nonsense. The only "technology" they used was fire and, for obvious reasons, they could not near fire all the time as they had to hunt etc. So, in other words, they had indeed adapted to their cold environment for survival purposes as a result of their increased metabolism etc., they simply used fire and other methods in order to feel more comfortable, that's all. In the same way, foxes can survive outside, and do so mostly, but they prefer warm burrows when, say, bad weather arrives.
There are plenty of other studies showing that Neanderthals were adapted to the cold. This article details some studies showing that the limbs of Neanderthals showed cold adaptation , there is even a study indicating that Neanderthals had a higher longevity than Cro-Magnon-era humans:-
http://www.icr.org/article/neanderthals-are-still-human/The link you posted about neanderthals dying out in a warm period is outdated information. You need to look at the dates. Carbon dating has become more accurate since then, and it's known neanderthals went extinct ten thousand years before that article estimates. I would hardly trust something talking about a warm period extinction for neanderthals when the extinction of the neanderthals themselves was off by at least 10,000 years in that article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction
The recent claim re those Spanish-based Neanderthal remains being much older is considered highly dubious, however, by scientific researchers, with the new carbon-dating methods considered doubtful methods, at best:-
"But Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, who was not involved with the latest study, said: "Radiocarbon methodology on bone will not resolve the question of the last Neanderthals.
"What they have done is look at two sites in Iberia where - using my own models - I would never have predicted a late Neanderthal extinction. One is up in the high Meseta of central Spain, at 1,000m or more, with a very harsh climate and the other is in the mountains of Granada - again in a very harsh environment.
"These climates are so cold and dry, that is where the collagen in the bone has preserved and they have been able to get dates... What I think the method is giving us is a skew, a bias, towards older dates by the very nature of the preservation." taken from:-
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-21330194So, it is still likely that Neanderthals died out in a warm climate. Whatever the case, obviously, even if Neanderthals had died out during a period of cold, the very fact that they had already survived for hundreds of thousands of years in cold environments during the Ice Age means that it is extraordinarily unlikely that they died out due to the cold temperatures in the very Late Palaeolithic.
In summary, modern humans are not well-adapted to cold. Even when better adapted, as yaghans are and pretty much no other peoples, the bodies of those humans are still more suited/fare better in warmer climates, whereas true cold-climate adapted animals don't fare better in warmer climates.
This is a nonsense conclusion. I have already debunked your absurd notion that the Yaghans were not well-adapted, as I had pointed out that the various methods they used (ie fire, huddling in rock formations etc.) could not possibly have been used all the time since they had to hunt and forage etc., meaning that such methods were not needed for actual survival per se, but just for added comfort. The only thing you got nearly right was the last part "whereas true cold-climate adapted animals don't fare better in warmer climates". So, in the case of the Yaghans, for example, their higher metabolic rate and higher body temperatures would have meant they would have become increasingly uncomfortable as they entered into hotter and hotter climates.
I can actually be an example of the above. I used to have appalling health problems, and one side-effect in those past days was that I could not stand temperatures above 10 degrees Celsius without sweating heavily, and would happily go around in a very flimsy T-shirt in cold, snow-covered terrain(full blown nudity being somewhat frowned on by the law!). Even once my health problems got sorted out, I still, though to a lesser extent, stayed more adapted to colder than hotter environments. I checked my glands and the doctors all state they function fine, so I suspect I am simply more of an evolutionary throwback to my Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal ancestors, in this one regard.
Whatever the case, fur is not needed as an adaptation if one has a higher metabolism, higher body temperature, shorter limbs adapted to the cold etc. etc. Another clincher is the fact that chimps and many other animals dwelling in hot climates have fur; yet, by your strange logic, they should have lost it all by now.
