Tim Cook wrote:
> Ooh, here's another good example of 'the media' not presenting the whole 
> story, skewing what people think of something:
> 
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,504423,00.html
> 
> has a quote markedly absent in most of the other 'wa ha, humans are 
> smarter than apes', namely "Human children are not overall more 
> intelligent than other primates," concluded the lead researcher, Esther 
> Herrmann of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology 
> in Leipzig, "but instead have specialized skills of social cognition. 
> They learn in a way that chimpanzees don't learn."
> 
> then there's this gem, a comment by another scientist in the same field:
> 
>
http://news.google.com/nwshp?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&oe=UTF-8&channel=s&tab=wn&ned=us&ncl=1120425672&hl=en&btclp=1&scoring=r

> 
> 


Human Supremecist Party Line:  "We *must* be vastly superior to the 
apes--we're toolmakers!  Oh, sure, an ape will select a rock to use as a 
nutcracker, or strip the leaves off a stick to make a termite fishing 
tool, but *we* make tools just all the time!"

I'd be inclined to guess that the percentage of people who have actually 
made a tool is probably higher here than in some other places, though 
this may depend on whether you consider a computer program to be a tool 
(and I don't count "using the good butcher knife to open a can of 
evaporated milk because you can't find the magnetic church key that's 
stuck to the side of the fridge" as toolmaking).  But, anyway, I got to 
thinking about this a few years back on a camping trip.

When it was time to set up the tent, I looked around and found a nice 
rock to use to hammer in the stakes.  Later, after the campfire was 
built, I stripped the leaves off a couple of long, thin sticks to make 
weenie-cookers...

Well, it just made me think, that's all.

--Sherry Shaw


-- 
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[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}//                                   TenMoons

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