Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-03-13]: A study of Neanderthal skulls suggests that they became extinct because they had larger eyes than our species. As a result, more of their brains were devoted to seeing in the long, dark nights in Europe, at the expense of high-level processing. [source: BBC News]
If you ask me, this is an over-simplyfied analysis. Bigger eyes => more processing of visual images => less processing power left for other thinking? Wow! Who 5-year-old kindergardeen student came up with this "high level thinking" argument? Simplification, serial way of thinking, analogies: the guarranteed way for failure in science.
(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...
