Chimps are smarter!

[AV1611VET]

 

[Maxwell511]

I think your post is a long way of ignoring the fact that animals mostly like to eat, and children mostly like to play. I wonder how it would go if they did the experiment with starving children (confined in a cage as the chimps were) who were dependent on being fed by their captors (as the chimps were). I could be wrong but I have a hunch the children would skip the tapping and pushing on the clear box and just grab the food as quick as they could.

The evidence we have with feral children suggests you are right.

 

[Naraoia]

I decided to consider this argument from a more rational perspective. You understand that I think people don't argue based on rational principles but on other cognitive biases.

It seems most of our debate is based on a misunderstanding, then. Here I was thinking you thought the opposite...

Understand that if we are being scientific it does not matter if the theories are based on evidence. It only really matters if the theory can be supported by new evidence that test the theory. If this weren't the case then you are saying that completely unevidenced ideas cannot be falsified. You understand how that is logically false?

I fully understand that, but you didn't sound like you were aware that you were speculating. You understand how, when you say "chimps do A because they are B", it comes across as a statement of fact, not a hypothesis?

Yes education does, there is ample evidence to show this (see pdf below again). However sometimes education can be overridden. You understand that experiments are based on the testing of hypothesis and that are constructed to produce very specific results. Also causal but irrelevant factors do not necessarily become irrelevant at scales we can measure.

So saying that education has nothing to do with behaviour of people is not a logical conclusion from the ability to produce qualitatively similar behaviour in qualitatively different experiments.

Good thing I said no such thing. I said education (or lack thereof) had nothing to do with humans' tendency to overcopy in this particular situation.

Also the link you gave did not direct or indirect to the results that you seem to be talking about.

Because they were unpublished at the time. Wait, let me look... They are published now. Here's the paper.

I admit that "deductive" reasoning may have been a mistake on my part. I had not read the ideas in awhile and start forming my own conceptual understanding of it. They hate me also in the university for this, I am bad with notation or words.

I agree. Why do you think that what I am saying is against this?

Because of that pesky "deductive" in your post Seems we don't have a disagreement after all?

The experiment cited by the OP for one. You understand the experiment was designed with human toddlers as a control to understand how chimps think?

The experiment cited by the OP covers a completely different situation. You were talking about a cognitive bias humans have in assessing equality. Then you went ahead and said that you think chimps don't have this bias. And failed to support that contention with evidence.

That is illogical.

Precisely how?

I disagree. Give me awhile to figure out why this is wrong. I am not saying I am not wrong, but this seems wrong to me.

I'll give you all the time you want, but I'm pretty sure I know what "valid" and "sound" mean with respect to arguments. Multiple teachers hammered it into my head in multiple classes.

If we are going to state obvious truths like this I think I should say strawberries are tasty.

Cute

I'm not trying to convince you of a position.

Next time, you could warn me before I waste time on being wordily unconvinced

 

[Maxwell511]

It seems most of our debate is based on a misunderstanding, then. Here I was thinking you thought the opposite...

I fully understand that, but you didn't sound like you were aware that you were speculating. You understand how, when you say "chimps do A because they are B", it comes across as a statement of fact, not a hypothesis?

You do know, that I know, I am talking "something that is not a swear word".

That is pretty much all the time.

Because of that pesky "deductive" in your post Seems we don't have a disagreement after all?

Again sorry about that. I am bad at conforming to formulations.

The experiment cited by the OP covers a completely different situation. You were talking about a cognitive bias humans have in assessing equality.

I am, but I am not really.

Then you went ahead and said that you think chimps don't have this bias. And failed to support that contention with evidence.

I do think that. You understand the difference between thinking something and believing something. Academics work in a different way to what people think. If we think something we wanna test it, we don't believe it. (Obviously most of the tests are post-grads, professors, and other people saying that a person is an idiot for asking that question).

That's how we work, trainee.

I'll give you all the time you want, but I'm pretty sure I know what "valid" and "sound" mean with respect to arguments. Multiple teachers hammered it into my head in multiple classes.

I will succeed that.

Next time, you could warn me before I waste time on being wordily unconvinced

I hope my stupid disagreements benefit you more than me.

 

[Naraoia]

You do know, that I know, I am talking "something that is not a swear word".

That is pretty much all the time.

I simply don't understand what you mean

I am, but I am not really.

Ooookay. Could you elaborate?

You understand the difference between thinking something and believing something. Academics work in a different way to what people think. If we think something we wanna test it, we don't believe it. (Obviously most of the tests are post-grads, professors, and other people saying that a person is an idiot for asking that question).

Tell me about it! St Andrews evolutionists are a wonderful community for getting into lengthy discussions about half-baked ideas

That's how we work, trainee.

Whoa, do I see a high horse looming over me?

I hope my stupid disagreements benefit you more than me.

Same to you!

 

[AlexBP]

Just so, some humans, having been taught that Goddidit, continue to maintain that position even when science has shown how the phenomena occur without the necessity of magical or divine intervention. The Christian for instance has learned his Bible, his prayerbook, his worship rituals, and his dogma. He doesn't, like any reasonable chimp, cut to the chase and treat his neighbor as he would like himself to be treated. He demands the whole elaborate, useless rituals, prayers and dogmas, and may dispense with the payoff, social responsibility, entirely.

When you feel a need to inflate your own ego, you log on to www.christianforums.com and insult Christians. If you really believed that chimps were smarter than us, you'd instead log on to www.chimpforums.com and insult chimps.

 

[Gracchus]

When you feel a need to inflate your own ego, you log on to www.christianforums.com and insult Christians.

Whenever anyone opens their mouth they are inflating their ego. If they are trying to impart useful information, then they are implying that the person they are talking to is ignorant of that information. Or maybe they are just saying, "Look at me!" Then again, maybe they were just trying to jog lazy minds out of their ruts, because an ignorant and superstitious population is dangerous to everyone.

If you really believed that chimps were smarter than us, you'd instead log on to www.chimpforums.com and insult chimps.

It is true that humans handle abstractions better than chimps and are better at processing body language. You can point at something all day and the chimp won't have a clue what you are trying to call attention to. (A dog will!) And chimps can't solve problems in absolute differential calculus, but then, how many humans can?

The point of the study was that chimps enter a deductive mode sooner than humans. They don't keep doing meaningless things just because "It has always been that way." (I suspect that religion has a lot more to do with the relations between peers, with social bonding, than it does with a relationship with some deity with properties so abstract as to make perception impossible.)

What Jesus was trying to teach was that legalism, ritual, and even prayer are not as important as how we treat other people. The dogma saves you from having to think and the ritual comforts you with its implicit magic.

As to the insult part: If you find a statement to be unpleasant or insulting that can only be in proportion to the truth of the statement. A lie is a lie and need not be considered if it does no damage.

So: You were insulted by a truth that cut too close to home.

I already accept evolution. I think religion and creationism are detrimental to society, but they will probably not bring about a collapse in my lifetime. I am not uninterested, but I am disinterested.

I come to this forum to learn, especially about how people think, and how they react. I may also float hypotheses I formulate from my observations. If I make statement you find provocative statements, then consider that you responded by being insulted, which I find interesting, although not gratifying.

By the way there doesn't seem to be a website at www.chimpforums.com , so I guess I will just continue posting in the next most appropriate place.

I don't know if you can insult a chimp.

ETA: My ego, I assure you, needs no inflation.

 

[variant]

Humans will continue to do as they have been taught, even when part of what they have been taught is obviously useless. So some human children are in this instance are, apparently, not smarter than chimps. They are not even as smart.

Just so, some humans, having been taught that Goddidit, continue to maintain that position even when science has shown how the phenomena occur without the necessity of magical or divine intervention. The Christian for instance has learned his Bible, his prayerbook, his worship rituals, and his dogma. He doesn't, like any reasonable chimp, cut to the chase and treat his neighbor as he would like himself to be treated. He demands the whole elaborate, useless rituals, prayers and dogmas, and may dispense with the payoff, social responsibility, entirely.

Some human adults may demonstrate as great an intelligence as chimps, and dispense with the useless parts of the procedure.

Your argument goes off the rails when it suggests that humans do not overwhelmingly mentally surpass chimpanzees during their lifetimes and contrasts religion with task streamlining.

 

[Maxwell511]

Whoa, do I see a high horse looming over me?

Admittedly, it has been less than three weeks since I stopped being a trainee and I have been a bit overly "excited". I think, personally, I have beat the high horse a bit too much. I suspect I may now be beating a dead horse.

Seriously though, I think someone should call a vet.

 

[Naraoia]

Admittedly, it has been less than three weeks since I stopped being a trainee and I have been a bit overly "excited". I think, personally, I have beat the high horse a bit too much. I suspect I may now be beating a dead horse.

Seriously though, I think someone should call a vet.

Whatever "stopped being a trainee" (survived your viva?) means, congrats "Excitement" is a perfectly understandable reaction

 

[Gracchus]

Admittedly, it has been less than three weeks since I stopped being a trainee and I have been a bit overly "excited".

You've stopped being a trainee? Congo rats! Now you can get down to some serious learning!

 

[Maxwell511]

Whatever "stopped being a trainee" (survived your viva?) means, congrats "Excitement" is a perfectly understandable reaction

Thanks. Pass with very minor corrections.

The viva was actually kinda fun though. I was really worried before it. But during it when they started asking me questions, I started thinking maybe I do know what I am talking about and my data is really cool.

I didn't think that the long hours and continuously thinking you are stupid for several years were worth it. I actually quit half way through it, but my professor wouldn't let me. Also being a patient in a mental hospital for a month during it kind of "reduced" my confidence. I didn't think I could do it. But I did.

It was so worth it. It really was.

 

[Maxwell511]

You've stopped being a trainee? Congo rats! Now you can get down to some serious learning!

Serious research I believe you mean.

 

[Naraoia]

Serious research I believe you mean.

Why, research is learning