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Peeping Tom
Joined: 15 Feb 2006
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 Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 8:53 pm Post subject: Apes Shown to Be Able to Plan Ahead |
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I'm pretty sure you can all guess why this is a relevant topic in Korea...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060519/ap_on_sc/plan_ahead_5
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Apes Shown to Be Able to Plan Ahead
WASHINGTON - They don't bring along an umbrella or sunglasses that might be needed later, but researchers say apes, like people, can plan ahead.
Both orangutans and bonobos were able to figure out which tool would work in an effort to retrieve grapes, and were able to remember to bring that tool along hours later, researchers report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
In a series of laboratory tests the apes were shown the tools and grapes, allowed to retrieve grapes, and then removed from the area where the treats were available.
They were allowed back from one to 14 hours later and most were able to bring along the correct tool to get the treats, report Nicholas J. Mulcahy and Josep Call of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
The researchers said the finding suggests that planning ahead arose at least 14 million years ago, when the last common ancestor of bonobos, orangutans and humans lived.
While the findings do not necessarily imply that the apes are able to anticipate a future state of mind, they are nonetheless groundbreaking, Thomas Suddendorf of the University of Queensland in Australia said in a commentary.
"By identifying what capacities our closest living relatives share with us, we can get a glimpse at our evolutionary past," Suddendorf said.
In a separate paper in ScienceExpress, the electronic version of Science, researchers report that scrub jays look over their shoulders when hiding food for future use and, if they think another bird saw where they put it, will relocate their cache.
The report by Nicola S. Clayton and colleagues at the University of Cambridge in England noted that relocating food was common when a bird thought it had been observed by a more dominant bird, but not when a partner was present.
The findings indicate that the birds act to avoid the possibility that a non-partner will raid their stored food, and remember who was around when they hid it, the researchers say. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 9:44 pm Post subject: |
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I understand that apes planning ahead and using tools to solve some complex problems is not really news.
The last I heard, they lacked all signs of self-awareness -- that is, consciousness. When researchers placed red dots (just make-up) all over a bonobo chimp's face and showed him a mirror, he made no effort to clean his face up, as he did not appear to recognize himself. There have been other experiments, but the argument goes that only human beings have a notion of "I" or "me," -- also, only human beings know that they will one day die of natural causes.
I think the jury is still out on dolphins, though. I suspect we do not yet grasp the depth of their intelligence.
Koreans are not apes, by the way, just incredibly chauvenistic and ethnic nationalists in a way we haven't seen since the Germans rattled their sabers against Europe in the very early 1900s.
Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 11, 2006 1:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 10:48 pm Post subject: |
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| The last I heard, they lacked all signs of self-awareness -- that is, consciousness. When researchers placed red dots (just make-up) all over a bonobo chimp's face and showed him a mirror, he made no effort to clean his face up, as he did not appear to recognize himself. |
It's possible that could just be from a certain animal not using one sense as much as others. I could see cat scientists concluding humans having a lack of self-awareness / community because when they took a human and put him in a room with his wife's scent he failed to recognize it and just sat there doing nothing. |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 12:10 am Post subject: |
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| mithridates wrote: |
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| The last I heard, they lacked all signs of self-awareness -- that is, consciousness. When researchers placed red dots (just make-up) all over a bonobo chimp's face and showed him a mirror, he made no effort to clean his face up, as he did not appear to recognize himself. |
It's possible that could just be from a certain animal not using one sense as much as others. I could see cat scientists concluding humans having a lack of self-awareness / community because when they took a human and put him in a room with his wife's scent he failed to recognize it and just sat there doing nothing. |
a) if you had never seen your own reflection before, why would you be able to recognise yourself if you did?
b) It would be even less likely to recognise itself if it was covered in paint, let alone possess the very human urge to clean up ones face.
These tests prove nothing, really nothing, except that we judge other living things by our own unique norms of behavior.
Animals have far more ability to use their senses than we do. How is it a recent fledgling is able to make a 9000 km flight over the oceans, alone, and for the first time, to arrive in the exact spot its parents and ancestors have for millenia- and on the same calendar date? or how do turtles know to return to the exact same beach they hatched on, to lay their eggs, 20 years later after circuiting the earth's oceans several times? |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 2:21 am Post subject: |
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| How is it a recent fledgling is able to make a 9000 km flight over the oceans, alone, and for the first time, to arrive in the exact spot its parents and ancestors have for millenia- and on the same calendar date? or how do turtles know to return to the exact same beach they hatched on, to lay their eggs, 20 years later after circuiting the earth's oceans several times? |
pheremones and chemical receptors in the brain. look it up. It's known. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 3:00 am Post subject: ... |
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| Koreans are not apes, by the way, just incredibly chauvenistic and ethnic nationalists in a way we haven't seen since the Germans rattled their sabers against Europe in the very early 1900s. |
And I'm on a run with agreeing with Gopher.
We fight about enough things on this forum without cheap shots at Koreans. |
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