[ExI] evolution

[William Flynn Wallace]

I can't tell how strict you are being here, so this may just be a matter of
you having a very high standard of what constitutes tool use/creating
tools/learning to use tools, but there are plenty of scholarly articles,
web pages indexed by google, and videos demonstrating various degrees of
tool use by non-human animals. Just search for "ethology tool use" to see
what I mean. Or "birds using tools" on YouTube. Some of these are quite
impressive IMHO.
-Henry

*Hey, I never said that there weren't any lower animals using tools, but I
did have problem with spiders and beaver dams.*

*The toughest problem with discerning instinct from learned behavior is
that to qualify for instinctive, the behavior has to be unlearned (among
other criteria).  It's hard to prove that.  If a baby chimp watches his
mother use a stick as a tool, is he learning?  Well, certainly he can,
which proves nothing. Would he have grown up to use that tool anyway?  *

*Some studies have separated babies from parents to see what the kid will
do without opportunities to learn, and complex patterns that show up are
then instinctive.  Unless, of course, you have raised a critter that is
different because of having no parents around.*

* In sum, it's hard to prove that some behavior is learned and it's hard to
prove it's not.*

*I believe in the continuity of abilities down the phylogenetic scale. *

*bill w *

On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 8:46 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] evolution
>
>
>
> spike wrote    we may find that most beasts use tools in some way, and
>
> many of them make tools.
>
>
>
> ​>…There is a problem here with interpretation.  If a person, aka human,
> used a tool, he must have learned it somehow, watching, experimenting - aka
> learning either from others or just from messing around…
>
>
>
> So show me learning to use tools and I'll be happy with that.
>
>
>
> bill w
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>
> ​
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>
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> I don’t have a reference, but the chimps might be our best bet: the mother
> chimps show their offspring how to make a termite catching stick by
> choosing a long straight twig and stripping the leaves.  Some chimps never
> learn how to do that.  Jared Diamond (I think he was the one) observed that
> chimps seem to learn that skill easier than humans do.
>
>
>
> spike
>
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>
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