Major terror attack foiled

[The Mad Monk]

He wouldn't stop, so they cut his balls off.

[self biased]

we should see if we could get him to post here. it might liven up the place.

edit: oh, and i appear to be an emperor now.

[Kidlicious]

...none of that is necessarily evidence of planning. It's more likely to be instinctive behavior for which the animals don't even comprehend the purpose; you might as well say that a horse growing a long tail is a clear sign that it anticipates biting flies landing on its arse. It's nothing of the sort. The ability has merely been programmed in by evolution so that the animal has all the tools required to survive when the time comes. This case is different because it's clear the animal discriminates between different wholly artificial sets of circumstances which are very unlikely to have been selected for. It is perceiving a situation, analyzing it, and coming up with a plan to deal with it. Also being a total antisocial douchebag, but I guess researchers already knew chimps can be like that.

Well initially some birds were the first members of their species to build defensive nests.

[Elok]

Well initially some birds were the first members of their species to build defensive nests.

What are you saying? I can see two interpretations to what you said in the above quote:

1. The birds decided to build defensive nests, and passed on that deciding/planning trait to their descendants. Possible, but it would seem to violate the principle of parsimony/Occam's razor/whatever you wish to call it. It's simpler and equally convincing to assume that it all began with a bird feeling a vague instinctive yearning to build its nest in a certain type of location, and was rewarded for that accidental inclination by more of its offspring surviving than the "oh, just build wherever" crowd's. In other words, a number of simple behaviors were propagated, not sophisticated reasoning skills not otherwise in evidence.

2. This is not evidence of planning at all, only a deranged mutation that causes this chimp to pile up rocks during certain times of the year which by freak coincidence happens to allow him to throw those rocks. That, too, sounds farfetched.

Actually, come to think of it, it could be simply following a generalized primate-behavior rule, couldn't it? Maybe it has a simple, rigid instinct like a computer code: "IF enemies present x times within past y weeks THEN stockpile rocks for defense." I don't know much about chimp behavior, but I imagine they're quite fond of hurling rocks (feces?) at enemies in general, in which case this would only be interesting insofar as the beast labeled human tourists as enemies the way it would typically label rival chimps or baboons or whatever it's normal for chimps to chuck rocks at. But I guess this raises the question of what we mean by "planning" in the first place. I hope we don't get into some inane free-will/determinism debate...

[Blaupanzer]

Elok, you are presenting a very prejudiced view of man's place in the animal kingdom. No one who has followed large predator behavior patterns believe their hunting styles are "instinctive" rather than exhibitions of planning. It is instinctive for them to hunt, but the how indicates planning.

I'll skip other examples to point out that this theory that all animal behavior is instinctive, generally grows out of the arguments about man having a soul, which gives him choices in his behavior. THAT argument in turn arises out of the mind/body dichotomy very much in debate at the time of Christ. Short summary : Only mankind has a soul which gives him choices for good or evil independent of the needs and urges of his body. Therefore, a whole bunch of things including the rest of the animal kingdom operates on instinct only.

Neither Sufis or scientists would find that blather meaningful. For the Sufis, it is not your soul that gives you choices, the power of choice is inherent in you. There is no mind - body dichotomy. To the scentists, all adaptation by animals in the wild, changing behaviors and patterns is thinking, not instinct. Thus many animals exhibit rudimentary planning, adapting, hunting, tool-using behaviors indicating they think. None show thinking on our scale with language, mathematics, abstractions, long-range projections,speculations, or creations of deities; but they do mourn, adapt, plan, and abandon non-productive patterns.

[FrostyBoy]

*cough* bull**** *cough*

[Elok]

I'll leave it to the scientists, if we have any biology specialists now that Odin's gone, to tell me What Scientists Think. I'll only ask, why on earth are you dragging the Sufis into this? That's a real head-scratcher.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I am going to wiki Sufis because I don't want to admit that I have no idea what they are. Admitting that on a public forum would, I fear, make me an object of ridicule among my peers and colleagues, and may possibly lose me the respect and high thought of my erstwhile friends. A heavy cost!

[Elok]

They're a mystic subset of Islam, IIRC. Not a very large one, which is what makes it odd that he brings 'em up.

[Nostromo]

Man, I feel bad for that chimp. Zoos are evil.

[Dinner]

The San Diego wild Animal Park lets the animals roam free and the people ride a train to look at them.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Worse news is yet to come. Apparently, monkeys can teach their children to use tools!

So far they're just teaching them to floss. But don't let that get you complacent, folks. They're teaching them to floss with human hair. Soon it will be picking their teeth with human bones and lining their hardwood floors with human skins!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7940052.stm

Monkeys 'teach infants to floss'
Advertisement

Mother monkey teaches her young to floss

Making sure your offspring know how to clean their teeth appears to be as important to monkeys as to humans.

Female monkeys in Thailand have been observed showing their young how to floss their teeth - using human hair.

Researchers from Japan said they watched seven long-tailed macaques cleaning the spaces between their teeth in the same manner as humans.

They spent double the amount of time flossing when they were being watched by their infants, the team said.

This suggests the mothers were deliberately teaching their young how to floss, Professor Nobuo Masataka of Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute said.

"I was surprised because teaching techniques on using tools properly to a third party are said to be an activity carried out only by humans," he told the AFP news agency.

He said the study, carried out in Lopburi, north of Bangkok, is still in the hypothesis stage.

"We would like to shift our focus to the baby monkeys to check whether the mothers' actions are effectively helping them learn how to clean their teeth," he added.

[Elok]

I'm confused, AC. Where's the innuendo in that post? Does it involve the word "bone?"

[Alinestra Covelia]

If you can't find it, you need to look longer and harder.

[Zero]

Time to declare war on these apes.

KILL ALL PRIMATES!~