Are Chimps smarter than Monkeys?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by WANDERER, Jan 14, 2008.

  1. Gustav Banned Banned

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    ?

    ".....races of man?"

    some better than others?
    give criteria, then measure
     
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  3. WANDERER Banned Banned

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    Enmos
    In this case, is it reasonable to assume that a species that has evolved within a specific environment becomes habituated in it and evolves the traits that will help it survive within it?

    If so, then would not any subsequent groups pushed out of these primordial grounds not going to face more alien and therefore challenging environments in relaiton to the ones they are forced out of?
    And so, if geography also isolates these groups, one remaining back in the original homelands and another forced into different environments, will not these groups begin to evolve differently and due to genetic isolation begin exhibiting the characteristics, both physical and mental, that the environment necessitates as vital?
     
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  5. Gustav Banned Banned

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    inuit vs tahitian?
     
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  7. Gustav Banned Banned

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    meteor strike
    peoria vs timbuktoo
     
  8. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    I just goggled it. You're right.

    I didn't know about Homo sapiens idaltu. Last I heard, it was sapiens and neanderthals. With neanderthats now considered a different species, the extra sapiens would be redundant.

    But, now that this idaltu guy's showed up, I guess we're back to the double sapiens.
     
  9. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    This is wrong. Within a genus, species can hybridize. In fact when I studied biology fifty years ago the definition of "genus" was: a group of species capable of hybridizing. In most cases they cannot do it naturally because their different courtship rituals do not stimulate the urge to copulate; e.g., tigers with their retractable claws require being scratched to stimulate sexual desire whereas lions don't get off on that at all, but "tigons" have been created by artificial insemination. In other cases like zebrasses, coy-wolves and ocicats, the mating can occur due to difficulty finding a mate, in captivity or a shrinking population. Black-headed and rose-breasted grosbeaks hybridize freely where their ranges now overlap due to forest clearing, so freely that within a century they will probably blend into a single species. Hybrid psittacines (within the genera macaws, conures, Amazons, cockatoos, etc.) are common in the pet trade.
    This is wrong. There are now two recognized species of gorilla: Western and Eastern.
    Humans, orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos and the two species of gorilla comprise the hominid family ("great apes"). Together with the gibbon family (hylobatids or "lesser apes") the two families comprise the superfamily of apes, now called hominoids.
    I believe there is some controversy although I don't know whether a sizeable majority of biologists weigh in on one side or the other. The Wikipedia article is not very scholarly (it implies that if it's true that modern humans and Neanderthals interbred that means they must be one species, which is balderdash) and I'm not going to start digging through articles I probably won't understand.
    "Race" is a term that has fallen out of favor but some biologists say it's more akin to a population than a subspecies.
    Particularly in the past few hundred years with transportation technology facilitating the mixing of populations, the genetic identification necessary for classification as subspecies has all but faded away.
    A good case can be made for the sub-saharan Africans. After the diaspora in 70,000BCE it's likely that the migrants out of Africa would have encountered conditions causing greater pressure for genetic variation than the population that remained in Africa. Or we could just take the Rastafari point of view that deep down inside we're all Africans.

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    One of the most ephemeral of traits. Populations can change from extremely dark skin to extremely light skin in a couple of thousand years if they migrate in a north-south direction.
    Hey dude, we all get to mouth off once in a while. But you're aggravating a personal insult by combining it with spurious profanity. Please try to stick closer to the rules of discourse on this forum, and argue like a scientist.
     
  10. Gustav Banned Banned

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    spurious is the key
    no venom
    just emphasis

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    knock yourself out
    frag, i do not trust you
     
  11. Dark Pig Registered Member

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    How dare you...

    Moderator! Delete these contraversial and confronting words, this madman is inciting uncensored, potentially un-complimentary, thought with his deviously holeproof logic.

    Wanderer, my advice to you is to take the "sciforums celebrates diversity" course, that will cure you of your problematic ideas.
    Plus you get a nifty scar on your forehead.
    Everyone at sciforums does it... join us!
     
  12. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Since there is no testing that has ever been done with both animals taking the same exam I'd say that they were about equal when it comes to their own intelligence. Monkeys do things in their own ways in order to survive and chimps do their things to survive. They are both still here and therefore that means they have about equal intelligences in the natural world in which they live, not in a world in which humans test them against each other.

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  13. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I am angry ? lol
    You are the one being angry, and that merely irritates me.

    Why do you even start a thread when all you want to hear is people agreeing with you. The moment someone disagrees with you you start flaming them.
    I feel sorry for you.

    As you were..
     
  14. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Work on your attitude and maybe then I'll answer your questions.

    Goodbye.
     
  15. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Of course you'd then have the racists against you yet again since they deny that humankind originated in Africa

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    I agree.
     
  16. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    To a certain degree venom is in the eye of the beholder. I am suggesting that many beholders of this thread will see venom in your post regardless of how it was intended, and that's what counts. Misunderstandings can occur very easily on a forum with a huge international membership. Different cultures have wildly different standards of politeness and tolerance of profanity and we want to make everyone feel welcome. The dominant language on this website is English but that does not mean we uphold American, British, Australian, or other anglophone cultural standards.
    My warnings to you were based upon your insults to other members and/or moderators, which is a clear violation of the rules. If these insults were meant in jest then please enlighten me. I have been accused of not understanding sarcasm.

    You do not have to trust me, but you do have to at least recognize my authority as a moderator. I tolerate a lot of rude behavior because most of you members are crazy young kids, but at some point I have to enforce the rules. One of the rules is: No insulting other members or moderators. I am lenient with that because kids use strong language and kids make jokes, but my leniency has a limit and you are close to reaching it.
    These days I think we'd all agree that this would constitute an "extraordinary assertion," since the overwhelming preponderance of evidence shows that humankind did indeed originate in Africa. Therefore, in accordance with the scientific method, this assertion must be immediately supported with "extraordinary substantiation." If it is not so accompanied, it constitutes trolling. I--and at least some of the other moderators--will treat it as a clear violation of the forum's rules.
     
  17. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Good to hear as I know there are some here that hold that position

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  18. DeepThought Banned Banned

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    We have been over this on another thread Fraggle. There you were unable to come up with a convincing argument why the Tasmanian Aborigines, who have lived for over 40,000 years in a climate similar to Britain, have not shown any evidence of this incredible adaptation which produces white Europeans from black Africans in the space of a 'couple of thousand years'.

    If such an adaptation occurred, one would suggest that the ideal skin color for Europeans would be a light brown, as this would enable vitamin D synthesis (the current theory in vogue), whilst avoiding the ravages of skin cancer.

    The diet of the ancient Celts was very healthy and included fresh and salt fish, as well as dolphin and whale meat.

    To add further confusion, there is the findings of Keith Cheng at Penn State University in 2005, that suggests different skin colors are the results of DNA mutations, albeit his work involved zebra fish.

    If any of the above happened, why are there not pale skinned people with African facial markers such as flattened features, large lips and frizzy hair anywhere on earth? Not to mention the physiology of the body which is very different.
     
  19. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think you understand how mutations take place and are propagated. The Tasmanians obviously didn't experience the mutations which would result in a lighter skin color.

    What's the mystery?

    Umm.
    Of course variations in skin color are due to genetic mutations... How is this confusing?
     
  20. DeepThought Banned Banned

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    So how has not having light skin been disadvantageous to them?

    Shouldn't they have died out as they struggled to synthesize vitamin D?

    Why do dark skinned people in northern Europe not suffer any debilitating illness due to their skin tone, and yet white Europeans contract fatal skin cancers?
     
  21. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Yes, sorry I didn't respond. But while I was thinking about it (and then not thinking about it as other things came up) I followed the rule of not pursuing my argument further without first responding to your criticism.

    First you have to remember that the main population of Aborigines underwent the change from light skin to dark skin in the first place, which is consistent with my assertion. There are plenty of other illustrations. The Bengalis and the Lithuanians are separated by no more than three thousand years of migration. The Mohawks and the various people of the Amazon, something like ten thousand, and the opposite change of color correlates with the opposite direction of migration. I didn't specifically mention black Africans; Europeans are indeed descended from them but that separation goes back 70,000 years and would hardly validate my hypothesis. As for the Tasmanians not undergoing it, nobody said that biological phenomena are universal. They're a small population and perhaps they simply didn't have the right genes among them to be selected for.
    Nature has no predilection for ideal mutations. Just ones that barely work.
    Duh? What else would they be the result of, given that they are hereditary?
    Because it was only one tribe (or a small number in collaboration) who made the migration out of Africa. That was a pretty small gene pool. Perhaps they didn't happen to have what we consider to be "typical" African features. We don't even know what typical African features were 70,000 years ago.
    What population of humans or other animals would have out-competed for their ecological niche as they struggled with the effects of poor adaptation? Island ecosystems are famous for bizarre animals. It would probably take two orders of magnitude more time for them to either fall prey to the sparse competition in that environment or to be saved by a spontaneous mutation that provided the adaptation. And during that time the sea level would rise and fall hundreds of times and reconnect them with the mainland ecosystem anyway.

    There are other ways to get vitamin D besides synthesizing it, and I'm sure they don't all depend on living in our modern "Better Living Through Chemistry" artificial ecosystem.
    People with lighter skin have a survival advantage over people with darker skin in darker climates, but it's a statistical effect. You're not going to see entire neighborhoods dropping dead from a vitamin deficiency in the--how many, one?--generation during which there's been a significant population of dark-skinned people in northern Europe.

    Europeans have only been living long enough to die from cancer for a few generations. Life expectancy 100 years ago was around 40--for an adult who had already survived the perils of childhood. The Agricultural Revolution with its grain-intensive diet had a terrible impact on life expectancy. In the Roman Empire it was 23.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2008
  22. WANDERER Banned Banned

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    I want to be disagreed with by people with a mind.

    Your thought processes and your inability to answer my questions points to a quality of mind and an indoctrination.

    What irritates me is simplicity pretending to be depth and fear pretending to be enlightenment.
     
  23. WANDERER Banned Banned

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    I say we all pretend all species are alike, simply because our assessments of them is based on superficial standards.
     

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