Female Chimps Spear Bush Babies!

by R. Isible Thu Feb 22, 2007 20:46

It's what's wrapped up in a whole load of annoying javascript on the national geographic site.

by redjade Fri Feb 23, 2007 00:01

This is big news - no, really!

'primitive' tools lead to war, war leads to more tools and more tools lead to war.

the chimps were smart not to start an arm's race and be satisfied with sucking ants off sticks. Other primates made a complex bad choice a long time ago and now the world suffers.

we could make peace now - and aside from not driving chimps and our other cousins into extinction, we could just offer them seats on the UN Permanent Security Council. But, they wont get there until they have nukes - they will have to wait in line after the Iranians.

There is a larger issue here however - there's an athiest meme that comes from the scientific community that what separates 'us' from 'them' is that 'we' developed tools.

true, but this is shallow thinking, me thinks.

Tools are not just sticks and stones that can break another chimp's bones - but it's the babel lunacy that hurts us.

Tools are not tools without the imagination that sees them as tools.

Humans are complex symbol makers - and out of that, we conquered the world and kept the chimps in their place - remember the Hobbits of Indonesia and how we humans wiped them out? We humans don't like competition

Symbols. Making them means making more symbols to explain those symbols - and so it goes.

A rock is just a rock - until someone calls it a hammer or calls it a weapon or calls a pet.

Time to revive this thread from the past?:
Socialists: Give apes human rights
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75708

. .. ... .. .

'Bush Babies' is not only a racist epithet (a.k.a Galago)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galago

Bush Babies: Are they With US or Are They Against Us?

by Catlady Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:51

Yep, I saw it on the telly!!!

Crows were given a glass bottle with a piece of food inside, and a straight piece of wire. They figured out (quite quickly if I remember correctly) that to get the food out, they had to manipulate the wire by bending one end before sticking it into the bottle to retrieve the food. Fascinating stuff... Can't give a reference to the programme as I honestly don't remember, but I think it was on Animal Planet, maybe about six months ago.

Time perhaps to open this thread too, on Bonobos - a more peaceful cousin of ours: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77573

by pat c Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:57

Dunno about the bonobos, they won't fight back. But, hey, try and capture these Chimps for bushmeat and you'll get a spear in the belly! Maybe they will form a guerilla army.