: The "arbitrary" line I've drawn is based on the
: fact that our ape cousins don't use a complex symbolic
: language unless they're taught it, and even then, I
: could argue that we can't know whether the trained
: apes are responding to cues or whether they're
: exhibiting unequivocal signs of intelligence. And
: that's true. We *can't* know.
And all this is true of humans. They don't use a complex symbolic language unless they're taught it. And even when they do, you *can't* know whether they're reacting on autopilot or whether there's actually thoughts bubbling away in there. You can only guess, based on their external behavior. And being willing to make this leap of faith for humans but not for apes is whether the arbitrariness comes in.
: Berkeleyites Allan Wilson and Rebecca Cahn set the origin
: or our species at about 35,000 ya, FYI, based on
: molecular data. Even their staunchest critics (e.g.
: Milford Wolpoff at the Univ. of Michigan) would guess
: a 150,000 ya origin for our species. Australopithecus
: and Homo Erectus 1 Mya probably did not have the
: intellectual prowess to build rockets. :)
I think you're thinking of the Sapiens Sapiens subspecies here. I was wrong too, though; the current estimated age of the species is 3 to 400 millennia. Regardless, it's obvious that we spent an awful lot of time just sitting around banging rocks together when we *could* have been building supercomputers and then banging them together.
And although I love UC Berkeley, I have to say that estimates of genetic change are rarely as reliable as bones dug out of the ground. Particularly estimates made over a decade ago. :-) Completely modern skeletal remains have been dated as definitely more than 100,000 years old. There's little that molecular analysis can do to advance that date, and indeed most geneticists aren't trying to. The bulk of the research into dating common ancestors of various human populations has little relevance to determining the age of our subspecies. Both "Eve" and the more recently-posited male common ancestor of all humanity are believed to have lived well over 150,000 ya.
: Nature abhors a vacuum, as the saying goes, and I think
: that if you observe the biological and cultural
: evolution of our species relative to others, you'll
: see something phenomenal take place in the last 2000
: years. A kind of exodus from the dark ages our ape
: cousins and other species are still chained to.
: (Feeding from my earlier point) By
: "opportunity" do you mean put in a cage and
: only let out for feedings and lessons? :P But
: seriously, would chimps and apes get this opportunity
: if we weren't able to learn and teach the language
: ourselves? Why don't they do it?
: I agree. So... what made the difference? Why this
: explosion of technology and population in the last
: 2000 years?
Thing is, unfortunately, that there hasn't *been* any biological evolution in the last 2000 years-aside from an increase in average height and a few other things, mainly due to improved health and diet. This is exactly my point. What produced our sudden cultural explosion? Nothing that we know about. Luck, maybe. A few people with good ideas who happened to be able to communicate them to others before they died, maybe. What we do know is that we didn't suddenly become "special." The humans who spent tens of thousands of years without writing or metalworking or agriculture--and who are still doing it, in some parts of the world--weren't any different than us.
So why assume that apes' lack of cultural progress makes *them* different?
: Both Patterson and her critics (among them Smithers Green
: formerly of the University of Michigan) acknowledge
: that for all the success stories told about Koko's
: ability to talk, there were lots of confusing attempts
: at communication, too. What the public has been told
: about Koko is a kind of Bible Code. Certain truths
: have been extracted from the noise and made to look
: like a pattern.
I'm not familiar with Smithers Green (and an extended library and web search indicates that no one else in the world is familiar with him either :-), but absence of positive evidence does not constitute negative evidence, nor does it cancel the positive evidence that *is* there. Sure, we don't know the meaning of every gesture Koko and Michael make, nor do we know whether every gesture has a meaning--and until this type of research receives more funding, it will be difficult to produce results that could be considered non-anecdotal by even the most hostile critic. But the volume of undeniably meaningful information transmission is overwhelming. The questions left to explore concern how good gorillas can be at talking, not whether they talk.
: But let me say this. I'm left as unimpressed by our
: species' sentience as I am by our species' attempts at
: defining it. That doesn't mean we aren't special. And
: it doesn't mean our cousins and flippered friends are
: close to us intellectually, as much as some of us
: ::pokes SD: would like to create the concept of the
: BIG HAPPY WORLD OF WILDLIFE in the image of Disney's
: Bambi (minus the hunting scene).
And those who want very much to believe in their place at the Top of the Evolutionary Ladder ::pokes David with hunting knife, several times:: have a tendency to keep raising the bar defining "sentience," or "self-awareness," changing the rules of the game every time it looks like a nonhuman creature is winning.
First tool use was considered a good measure of intelligence--but then it was discovered that even birds use tools occasionally. Then it was upped to tool use which is learned and passed from individual to individual--but chimpanzees teach one another to make termite brushes. Then they decided that you have to be able to *make* tools, not just use existing objects to be considered intelligent--but as it turned out, termite brushes required quite a bit of skill and time to construct. Last I heard, people were arguing that you had to be able to make tools for making other tools....
A similar progression has occurred with language. When it was discovered that even dogs could learn the "meanings" of verbs and nouns so that they could obey commands never heard before, linguists argued that the ability to understand syntax was the new important thing. Unfortunately, U of H researchers have found that dolphins are quite good at this--distinguishing "bring the ball to the stick" from "bring the stick to the ball." So now, people argue that you can't be considered intelligent unless you already *possess* a complex language. Come 2020, I'm sure the developments of the Rubik's Cube and the knock-knock joke will be considered the threshold points for self-awareness. :-)
Humans are special. So are coatimundis, cuttlefish and centipedes. Every species has unique attributes; ours just don't happen to be the ones we'd like.
--SiliconDream
