Chimpanzee builds ammo stockpiles for future planned wars

[Spider-Dan]

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/03/09/chimp-stones.html

This particular chimp would collect rocks (as well as breaking throwable chunks off of large boulders) and storing them in piles.  He would then rapidly throw these piles of rocks at the human visitors.

The surprising thing about this is that he did this for 5 days before the zoo opened (during the zoo off-season).  This is being called the first clear sign of a (non-human) ape making plans for an event in the non-immediate future.  I think it's a pretty interesting insight into our "cousins".

[CF DolFan]

My dog hides food so that he can eat it later.  I'm sure that proves evolution too.

No offense but we have chimps that can communicate to an extent through sign language.  Show me a walking talking chimp if you want to impress me. Where are the missing links to our cousins?  I just don't get it. 

[Buddhagirl]

My dog hides food so that he can eat it later.  I'm sure that proves evolution too.

My dog likes to eat dryer sheets. (I don't know why.) I keep finding him with the dryer sheets even though I stopped bringing them in the house from the laundry room. A couple of days ago I was cleaning some of the less cleaned areas of the house and found tons of "stashes" that he had. He's been hoarding the dryer sheets for ages and hiding them so I won't take them away from him.

[bsmooth]

My dog hides food so that he can eat it later.  I'm sure that proves evolution too.

No offense but we have chimps that can communicate to an extent through sign language.  Show me a walking talking chimp if you want to impress me. Where are the missing links to our cousins?  I just don't get it. 

There is a significant difference between the self preservation technique that is engrained in most living animals, as opposed to the ability to realize something is going to happen and to find and stockpile weapons that nature did not embue you with at birth.
Don't worry religion will not be falling anytime soon.

[Spider-Dan]

bsmooth is correct.  There are plenty of animals that store food for later; squirrels are famous for it.

This is one of the first known instances of an animal independently planning for a future mental state (in this case, anger) before it happens.

Where are the missing links to our cousins?

Every "missing link" that is found just creates two more.  Finding the "missing link" is a perpetually moving goalpost.   For example:


Animal A ------  Animal B ------ Animal C

"We found the missing link between A and B!"

Animal A --- Animal AA ---  Animal B ------ Animal C

So where are the missing links between A and AA, and between AA and B?  It's a hopeless pursuit.

[Fau Teixeira]

"missing link" is self explanatory .. if they weren't missing they would just be "link"

[CF DolFan]

I'm certainly not worried about God.  In fact, if He can be proven fake then I get more free time.

On a serious note ... I get the whole missing link thing but if we came from monkeys then the last remnants of a speaking monkey wouldn't be too hard to find. In fact seeing as how everything doesn't evolve at the same rate it would stand to reason there should have been some around during recorded or spoken history. They should be much easier to find than dinosaours that existed prior to man.

[SCFinfan]

Do we really have a good enough model of chimp consciousness to say that  this is definitive evidence of planning for a future mental state or non-immediate event?

I don't really know whether there's evidence to say that chimps have the same (quality or quantity of) self-awareness as people, such that the observable data leads solely and definitely to the conclusion that the chimp "planned" his rock-throwing. Think of it like this:

We have 2 bits of observable data:

1. rock piling
2. later use of rock piles
   a. for offensive or safety purposes

Couldn't this very well be a chimp randomly partaking in one activity (rock piling), then later abandoning said activity (perhaps for another activity, like eating), then even later using the products of the earlier activity (the piles of rocks) for then-current purposes (attacking visitors)? That would not imply planning or consideration of future mental states or purposes, but rather would imply blind luck and chance.

I bring this up because it reminds me so much of a dilemma that, I'm told, arhcaeologists and those who study the pre-historic past face. When an archaeologist finds a rock that has been filed down to a point for use as an arrowhead, and they attempt to date it, is there any way to tell whether the arrowhead was made from unimproved material or was a repair (a re-filing, in this case) of previously manufacturered material? Unless the object is one which is known to be in one time period definitively, and not in another, there is no way to tell. The arrowhead that the archaeologist now holds could be the refinement of three larger and duller arrowheads which came before it, and any statement about the date of first manufacture would be difficult to ascertain and the prpduct of pure guesswork. I think the same logic can be applied to this situation as well.

[Phishfan]

I would rather have a rock thrown at me than poop anyday.

[Spider-Dan]

On a serious note ... I get the whole missing link thing but if we came from monkeys then the last remnants of a speaking monkey wouldn't be too hard to find.

You mean other than australopithecus, homo habilis, homo erectus, neanderthals?

In fact seeing as how everything doesn't evolve at the same rate it would stand to reason there should have been some around during recorded or spoken history.

Unlikely, since history indicates that homo sapiens eliminated all of our closest relatives (i.e. the competition) well before recorded history.

The youngest neanderthal fossil we've found is approximately 30,000 years old.  Written language is about 6000 years old.

[Fau Teixeira]

i thought i read something where neanderthal wasn't in the line of homo erectus to homo sapiens .. that it was a divergent branch from homo erectus and that homo sapiens wiped them out..

[run_to_win]

i thought i read something where neanderthal wasn't in the line of homo erectus to homo sapiens .. that it was a divergent branch from homo erectus

That's my understanding as well.

and that homo sapiens wiped them out..

Hunted/fought them into extinction is one theory.  Another is that "we" out-competed with them for food and resources, etc.

[Dave Gray]

but if we came from monkeys then the last remnants of a speaking monkey wouldn't be too hard to find.

We did not come from monkeys.

It is not the theory, nor has it ever been the theory.  I've said that MANY, MANY times on this board.  Why do people keep ignoring this?

[Dave Gray]

i thought i read something where neanderthal wasn't in the line of homo erectus to homo sapiens .. that it was a divergent branch from homo erectus and that homo sapiens wiped them out..

There was some confusion about where different forms of prehistoric man fit in in the 70s and early 80s.  The most recognized theory now, because of new fossil findings is that neandertal and erectus weren't in the same branch, but were divergent branches, as Fau and Run said.

This "if we came from monkeys" crap is so irritating.

[Spider-Dan]

You're right, Dave.  I know that humans and monkeys are two separate branches from the same original trunk, but I'm too lazy to point that out every time.