Along with the Creationist, Chimps have entered the Stone Age.

a reply to: flyingfish


You might have to correct this statement:

"As the Creationist becomes extinct, maybe soon they will be able to recruit Bonobos to carry the torch!"

The Chimpanzee has been observed to use stone tools. Not the Bonobos.

Although that brings up a whole other intersting fact that Bonobos are more intelligent than Chimpanzees.

a reply to: Kratos40

Well since bonobos are hippies and chimps are warlords does that mean the hippies of the world are more intelligent than our current war leaders of the world?

a reply to: boymonkey74

I was wondering if you'd show up here. So, if they decide to take over, are you going to be their fearless leader?

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: burdman30ott6

Given enough time you never know, but yeah they won't be conquering any nations tomorrow or writing some world changing thesis, true.

It doesn't change though that they are scarey smart and deserving of more intellectual recognition than they are often given in our desire to pretend we're intellectual cheetahs and everyone else is a common garden snail.

The intelligence gap is no where near as big as we like to pretend it is for our own egos.

You are correct, we share many things with animals, there is an explosion going right now in the scientific study of animal intelligence. Studies suggest that animals may share many, if not all, traits considered to be unique only to us. Traits like consciousness, empathy, fear and thinking of ones self. Very exciting research and lots of answers yet to be discovered.

a reply to: flyingfish

It's AWESOME, isn't it???

I'm lovin' it. I've known all my life that animals are sentient, compassionate, self-aware creatures. (Well, at least mammals)

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Um... I'm one of the biggest proponents of animal intelligence you'll ever meet, but no where will you ever see me pretending words like compassionate apply to the animal kingdom as a whole. In my studies of nature I've seen too much of our worst traits along with our best to put anything in nature on a pedestal. We're all just floundering about together in a crazy cold chaotic world.

Nor will I pretend every animal mammal or otherwise are our complete intellectual equals.

Is more like, there's cheetahs, fastest sprinters in the world, doesn't mean other creatures can't sprint, nor that there aren't other fast sprinters that while not as fast as the cheetah are fast none the less.

Same with thinking and thought. We're cheetahs intellectually, but there are other animals that can sprint pretty damn fast too. A lot like to think in terms that we're all cheetah's which is silly, while others that we're cheetahs and everything else is garden snails, equally silly.

Every creature falls into a different position along the spectrum of intelligence, same as every creature has a different rate of sprinting ability.

I personally feel we're cheetahs and ravens are greyhounds at the very minimum.

a reply to: Puppylove

Really? I saw a vid posted on FB a while back, with all sorts of animals being compassionate to other creatures. Let me see if I can dig it up for you....

Proves nothing,even canines are smart,i.e. the Wolves!

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Lots of animals can be compassionate so can people, so too can animals commit atrocities, torture, that which apparently must not be named on ATS ect...

The problem comes when people pick and choose the traits they like while ignoring and pretending the ones they do not like do not exist.

Animals can be great, they can also be complete and total jerks, just like us.

originally posted by: flyingfish

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: flyingfish

Hate to break it to you, but lots of animals use tools.

Crows are particularly adept. The consensus is that they are considered by some to be more intelligent than chimps, in regard to tool use.

This, with a brain the size of a peanut and having to grip everything with their feet or beak, is quite remarkable.

Some birds can also mimic and seemingly respond to human language.Perhaps the next "intelligent species" after man will be avian, not primate.

But, Bonobos can make stone tools far more varied in purpose than previously known, reaching a level of technological competence formerly assigned only to the human lineage.
Besides, how you going to teach creationism to a bird or an otter?

I suppose in the same way you'd teach it to a chimp (but in my opinion, only a chump would ever try).

And humans can laser cut stone, granularise it, bond it to metal tools, kiln it, polish it, liquefy it and concrete it. Your suggestion that chimps reached "a level of technological competence formerly assigned only to the human lineage" is largely hyperbole.

Study: Apes may be closer to speaking than previously thought

in a study published online in July in the journal Animal Cognition, Perlman and collaborator Nathaniel Clark of the University of California, Santa Cruz, sifted 71 hours of video of Koko interacting with Patterson and Cohn and others, and found repeated examples of Koko performing nine different, voluntary behaviors that required control over her vocalization and breathing. These were learned behaviors, not part of the typical gorilla repertoire.

Great Apes and Language: Very Close to Talking Like Us [VIDEOS]

For instance, a study recently published in the journal PeerJ details how bonobos, the great ape species sometimes called "pigmy chimpanzees," are actually capable of protophone babbling - something that was long thought only achievable by human newborns. More about that here.

The conclusion was then that bonobos are the exception to the rule - potentially a consequence of the fact that, among all living mammals, they boast the most genetic similarities with humanity.

Now however, Perlman has determined that gorillas too are far more linguistically advanced than experts had thought, and might even be on a language evolution fast-track (respectively) similar to that of bonobos and humans.

Use of stone tools and on the verge of language vocalization - too bad Humanity is likely to cause a mass extinction over the next century that will claim species like the apes.

a reply to: flyingfish

Hmmm, sounds good...but if man evolved from apes, why are there still apes and why are they entering a stone age??

My B.S. meter is sounding.....

a reply to: Puppylove

No argument from me, sis!!!! Totally agree with you.
A born primate. It's a curse, I tell ya, a curse!!

a reply to: chr0naut

Your suggestion that chimps reached "a level of technological competence formerly assigned only to the human lineage" is largely hyperbole.

Fricken lasers!? We are not talking about modern humans! The part that says "human lineage" must have gotten past you.

a reply to: nwtrucker

but if man evolved from apes, why are there still apes

Oh! No! you didn't!



Go away! I'm not going to entertain this ignorance!

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: flyingfish

Hmmm, sounds good...but if man evolved from apes, why are there still apes and why are they entering a stone age??

My B.S. meter is sounding.....

LOL, someone has no concept of basic evolutionary science. Hint: we did not evolve from apes. They are a different branch of the Hominid tree.

a reply to: AshOnMyTomatoes

I was born in this state, not as a gorilla.

Let me clarify, where are the primates walking out of the jungle speaking? Walking upright as if:
"I couldn't eat one more bug, banana and I've gotta take a hot bath, thank heavens for evolution!!" - lol

It's tongue in cheek, surely. Not a debate here - just laughing my 'cheeks off'

A chimp will never aspire to create a better hammer. They have in the past and still will just settle for any old rock to use.

Study the evolution of the hammer and there you will see the difference between chimp and man.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

Your right. I know nothing about the subject.

Though, I do wonder about the 'scientific objectivity' of the OP. How does evolution negate creationist views?

It doesn't look like an either/or proposition, at least in regards to evolution. Maybe more germane when big bang is compared to creationism, but evolution?

P.S. I actually saw that quote on a church bill-board in Tennessee about twenty years back....

originally posted by: flyingfish
a reply to: chr0naut

Your suggestion that chimps reached "a level of technological competence formerly assigned only to the human lineage" is largely hyperbole.

Fricken lasers!? We are not talking about modern humans! The part that says "human lineage" must have gotten past you.

So, you are saying that chimps have now reached a sophistication that we had when we were just like chimps?