Re: Isn't Water Like Zero Gravity?



Rich Travsky wrote:

> You keep chanting "predictable" as if it were meaningful or important. It
> isn't. Primates are predisposed to bipedal behavior. They'll do it for
> in any number of contexts.
>
> You want predictable?
>
> http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0401/images/hm_smarts_pic2.jpg
>
> From the not so long ago NatGeo bit on tool using capuchins.
>
> http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0401/resources_geo2.html
> ...
> The monkeys, brown capuchins (Cebus apella), tool around in a remote dry
> forest in northeastern Brazil. After laying tough-shelled palm nuts on
> sandstone slabs, the monkeys stand upsometimes using their tails for
> supportraise rocks perhaps half their own weight head high, then slam
> the nuts. Not content with any old hammer, the monkeys will haul a
> favorite rock to the "anvil" site, says photographer Pete Oxford. They
> also place nuts in small pits from previous hammering and sniff them
> between strikes to see if the kernel is exposed yet. Older capuchins are
> the best nut crackers, but young ones also try their hand.
>
> "These monkeys are acting in ways we once thought only apes did," says
> primatologist Dorothy Fragaszy of the University of Georgia, who plans to
> study the monkeys' tool use in detail.
>
> And since capuchins are only distantly related to apes, she says, their
> ability must have evolved independently.
>
> "Their Schwarzenegger dead lift is amazing to see," says Charles Munn, a
> zoologist with Tropical Nature (a nonprofit ecotourism group) who first
> learned of the hammer wielders from locals. "But it's no surprise the
> monkeys have to work hard to get food in such a marginal, scrubby habitat."
>
> There. 100% predictable. If they want to smash those nuts, they HAVE
> to go bipedal. Using your (koff koff) logic, therefore are ancestors
> became bipedal by hauling huge rocks.
>
> Did I mention that's ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PREDICTABLE????

So, let me get the experimental protocol right... you take a group of
capuchins. You put them in an enclosure, what, with a series of small
rocks, a handy 'anvil site' sandstone slab and a bunch of palm nuts and
then watch. Is that right?

And this produces 100% predictable *bipedalism*? *100%*? For as long as
the experimental protocol lasts? You sure? Do you know what 100% means?

Nice try but, honestly, I think a group of chimps in a smooth-sideded
tank filled to a 1m depth would qualify just a teensy-weensy bit
better. Come on, admit it, Rich - you've been outdone by wet apedome
yet again!

Algis Kuliukas

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Isnt Water Like Zero Gravity?
    ... >> From the not so long ago NatGeo bit on tool using capuchins. ... >> The monkeys, brown capuchins, tool around in a remote dry ... After laying tough-shelled palm nuts on ... >> became bipedal by hauling huge rocks. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: opening oysters with stone tools?
    ... >> the nuts. ... Not content with any old hammer, the monkeys will haul a ... >> And since capuchins are only distantly related to apes, she says, their ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: opening oysters with stone tools?
    ... >> part of the oyster colony itself as the hammer, ... >> An extensive review of recorded instances of tool use in capuchin monkeys ... >> provided excellent data on capuchins' tool use in controlled laboratory ... After laying tough-shelled palm nuts on ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • De unde vine kapitalismul !
    ... Money and monkey business ... THE capuchin monkeys working with economist Keith Chen and psychologist ... - the capuchins opt for the better-value food, ... economists have come to accept that people ...
    (soc.culture.romanian)
  • Intelligence and Fitness Mutuality in Cappucine Monkeys
    ... Capuchin monkeys live in groups of about 40 with a highly evolved social ... One of their most important food items are nuts. ... are carried to rock anvils which can be located miles away. ... depression and attempt to crack the nut with a smooth river stone which may ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)