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Stone-Throwing Chimp Back In the News With Better Plan
sciencehabit writes "Three years ago, a stone-throwing chimpanzee named Santino jolted the research community by providing some of the strongest evidence yet that non-humans could plan ahead. Santino, a resident of the Furuvik Zoo in Gävle, Sweden, calmly gathered stones in the mornings and put them into neat piles, apparently saving them to hurl at visitors when the zoo opened as part of angry and aggressive 'dominance displays.' But some researchers were skeptical that Santino really was planning for a future emotional outburst. Now Santino is back in the scientific literature, the subject of new claims that he has begun to conceal the stones so he can get a closer aim at his targets—further evidence that he is thinking ahead like humans do."
And yet we still keep him, and his relatives, in a cage.
They must have a clinical definition of "planning" that is more precise than we normally think of animals. Cuz I can tell you that my dog used to plan ahead. He was devious! Maybe this has to do with the time scale - she would usually make 5 minute plans, rather than 2 hours or whatever the monkey's time scale is.
Well yeah, if humans threw stones at people we'd put them in a cage too called "jail"
Don't Squirrels store nuts??
Humans who plan their aggressive dominance displays ahead of time also tend to receive longer periods of imprisonment as well(unless elected to suitably high office, or endorsed therefrom, of course)...
Except we call his relative's cages "cubes."
Now, excuse me, I need to go have my banana for lunch.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
He isn't just planning ahead, and then coming up with a new plan. He's being deceptive.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I would go and see this chimp if they would let me throw the stones back at him. Hell, I'd even pay good money.
I tried this at work but the custodial staff kept finding my little piles of rocks and removing them from my office. Sometimes it doesn't pay to plan ahead.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
Next they will tell us about chimps that have writing skills, and about smoke-grenade throwing chimps with devious plan to kill all humans...
You wait until lunch? I have a banana break at 10:30 each morning.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Santino was castrated. Seems zookeepers decided his planning ability was too advanced for their liking. Thing to remember for one intending to show advanced planning ability to more technologically advanced species.
Do be fair chimps are kinds of assholes in the wild. When they come across a groups of chimps smaller than them they slaughter them... if the same size or greater they put on dominance displays and they leave.
So the detention without a trial that was approved in the US is just an extension of what was already done to the monkeys? It's nice to know the US is working towards interspecies equality!
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Well yeah, if humans threw stones at people we'd put them in a cage too called "jail"
Usually the way that works is you throw the stones first and then get put in a cage. Not the other way around.
No, not deceptive.
He's just showing off his knowledge and understanding of our human religious scriptures, as well as showing that he himself is without sin.
Sheesh. You psychologist-type people will just read ANYthing into some situations. ;-)
Karma: NaN
Next week Scientist discover that animals hate fire because it's hot.
Animals don't hate fire because it's hot. They hate fire because it is hot AND filthy rich...
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Yeah, we should send the little guy back to the Congo so the locals can eat him.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
There's a difference between doing something by instinct, and developing a new behavior in response to personal experiences. Squirrels don't bury food because they remember getting hungry last winter; they just do it. Leopards certainly don't "plan their menu for tomorrow". A dog bringing toys to the front door is simply a learned behavior, repeating something they did by chance previously that resulted in a positive outcome. What appears to be happening here is the chimp devising a new behavior, not by chance, but by anticipating the future.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
No, Santino aka Sonny was the hot headed one as evinced by his death at the tollbooth. This ape, his methodical planning sounds much more like a Michael to me. I suspect the research community was tipped off by an ape named Fredo, the stupid git.
"My fingers Emit sparks of fire in Expectation of my future labours." William Blake
My family was driving through Florida in the 60s and we stopped at some wretched “jungle zoo” by the side of the road. I ran ahead of the rest looking at the really sad caged animals and saw the chimp cage. It had ragged poly sheets hanging in front with big holes and tears in them with a chimp sitting quietly. As soon as I got close enough, the chimp sprayed me with a most foul mouthful of something bad and jumped down to a bucketful of nasty and sucked up another huge mouthful.
I wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree but even I knew to run like hell. This happened in full view of my family who promptly collapsed in hysterical laughter. The chimp knew exactly what it was doing and planned accordingly.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
I'm pretty sure that you aren't allowed to waterboard chimps these days. The IRBs just get touchy.
they're in sweden. they might have figured out it's not worth escaping to the wild.
the dude still needs a way to show off aggressive dominance to get chicks though, regardless of imprisonment.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
And we also seem to realize that taking kids on field trips to see humans in jail wouldn't be prudent either.
Not the case - I was on a traveling football team in my younger years (early teen). We had drug and theft issues running through the community and team. We were actually brought to see the humans in jail. I decided at that moment that it was never going to be the place for me. Maybe we should take MORE of our kids to see humans in jail.
-g
Oh no, that's not a banana.
-g
Feel free to go give one a hug, they rip faces off.
They need to be in a cage...otherwise the next step is the statue of liberty buried up to her neck on a beach!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Or start leaving guns around in his enclosure until he learns how to defend himself and starts eating the locals
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
MY banana break is at 11:45, and we start throwing feces around 3:12 pm. Unless the hot receptionist is here, then we all run around with our chests puffed up...
BRB, I need to jump on daves desk and scream at him.
Just another day in Corporate america.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
He should be a gorilla warfare expert in no time!
Your honor, I'm a chimpanzee. Your scientists saw me stacking stones and then hiding them and so they sent me to law school. Your world frightens and confuses me! When someone sends me a text message on my iPhone I wonder, "are there tiny people inside typing it?" I don't know. But I do know this: when someone like my client slips and falls on the sidewalk in front of a public library, he is entitled to two million dollars in compensatory damages and two million in punitive damages. Thank you.
I live with two pit-bull terriers (both rescued strays), and unfortunately I must keep them in separate rooms because of a traumatic event where during play the one's jaw got caught under the other's collar -- They remember this episode, but confuse it with each hurting the other; Ever since they fight if left together unsupervised for a length of time.
The one dog, TC (named after the street T.C. Jester where she was found), likes being in the larger part of the house, and would rather not be in the den. So, when I say that "It's time to switch the dogs", and try to put her in the Den, she runs to the back door instead, as if she needs to relieve herself. She knows that the dog in the house usually ends up in the den when the outside dog is let back inside -- to keep them separated.
If while coming back inside she realises that I'll be putting the other dog outside -- making her more likely to be the dog in the den, then she's resistant to coming back inside... She not only thinks ahead, she's worked out several plans to achieve her goal. If TC knows its her turn to have run of the house, then none of this is an issue, she goes in and out without a care, knowing that it's the other dog that'll be relegated to the den -- Even if she sees the other dog going out when she comes in, she's not reluctant to come inside because she's not planning on being put in the den.
Furthermore, I'm beginning to run out of ways to say "Walk" and "Car" -- The dogs love riding in the car, and have learned that "C.A.R." means car, "Truck" and "T.R.U.C.K" is also out, can't say or spell "go" without them getting excited to leave -- Currently I've taken to saying, "Vamonos en el Auto" which is me butchering Spanish (never formally studied it, but I've run out of French and English words), because they've also learned "coche"; However, TC has started to pick up on this too -- You can see her perk up and look between the parties as if she's sussing out whether or not we'll soon be leaving. Names of vacation places, such as "Kerville" must be avoided at all cost -- I sometimes attend the Kerville Folk Festival for a week or so and have the neighbour care for one dog at the house while the other is in a kennel (to ensure separation), TC gets distressed when Kerville is mentioned -- She picks it up even in the middle of rapid speech with other parties. TC normally loves to get the leash so we can go for a walk, but Mention Kerville at all and she runs away from the leash for several days. She's planning not to be the dog in the kennel.
Humans are so damn chauvinistic. There's no such thing as "sentience" -- That's some made up Bullshit right there. There is only varying degrees of awareness and intellect depending on the complexity of the neural network. Bigger network? Smarter. That's all there is to it.
When (not if) machine learning neural networks surpass the complexity of the human mind by leaps and bounds: I sure hope they're understanding enough of our primitive nature, and don't treat us lesser minded humans as we treat the apes and other creatures with proportionally less neurons. Note that I didn't say I own the dogs...
You should be punished for that.
we could treat him like a human and see how he does. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,494067,00.html
Or we could leave wild animals in, I don't know, the wild perhaps. I don't have a problem with using animals for justified medical/behavioral experiments. Or herd animals for food for that matter. But primates do not make good pets and are, for the most part, too intelligent to stick in cages for their entire life simply to entertain humans.
Quick! Start throwing stones!
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Sometimes I wonder why it takes researchers so long to discover attributes in animals that any pet owner has observed countless times.
Here's one incident that comes to mind:
A couple of years ago my father picked up my cat, as he's done many a time. But this time he took him over to another cat who, for whatever reason, he hated with passion. He patiently let my father hold him and return him to the other room. The instant my father released him the cat turned and bit him with all his strength.
Instead of freaking out while in a compromised position he patiently waited to exact his revenge when he was reasonably safe. That sounds fairly good control of emotion and planning to me. It's not collecting rocks, but I think it's compelling nonetheless.
How about pets training owners into performing desired actions?
I misunderstood the summary title, "Stone-Throwing Chimp Back In the News With Better Plan." I expected the article to be about congressional republicans.
-- QED
I support the right to arm bears.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Just be glad he's not gorging on prunes.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"Whatever you do, don't call him 'monkey'...ohshit"
For the record, chimps are apes.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
And we also seem to realize that taking kids on field trips to see humans in jail wouldn't be prudent either.
Not the case - I was on a traveling football team in my younger years (early teen). We had drug and theft issues running through the community and team. We were actually brought to see the humans in jail. I decided at that moment that it was never going to be the place for me. Maybe we should take MORE of our kids to see humans in jail.
A friend of mine in law enforcement explained to me that those "scared straight" programs are mostly worthless. The kids come in, take a look, and say "Oh that isn't going to be me, I am way smarter than those fools."
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
You should be punished for that.
Quick! Start throwing stones!
First let's find one of us who hasn't done anything wrong. Then we'll let him throw the first stone.
Quite right, proper nouns especially are exempt. Could you Xerox your thesis on the subject for me, or should I Google it?
All living languages continuously evolve through such abuse, and no doubt the early adopters always look like idiots. No sense getting upset about it.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.