#776 Were Neanderthals Mentally Retarded?
March 27, 2022Thank you, Dr. Craig, for all that you do in service of the kingdom. I have enjoyed your recent work on Adam. However, I am skeptical about the fully human cognitive abilities of Neanderthals. I have spent much time with intellectually challenged adults. They are often capable of doing very intelligent things, that only humans can do. Art, linguistic social interaction and group planning are all common activities for them. Yet, in many cases they would not be considered healthy adults with fully functioning cognitive abilities. As a Christian, I think that most of them are not accountable to God for their behavior and response to Him. Why assume that Neanderthals and other prot0-human species were not in this epistemic position? If they were, it seems like Adam would have originated later in human development.
David
United States
Dr. craig’s response
A
I’m not sure you understand the implications of your question, David. My position is that in view of the modern cognitive behaviors that Neanderthals exhibited, they were human. You point out that intellectually challenged adults with whom you work often engage in such activities. So would you say, David, that they are not human? That they are mere animals and can be treated as such? That would be the implication of your claim that Neanderthals are not human despite their exhibiting such cognitive behaviors. But I am confident that you would think that such a claim would be unconscionable. Just as the people with whom you work are human beings, so we should think that Neanderthals were likewise human beings.
Were Neanderthals as fully functional as modern humans? Who knows? My claim is merely that they are human beings and therefore descendants of Adam. If people exhibit the modern cognitive behaviors that I describe, then we are justified in regarding them as fully functioning human beings in the absence of any positive evidence that they were not. I know of no positive reason to think that Neanderthals were literally mentally retarded. One reason to think that they were not is that in contrast to the people whom you mention, Neanderthals did not live in care facilities where others take care of them and feed them and provide for them but managed to survive on their own for hundreds of thousands of years spanning harsh Ice Age climates.
- William Lane Craig