Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears • Hacker News Board

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#41

Post by qiqing » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 2:51 AM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #19

duaneb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I wonder if female child ~~bearing~~ holding contributed to our move to bipedalism.

There is speculation that the baby sling did. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/prehistoric-...

TIL how long baby slings have been around.

"Before the invention of the baby sling, dated by Dr Taylor to at least 2.2 million years ago, when human ancestor head size suddenly began to increase, physically mature infants were more likely to survive, because caring for slower-developing immature ones was difficult, uneconomic and often dangerous. Mothers holding their infants were more vulnerable to attack from predators or other humans than those using baby slings. They were also less able to perform other more economically productive tasks.

Most importantly, the invention of the baby sling artificially lengthened human gestation, said Dr Taylor."

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#42

Post by qiqing » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 2:53 AM UTC

tjradcliffe wrote: post #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 wit…

Early attempts to study stress hormones from aggression in large cats (e.g., lions and tigers) studied hunting behavior. The researchers puzzled over data that didn't make any sense to them for a long time before realizing that to a lion, killing that smaller mammal is like opening a box of cereal. That you really have to look at lion-on-lion violence to study aggression.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#43

Post by jonlucc » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 3:28 AM UTC

iamcurious wrote: post #37

jonlucc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This isn't my field, but as far as I can tell, they've done a more systematic study of which chimps are making the spears to confirm the previous observation that it was often females.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#44

Post by gamblorrr » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 3:40 AM UTC

So, might this not indicate that chimps are slowly but surely evolving toward a higher intellect, as a harsh environment selects against the dumb?

If there were no matriarchs capable of grasping a concept like hunting with weapons, instead of bare hands, 100 years ago, does that mean that they might unravel stone sharpening in 500 years?

The idea that human civilization might witness the true, literal evolution and flourishing of a second earthly intellect in species outside of humans is really exciting.

Maybe it's not evolution in action. Maybe chimpanzees of today are no smarter than 100 years ago. Maybe it takes 50 years of trial and error amongst social groups to learn such a skill, and then retain it across generations by teaching. Maybe tools like this have been invented and lost many times by various chimpanzee social groups over the past few centuries.

But it would still be really cool if this were representative of the emergence of a generation of apes, palpably smarter than those of, say, the 19th century.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#45

Post by thret » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 4:08 AM UTC

qiqing wrote: post #42

tjradcliffe wrote: post #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 wit…

Early attempts to study stress hormones from aggression in large cats (e.g., lions and tigers) studied hunting behavior. The researchers puzzled over data that didn't make any sense to them for a long time before realizing that to a lion, killing that smaller mammal is like opening a box of cereal. That you really have to look at lion-on-lion violence to study aggression.

Do you remember where you read this? I have been looking for a source without success.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#46

Post by resdirector » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 4:09 AM UTC

gamblorrr wrote: post #44

So, might this not indicate that chimps are slowly but surely evolving toward a higher intellect, as a harsh environment selects against the dumb? If there were no matriarchs capable of grasping a concept like hunting with weapons, instead of bare hands, 100 years ago, does that mean that they might unravel stone sharpening in 500 years? The idea that human civilization might witness the true, literal evolution and f…

I wonder if humans could, or should, help this evolutionary process along.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#47

Post by cjsthompson » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 4:17 AM UTC

tedks wrote: post #36

tjradcliffe wrote: post #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 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…

What's wrong with hitting back a bully if you can? If you can, by all means do it. The problem is not that, it's shaming those who can't hit back.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#48

Post by peteretep » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 4:31 AM UTC

michaelkeenan wrote: post #33

tjradcliffe wrote: post #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 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…

    > there should be a norm against introducing a political
    > topic on a non-political thread

No there shouldn't. You're welcome to use those little grey arrows to vote about what you want to see, but you are one voice amongst many.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#49

Post by cjsthompson » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 4:32 AM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #17

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #6

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?

Not only. We are generally far weaker than chimps. Their muscle fiber allows for much more strength than us. But strength is useless when you're smart enough to work around it.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#50

Post by peteretep » Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 4:33 AM UTC

tjradcliffe wrote: post #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 wit…

I would be interested to see testosterone distribution between male/females in other species of our monkeylike cousins.

I feel like I've seen many anecdotes by women who have transitioned to men (or are mid-process) who suddenly "get" many male behaviours once they start supplementing testosterone.