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Chimps Found Making Own Weapons to Hunt for Food
Pojut writes "The Washington Post has an article involving chimps and weapons. Apparently, there have been direct observations of chimps in the west African savannah modifying sticks to create spears. They then use these spears to kill small mammals and eat them. It is the first time that an animal other than a human has been directly observed in crafting a weapon for the purpose of hunting or killing."
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
I don't much care where the chimps evolve to...
I would like to know if this is a learned behavior from an outside source or if this is simply something they have discovered on their own.
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
Sorry, I don't buy the story. Just media sensationalism to me. Jane Goodall observed chimps "fishing" for ants with twigs quite some time ago. Some of these chimps fashioned the twigs so as to work better. From where I sit, this is just as fantastic as having a chimp fashioning a larger twig to hunt with. Nothing new here except an over active media trying to make something out more out of old news.
I wonder if they came up with the idea themselves or may have learned about it by imitating humans? Or maybe they were even taught by one... I remember reading some studies where some researched taught a chimp to use sign language and then they observed that chimp spontaneously teaching it to other chimps. The first thing that came to my mind was that if they ever released it on the wild and it survived one day we may encounter some tribe of chimps with their own sing language and culture.
Also, I just saw a documentary by the BBC about the rainforests, and in the last bit they were talking about huge organized groups of chimps somewhere in Uganda. It was pretty impressive to watch them march in formation and stalk their enemies in territorial fights. They looked pretty much like tribal wars to me. Just remember your own schoolyard days, we are really not so far removed.
+Raider of the lost BBS
Even Baboons, which are considerably stupider than Chimpanzees, use rocks to crush shell-fish and have been observed throwing rocks in self defence.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
By no one's definition of the term could creatures who place a truckload of high explosives into a crowded marketplace and blow hundreds of people to meat chunks be considered human.
Congratulations. Dehumanization is the first important step down the path to genocide. The jews in Nazi Germany weren't "human" either. Carry on.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
when we have evidence for WMD's.
We have as much evidence as we did in Iraq.
Even though I basically agree with you, in that any argument that might lead to dehumanisation is a dangerous path to be treading on, the parent post unfortunately does have a point of sorts.
I mean, the level of daily carnage occurring in Iraq can only be described as mind-blowing these days.
And I do not even mean the violence directed towards American troops - the motivation behind these actions is comprehensible, at least to some degree. Laying an ambush, and firing an RPG at the convoy of what some Iraqis perceive to be an occupying army is an action that will in all probability result in death or injury for a large number of persons - but at least this is done for a reason that can be understood.
To me, the truly worrying aspect of the whole thing is the almost daily, pretty much arbitrary slaughtering of Iraqi civilians by other Iraqis the parent post is referring to.
The whole situation almost looks like Ruanda in 1994, just with even fewer discernible motives, and less overall organisation on the part of the perpetrators.
Any attempt at rationalising the actions of someone who blows up a truck full of explosives in a crowded market is hard work. That is to say, it can be pretty hard to come to any other conclusion, than that the people who do such things are complete psychopaths - criminally insane, if you will.
Such actions are deemed utterly reprehensible in practically all value systems, and in particular the moral framework postulated by all branches of Islam - there simply is no justification for doing something like that, which will stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny.
Modern society goes to great lengths to avoid obvious dehumanisation of all those who fall into the category of "deranged criminal", but at the end of the day there is usually no other option, than to lock up the most severely disturbed individuals for the remainder of their lives.
In polite society no-one would use the kind of language the parent post was using when referring to such people, but the actions of society towards them (i.e. usually indefinite detention in a mental hospital) is still much the same, as if they really were not entirely human.
So: just because the Nazis had some very bizarre ideas about who was a valuable human (and who was not) one cannot argue that *all* categorisations of persons are automatically wrong.
If someone is - after an objective examination - found to be too dangerously defective to be at large, they can and should be removed from circulation.
Of course, liberally applying such harsh judgements to large, only somewhat accurately specified groups of people (i.e. "the terrorists") without investigating every single one of them (like the parent poster did) - well, this is where the fun usually starts... then it really is only a few steps until - for instance - all guys with long beards get rounded up, because they are, well, you know, extremists?
A.
it's changing those TOOLS into WEAPONS that is only an ape/chimp(/human) trait
So, a chimp uses a slightly modified stick to get hold of, kill, and eat something that it otherwise would not be able to get. You're referring to this tool as a weapon. Fair enough.
Now, a crow finds a raw material, slightly modified it, and uses it to obtain, kill and eat something it otherwise would not be able to get. How is this different?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Not necessarily true - the anvil group can be composed of risk-seeking individuals who are willing to fight an equally-matched enemy, while the hammer group is composed of risk-averse individuals who aren't willing to join the fight unless they have a good chance of winning. The anvil group attacks first and in most cases gets bogged down; the hammer group attacks later if it's clear that joining the fight will tip the balance. No need for communication or hierarchy (although I'm not denying that chimps have both).
If both sides have hammer groups waiting in the background, the situation is similar to an iterated game of chicken: each hammer group wants to delay joining the fight for as long as possible, allowing the anvil group to wear down the enemy, but neither hammer group wants the other to join the fight first, which would lead to a defeat. (Joining the fight corresponds to driving straight in the chicken game, and holding back corresponds to swerving; if both players swerve, the game is repeated.)