Apes Make and Use Tools

[jonb]

That doesn't surprise me. How many knuckle-dragging mouth-breather neanderthals in our society are considered to be desirable or superior just because they have big muscles/tits?

I think the real Neanderthals, were far more intelligent than is commonly accepted, but I go along with the gist of what you are saying totally.
I would contend. We have an education system that selects for those that learn by wrote really fast, but does not realise that understanding a subject is more than just having a few checkable facts. That those that rise to the top are the ones who are good at tunnel vision and infighting, not those with the ability to see the wider context, and who are able to think a problem through.
Put it this way two and a half thousand years ago the Chinese were the most advanced people on earth. Then they got a central administration, with a civil service, and an education system with examinations that selected the elite, and they hardly invented another thing.
That is my personal view anyway.

[Mikethechristian]

apes and monkeys are just gods concept designs and doodles.

[Darwinian]

apes and monkeys are just gods concept designs and doodles.

Why would an omniscient and omnipotent entity of infinite intelligence and understanding need concept designs and need to doodle?

[Red Celt]

I loved the TED video of the crows. As a crow philosopher, that will make more sense when I (later) explain what the hell I mean by calling myself that.

As for the thread subject name "RE: Apes Make and Use Tools", I read those words on a tool made by apes (an Apple display monitor). We are, after all, apes.

[Minimalist]

apes and monkeys are just gods concept designs and doodles.

Where do jesus-freak fuckheads fit in on your scale?

[Mikethechristian]

apes and monkeys are just gods concept designs and doodles.

Why would an omniscient and omnipotent entity of infinite intelligence and understanding need concept designs and need to doodle?

everyone gets writers block from time to time but it's fixing your mistakes that counts.(noahs flood)

[Faith No More]

Haha..."writer's block." That's priceless.

[Creed of Heresy]

Writer's block implies a lack of omnipotence and omniscience. Try again, and this time try not to be stupid.

[Whateverist]

I find this a very interesting area, there is a thing I haver noticed, which I have not found reference to in any of the literature.
In all the troupes of primates where invention has been observed that I know about, it has invariably been low status individuals within the group that have been the most inventive.
Chimpanzees making noise with found paint tins, in Jane Goodalls work were all low status males.
The Japanese monkeys on the beach sifting grain from sand, inventing and learning was all done by females low in the hierarchy.

I just might just be a coincidence, but it is also odd how many great inventions did not come from those in the know, but from low status people that life was seeming to pass by.

Necessity can be quite a mother I guess. It makes some sense that individuals who are most adept making their living in the prescribed way wouldn't need to find another way. Those with the least access to the easy meal would have more reason to mess around sifting grain from the sand.

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I loved the TED video of the crows. As a crow philosopher, that will make more sense when I (later) explain what the hell I mean by calling myself that.

As for the thread subject name "RE: Apes Make and Use Tools", I read those words on a tool made by apes (an Apple display monitor). We are, after all, apes.

Yep. I wondered when I saw the title if I'd open it to see a photo of a human with a wrench or some such. Humans, the other ape.

[jonb]

Necessity can be quite a mother I guess. It makes some sense that individuals who are most adept making their living in the prescribed way wouldn't need to find another way. Those with the least access to the easy meal would have more reason to mess around sifting grain from the sand.

This is why I don't like theories of Strong men being in charge, as if we select for those that are driven by position and to set their sights on an objective that is the way they are going to view things. This way of thinking is great to carry the individual to the top, but they are going to be less observant of their surroundings. This is a large part of what to my mind happened in the banking crisis, that all the individual traders set their sights on sort term goals, but very few were looking at the larger picture, and to question the short term goals was seen to be undermining the system, so banking set its sights on a goal and the whole lot fell down the hole.
I can remember when IBM were going to change the world, nobody thought a few teenagers in a shed, would be the ones who actually did, with apple and windows.
To me what makes a progressive society is not how strong its leaders are, but how easy is it for lowly individuals to access capital.