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Chimps seen making and using spears for hunting
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Full article.Chimpanzees in Senegal have been observed making and using wooden spears to hunt other primates, according to a study in the journal Current Biology.
Researchers documented 22 cases of chimps fashioning tools to jab at smaller primates sheltering in cavities of hollow branches or tree trunks.
This is not a thread about creationism vs. evolution or the origins of man.
I simply read the above articled and tried to imagine the implications if chimpanzees- or other primates that have been observed using tools- were to evolve to the point of discovering fire, agriculture and ultimately developing language skills, full self-awareness and similar intelligence to us.
Obviously not within our lifetimes by a long shot- probably talking thousands of years. But there is a distinct possibility homo sapiens won't be the only self-aware rational animals on this planet for ever.
How would our relationship with any such species change...! Given that such changes would be very slow and gradual chances are there would be a period in which such species would be 'neither here nor there', and no doubt long debates for and against giving such creatures 'human rights', voting rights etc would rage for decades if not centuries.
The mind wobbles... :eek:
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Would anyone want to sleep with an especially hot chimp?
Would chimps make better parters than human men? Or would they also learn to shag you and dump you, fart in bed and ignore you at their whim?
This isnt all that new though is it, certain birds have been using tools to get grubs out of wood for ages, and dolphins mastered the fax machine long before we did.
wonder how long it'll take them to make fire :chin: (very far in the future probably)
That's what we normally do ...
Apparently the females are the more ferocious ones as well, which goes against our understanding of homo sapien hunter gatherer society, where men would hunt in groups and women would forage. Of course, that's not to say we're the same as chimpanzees, but surely if they've developed the use of tools naturally then why should their behavioural / socialogical patterns be so different from ours?
You're a funny sod
Did you see the last message?
"So long, and thanks for all the fish"
As far as I know there are relatively few cases where animals have remained the same for very extended (on a geological time span) periods of time without evolving so in ten million years time when the first chimp makes fire, we won't be the same anyway (or even exist at all perhaps)
But aren't such evolutions the result of adapting to environmental changes, in order to survive? Or, more accurately, individual members of a species which fail to adapt end up dying out, leaving only the 'elites'
We humans are masters of our environments - I would guess further evolution is unlikely, as we have no reason to evolve.
if the climate becomes warmer for example it isn't unreasonable to believe that there could be useful mutations that would lead to evolution of some minor sort.
In the very long run, say 1 billion years it would seem quite unlikely that humans would still exist on planet earth in the current form......
Are we? I'd say the enviroment still completely controls us.
And anyway, we are evolving, we're getting taller for one thing.
I'm not sure it would, though. For evolution to actually occur, the 'inferior' members of a species need to start dying out, so that the 'superior' ones dominate the gene-pool, leading onto to eventual changes/mutations etc. As we are extremely good at keeping ourselves alive, I think its unlikely that the gene-pool would ever get skewed in any particular direction - there probably are individuals alive now who are substantially more heat-resisitant than average, and who's ancestors would probably handle global warming better than the rest of us. The rest of us, however, are not going to die out to allow their genetic advantage to spread across the species.
Just breed less.......
Yep. Nowt to do with evolution.
In most of the countries where apes are native human rights aren't widely respected.
Yeah it's important to remember how evolution works - it isn't a progression following a logical path (slowly getting taller) but as mentioned the result of which random genetic mutations prove most or least successful based on local enviroment.
Given the current relationship between nature and man most evolutionary theory I've seen tends to see the cut off point for significant evolutionary change as the coming of agrarian society. Of course that doesn't mean we don't affect others - wheat (if I remember right) is entirely incapable of growth and reproduction without man (the seeds can't leave the plant except - and literally this is the only thing that has the strength and intrest to do it - when man pulls the seeds/grain off) and of course dogs - a man bred species descended it's thought from jackals.
The biggest problem with mans evolution is the possibility of mobility - evolution requires a pretty closed area and a gene pool big enough to change but small enough that changes can take effects. Simple fact is that the size of human society means single utterly random (and that's the point - utterly random, always unique and without purpose) changes can't have a significant affect on our whole race.
That's why the rainforest has 1000's of the same genus so close together but with completely different developments, different insects clustering in areas of food, light, trees, etc and not moving around - the result being the same source insect becoming utterly different creatures within 10s of meters of each other over 1000's of years.
The enviromental changes would have to basically be catastophic - it could happen, but you're highly unlikely to have survived any event that could bring evolution back into play for humanity.
Of course, that assumes evolution occuring in nature - science has never been one not to explore changes - but of course that wouldn't be evolution but genetic manipulation - evolution can never have a purpose, can never, ever have a direction. That's why Darwin really shocked religious belief in the scientific community and why he hid his results for 30 odd years before publishing them. Not that we came from ape-like ancestors, but that we came here by chance, and are not developing towards a purpose.
Of course that all depends if you think evolution stands as a valid scientific theory - personally I think it's one of the most beautiful and elegant ever created.