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Wild Gorillas Impress With Their Tools
fatgav writes "The BBC is running an article about wild gorillas being seen to use tools in the wild. It is especially significant as not only have Gorillas never been seen to use tools, but they have been using them in a way unlike other great apes. From the article: 'The most astonishing thing is that we have observed them using tools not for obtaining food, but for postural support.' The scientists are getting excited as it can help to explain questions as to how the most advanced great ape (us) came to evolve."
Are we any closer to explaining this:
http://www.ntk.net/media/dancemonkeyboy.mpg.
And yet they say "Intelligent Design" isn't a falsifiable theory...
Let's just hope they never evolve to the level where they take up arms and declare war against us. Our record in Gorilla warfare hasn't been so stellar.
I thought Gorillas had relatively small "tools" compared to their human counterparts. Certainly nothing much to impress with.
Such the wrong impression from that title. My mind is way too low right now.
My teacher says it proves all answers are in the Bible and that science nowdays is work of the devil. If you believe in science you're a fool. I pray for your souls.
Not a big deal, we already control the gorillas' habitats.
Now when the dolphins grow opposable thumbs, then we're screwed.
Check here for some examples of tool usage in the other great ape families (primarily chimpanzees).
I have seen baboons open doors, open garbage cans, whack things with sticks, whack shellfish with rocks - and baboons are held to be less intelligent than other great apes.
Oh well, what the hell...
See these WILD gorillas use their tools in ways never seen before! Order now and get "Gorillas Gone Wild: Spring Break Edition." A new tape sent every month, cancel any time!
Wild Gorillas Impress With Their Tools... oh my, they do.
(Seriously, this is from a real book)
Excerpt From "Gorillas among Us: A Primate Ethnographer's Book of Days"
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I can't find the article in Google now, but I remember about 5 years ago reading about ape tribes exhibiting "written language" behavior. As I recall, apes would set out from their tribe's collective sleeping place to find food in nearby forest. After they found some, they'd return, breaking twigs along their path. Other apes in their tribe could follow the "signs" back to the food later. But apes of other tribes couldn't recognize the signs. The apes apparently learned to interpret the signs in their own tribal language, but not others.
Now they're seen using walking sticks. Perhaps we'll find that apes use the sticks in different styles, and that some styles are learned by watching other apes. What would we look for to discover that some of that learning is derived from the marks made by the sticks, rather than watching a stick-using ape "in person"? If we found those records, would we have discovered "ape fashion magazines"?
--
make install -not war
Humans are apes.
Sheesh. How could we evolve from ourselves?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Where do I sign up for these jobs?
From the article: 'The most astonishing thing is that we have observed them using tools not for obtaining food, but for postural support.'
Sure, because being simple souls, they get all of the flown-in pasta they can pray for. And of course, Postural Support is exactly the sort of thing that you'd expect from a Creator that really understands what it's like to have only Noodly Appendages.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
there is no most here. does anyone understand that? Evolution doesn't have a purpose, it just is. To say "we are the most advanced" is exactly the same as saying "in our opinion we are the most advanced" and since presumably no other animal can respond to us in our language, the ayes have it. It's still total hogwash though. to say "most advanced" can't be applied unless there are qualifiers. For instance "humans are the most advanced animals because we birth the heartiest young" or how about "humans are the most advanced because we have the most sophisticated perceptual awareness" or "humans are the most advanced because we are the most peaceful."
Murdoc & Noodle do OK with their axes - dunno if you give Russel credit (are drumsticks tools?) but 2D's certainly learned to make the best with what he's lost...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The interesting thing about gorillas is that they make tools quite readily in captivity, but hadn't yet been observed to use them in the wild. This would imply that their toolmaking facility was not actually a product of adaptation for toolmaking in their natural habitat.
We could entertain a couple of hypotheses about this. Perhaps all apes share a common toolmaking ability shared from our common ancestors, which now is used in some lineages (humans, chimpanzees) but not extensively in others (gorillas). Or, which I think more likely, ape tool use draws upon other cognitive adaptations that are related to social learning and interactions, and actually using tools is a sometimes-beneficial side effect.
In a related story this week, a group of experimenters found that chimpanzee social learning involves imitation of the techniques observed from other individuals, instead of merely copying the goals of those individuals. Chimps are conformists, in other words.
From my weblog:
The results showed that even when the chimpanzees experimented with the apparatus themselves and learned both ways to get the food, they still tended to adopt the method that predominated in their group. I would guess that this trend toward learning the techniques in the group is important for learning social roles and interactions with other individuals.
--JohnThirty three times and he still wouldn't give her a bite of his celery... Meanwhile, somewhere among the hairless apes, there is a male who has taken a female to dinner thirty three times and never even gotten to second base. Proof that the universe is in perfect balance.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
You have to admit the gorilla using a stick to determine the depth of water was impressive. Plenty of animals use tools, but how many use tools to make measurements?
I hope creationists read this and learn something from it, so that they stop confusing young minds.
Creativity uninhibited www.kreeti.com
The three most important words in a relationship are "I love you." The two most important are "Humor me."
They use chairs as a tool. An alpha male will throw a chair at a beta male leaving for another tribe.
That last sentence... is he talking about the celery?
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!