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Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

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Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#51

Post by rquantz »

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…

I don't know why this was downvoted, it's a perfectly reasonable post. I can believe there is some second wave feminist who has written something like what the GP was saying above – feminists are pretty damn diverse. That said, it seems like most modern feminists are pretty skeptical of evolutionary psychology, and would be unlikely to make arguments about modern human behavior based on paleolithic culture. If you know otherwise, please produce whatever feminists you're talking about.

I don't know you, Mr. tjradcliffe, but I suspect that if you think it's fun to bait your feminist "friends" (why is this woman friends with you?), then she probably got mad at you not because of your fabulously argued points, but because you were being an asshole.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#52

Post by hyperpallium »

\tangents Are these chimps evolving intelligence? What conditions caused humans to evolve intelligence? Was it a rare, unusual event, or was it inevitable? I want to guard against the {anthro,ego,geo}centric-like view that we are the pinnacle of creation.

For our intelligence to evolve, there must have been an advantage to it, each step of the way, that offset the costs of gestating, growing, training and fuelling a larger brain. Looking at other animals, especially higher mammals, greater brain size and intelligence can have survival advantages. Although, considering the whole of life, most of it is not highly intelligent - bacteria, insects, fish etc still thrive as the majority.

There's a fascinating speculation applying Moore's law to the increasing complexity of life (see graph here http://io9.com/moores-law-predicts-life-originated-billions-...). This shows that it takes longer to evolve more complexity, though not that more complexity is necessarily better. I think it's fair to claim that humans are the most complex animals that have evolved so far... and that we are the ones to speculate on it because we just happened to be first (as in the Fermi paradox and fine-tuned universe). Therefore, we should expect other intelligent life to evolve on earth (perhaps from corvids, cetaceans - or even arachnids, some having extraordinary brain/body ratios); but it might take several million years, as that's what it took us. Complexity takes time.

Another view is that another intelligent species would have been the most dangerous threat to us possible. Humans certainly seem to have no problem killing other humans. We may have eradicated neanderthals, and other species in the human evolutionary line are also curiously missing today. Possibly, mammoths and mega-fauna were also increasing in intelligence? Perhaps we also set out to kill the most cunning and therefore most dangerous wild animals in general? Thus, delaying intelligence in competing species.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#53

Post by KamiCrit »

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…

Well one line of chimps seemed to grasp the tool making concept and you can see how they tuned out. Who's to say it can't happen twice?

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#54

Post by jl6 »

peteretep wrote: post #48
michaelkeenan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I interpreted norm as different to rule. Sure, no need for a rule here. A norm is a convention. This norm sounds like a good guide to having a focused, mature and productive conversation rather than a noisy juvenile fight.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#55

Post by pjmlp »

tomp wrote: post #27
crimsonalucard wrote: post #26

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, ...).

Telescopes were brought into Europe by Arabs living in what was then Iberia, Sicily and a few other places.

As well as many farming new technologies like irrigation for example.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#56

Post by malandrew »

qiqing wrote: post #41
JulianMorrison wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 preda…

That all makes sense as a theory, but is this fact based on hard evidence or merely academic speculation?

2.2 million years is an awful long time ago, and I didn't think we had that much evidence about humans habits and culture dating back that long ago.

Exactly what happened roughly 2.2 million years a to explain this evolutionary change?

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#57

Post by seanmcdirmid »

resdirector wrote: post #46
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.

We've probably hindered it multiple times in the past. We weren't the only apes to master tool making, we were just really good at it and out competed others that tried filling the same niche.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#58

Post by venomsnake »

KamiCrit wrote: post #53
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…

Well one line of chimps seemed to grasp the tool making concept and you can see how they tuned out. Who's to say it can't happen twice?

With the speed we are wrecking the planet they won't have enough time :(

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#59

Post by venomsnake »

I should start writing the script of "skynet vs the planet of the apes" with the last day's news.

On a serious note - a recent theory that in a heat sink ocean and energy source life evolving is inevitable, and we have multiple species able to get to intelligence ... the fermi paradox becomes more urgent to be solved.

Re: Female Chimps Seen Making, Wielding Spears

#60

Post by charlieflowers »

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…

The article says they think female chimps invented first ever spear. So these scientists think chimps have been doing this a long time.
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