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Joe Inhaber

Ape Genius reveals depth of animal intelligence - Telegraph - 1 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...th-of-animal-intelligence.html

ape genius intelligence animal

shared by Joe Inhaber on 13 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • By Paul Eccleston
  • 5:00PM BST 02 May 2008
  • Chimpanzees in Senegal make and sharpen spears with their teeth to go hunting. Like our own ancestors they have learned to use tools to kill their quarry more effectively.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • the skills to make a lethal weapon.
  • Ape Genius - which gives a fascinating insight into the depth of intelligence of animals who share 99 per cent of human genes
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  • Although they can be taught to recognise symbols and words they don't have the mental capacity to contribute to a 'conversation' - and they don't make small talk
  • And most important of all although they can imitate, they can't teach or build on the achievements others have made - unlike more successful humans.
  • But if apes have the power to reaso
  • n, learn skills, feel emotion and co-operate in a frenzied tree-top hunt for Colobus monkeys as chimpanzees do, why don't we have a planet of the apes?
  • Daryl Bambic on 14 Dec 11
     
    There should be a sticky note on this page.
Daryl Bambic

Wegener and Continental Drift Theory - 0 views

www.scientus.org/Wegener-Continental-Drift.html

Continentaldrift

shared by Daryl Bambic on 23 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Survival of the fittest" gave an ethical dimension to the no-holds barred capitalism of the late nineteenth century.
  • ppropriated elements of evolution by natural selection to justify the ruthless business practices of his time
  • Darwin, was the ultimate insider
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • Erasmus, was an early student of evolution and his half-cousin, Francis Galton, was a noted statistician who was considered the father of eugenics.
  • o worries about money
  • connections in the scientific world
  • philosopher, Herbert Spencer.
  • famous biologist, Thomas Huxle
  • But fact and reason alone cannot explain the different reactions to new hypotheses and theories we see in the examples above.
  • faith that future scientists will address the shortcomings in the initial theories.
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 23 Sep 13
       
      When the facts don't neatly fit the theory, scientists have faith that time, discovery and the hard work of others will eventually prove the theory to be true.  Theories are not always neat equations where all variables are explained, accounted for and even understood. We see this with both Darwin and Wegener.
  • Being German wasn't Wegener's only problem; the arguments he used to support his hypothesis crossed into disciplines that were not his specialty.
  • Darwin's theory quickly came to dominate. Within 5 years, Oxford University was using a biology textbook that discussed biology in the context of evolution by natural selection.
  • At Oxford, evolution by natural selection had gone from hypothesis to a priori
    • Daryl Bambic
      Daryl Bambic on 23 Sep 13
       
      A priori means that something is accepted as true, knowledge that is known without having to investigate it.  We use reason and deduction to know that X is true, so it is a priori.
  • Wegener did not have an explanation for how continental drift could have occurred
  • little challenge until the 1960's.
  • he drew from the fields of geology, geography, biology and paleontolog
  • coal deposits, commonly associated with tropical climates, would be found near the North Pole and why the plains of Africa would show evidence of glaciation.
  • A radical new view on their discipline could be a threat to their own authority.
  • "If we are to believe in Wegener's hypothesis we must forget everything which has been learned in the past 70 years and start all over again."
  • The authorities in the various disciplines attacked him as an interloper that did not fully grasp their own subject.
  • The reactions by the leading authorities in the different disciplines was so strong and so negative that serious discussion of the concept stopped
  • The world had to wait until the 1960's for a wide discussion of the Continental Drift Theory to be restarted.
  • Alfred Wegener is one modern scientist amongst many that demonstrate that new ideas threaten the establishment, regardless of the century.
  • ontinental Drift Theory through the first few decades of the twentieth century.
  • continents had once been joined, and over time had drifted apart.
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