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Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

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Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#31
If you ever want to have real fun, point this out to a doctrinaire feminist who is heavily invested in the idea that men are more violent than women because in the primordial landscape men did most of the hunting. I did this to a freind once, quite innocently, and she ended up so angry she could--in her own description--barely speak.

There is a whole literature in a particular brand of feminism (mostly associated with the radicals) that simply takes the association of hunting and interpersonal violence on faith, whereas in fact we're pretty sure men are more violent than women because of mate competition. The fact that we observe hunting behaviour amongst female chimps (who are less violent than male chimps) and female bonobos (who are far less violent than chimps, and no more violent than male bonobos, who also hunt) makes it clear that hunting behavior has nothing much to do with interpersonal violence.

This makes good sense from an evolutionary perpsective: killing a member of another species is a profoundly different kind of selective event than killing a member of your own species, particularly in a social primate like proto-humans where the individual you kill is likely to be closely related to you. The selective pressures on the two behaviours are almost completely disjoint, but to believe the feminist myth--or the equally silly pseudo-evolutionary anti-feminist myths that preceded it--you have to believe they are somehow related.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#32

Fascinating. I wonder if this was learned through invention or through mimicking humans. If only we could simulate evolution millions of years and see how chimps evolve.

Haven't chimps already been evolving in tandem with our last common ancestor for millions of years? Why should they suddenly fast forward their evolutionary progress now that we are observing them?

They may not be, as others have pointed out, but on the other hand, humans have disrupted their environment and put them under extreme selective pressure of various kinds. We have also reduced their population, creating a greater likelihood of inbreeding, which allows new variations to spread very rapidly throughout the remaining population.

So it isn't our observing them that is relevant. We may be putting pressure on them that is driving their evolution, and evolutionary change can happen very rapidly when the pressure is high.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#33

If you ever want to have real fun, point this out to a doctrinaire feminist who is heavily invested in the idea that men are more violent than women because in the primordial landscape men did most of the hunting. I did this to a freind once, quite innocently, and she ended up so angry she could--in her own description--barely speak. There is a whole literature in a particular brand of feminism (mostly associated wit…

You make some interesting points, but there should be a norm against introducing a political topic on a non-political thread. There's a way to get to a political point from most non-political topics, but then every thread leads to a political fight.

I think it's especially important not to criticize a political point that no-one has brought up in the thread already. It's always tempting to address the worst arguments rather than the best ones, and there's more leeway to do that we we're not constrained by replying to something someone's actually said.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#34
post #18

This isn't really news. I remember seeing an article about chimps hunting bushbabies with spears at least five years ago.

I think what's happening is that the news is reported to be that chimps make and use tools to hunt, when in fact, the new data seems to be about female chimps being much more likely to make and use spears than males.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#35

If you ever want to have real fun, point this out to a doctrinaire feminist who is heavily invested in the idea that men are more violent than women because in the primordial landscape men did most of the hunting. I did this to a freind once, quite innocently, and she ended up so angry she could--in her own description--barely speak. There is a whole literature in a particular brand of feminism (mostly associated wit…

u aspie rube

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#36

If you ever want to have real fun, point this out to a doctrinaire feminist who is heavily invested in the idea that men are more violent than women because in the primordial landscape men did most of the hunting. I did this to a freind once, quite innocently, and she ended up so angry she could--in her own description--barely speak. There is a whole literature in a particular brand of feminism (mostly associated wit…

>There is a whole literature in a particular brand of feminism (mostly associated with the radicals) that simply takes the association of hunting and interpersonal violence on faith

This is a straw woman. I cannot think of any radical feminist for whom this is an important point. (You probably don't mean actually radical feminists, but just liberals with whom you disagree, but that's another point.)

I think virtually any feminist would say that men are violent because patriarchal society teaches and programs men to be violent. It teaches boys that violence is an acceptable way of solving problems, interacting with others, etc., and even when violence is overtly discouraged (for example, in schools) it is often covertly encouraged (the pride a father displays in a son who hits back against a bully, the resulting respect on the schoolyard for that child, not to even mention video games, movies, and other cultural role models).

But maybe you've just read different feminists from me. What prominent radical feminists, or even liberal feminists, hold this viewpoint?

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#37
post #34
post #18

This isn't really news. I remember seeing an article about chimps hunting bushbabies with spears at least five years ago.

I think what's happening is that the news is reported to be that chimps make and use tools to hunt, when in fact, the new data seems to be about female chimps being much more likely to make and use spears than males.

That isn't new either. From dalke's reference:

    Intriguingly, the behaviour is mostly confined to females and immature chimps.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#38
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to how human civilization formed. Areas of plentiful food have no need for farming or saving up food as wealth thus, it is only in places where food/resources are less plentiful did technological civilization develop.

Also, I've heard the theory (I don't know if it's true) that while Chinese invented porcelain and used it for containers (cups, plates, etc), Europeans never did, and ended up inventing glass instead (and windows, microscopes, telescopes, ...).

Huh, I just read this theory yesterday in Nation by Terry Pratchett. I'm going back and reading the few books of his I missed.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't chimps already been evolving in tandem with our last common ancestor for millions of years? Why should they suddenly fast forward their evolutionary progress now that we are observing them?

I've heard (think it was from the BBC Life series) that human evolution has sacrificed a lot of jaw muscle and other skull-related ruggedness as compared to monkeys, making room for bigger brains. Since this was obviously not a worthwile tradeoff for chimps etc. in the past, why should it be now?

My understanding is that this is due to heating food after early humans learned to control fire. Cooked food is more nutritious, and easier to eat, and can last longer without spoiling. This leads to the ability to allocate resources in the body more effectively (to the larger brains, versus muscles for hunting) and removes the need for extremely powerful jaws.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#40
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to how human civilization formed. Areas of plentiful food have no need for farming or saving up food as wealth thus, it is only in places where food/resources are less plentiful did technological civilization develop.

Also, I've heard the theory (I don't know if it's true) that while Chinese invented porcelain and used it for containers (cups, plates, etc), Europeans never did, and ended up inventing glass instead (and windows, microscopes, telescopes, ...).

The Road Not Taken...

http://pastebin.com/aJQfubrK

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