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Post by Mrs. Darth Vader on Mar 16, 2010 18:34:45 GMT -6
Sagan starts chapter 17 with a linguistic lesson. He gives a lecture on the Latin word “Primus” meaning principle or first. Sagan gives examples like Prime Minister, President, and Premier all at root meaning first. Then Sagan asks How could a squirrel monkey be considered first? Or did we humans put ourselves as first above all life forms for arrogant reasons? Our cousins the monkeys again remind us to be humble. Finally Sagan gives the definition of Apes and which animals fall under this category. “Apes are bigger and smarter than monkeys and lack tails. Included in the ape category are Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Gibbons, Siamangs and Orangutans.” Page 319 at the bottom in small print. Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan.
Sagan then gives a good poke at human arrogance and assumption about being “first” and above all others. “We’ve found it convenient, even reassuring, to believe that life on earth is a vast dominance hierarchy-sometimes called “The Great Chain of Being”- with us as the alphas. Sometimes we claim that it wasn’t our idea, that we were commanded by a Higher Power, the most Alpha of Alphas, to take over. Naturally we had no choice but to obey.” Page 320 Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan. A little tong and cheek by Carl Sagan. Sometimes we do not even pretend to humbly obey but just brag of human superiority over all the other animals. Sagan compares primates to nations with many different customs.
Sagan decides to start with the baboon. He states that the Hamadryas baboons are different from the Savanna baboons. And free baboons differ greatly from over populated captured baboons. The free Savanna baboons spend the night sleeping on cliffs. They sleep as a very large group but in the morning they split up into smaller groups. Each group going it’s separate way. Each small group has a group leader or “captain”. Surprisingly at the days end all the groups re-converge at the same watering hole. They choose different watering holes at different days of the week. Do they talk this out telling the “group captains” of each small group which watering hole to meet at when?
The male hamadryas baboon has fang like teeth and is ruthless in character. The male is twice the size of the female which is why he controls her in an extreme degree. His face is the color of raw meet. Her face is mouse (as in rodent) grey-brown. You would think that they were different species to look at them. Hamadryas baboon males pick their women as they reach puberty. The women are enslaved for life with the male that picks her. One male may have ten females. The hamadryas male has his own harem. They did not need the Koran to tell them to do this practice. The males keep the peace among all females. The females of the hamadryas baboon has to submit in the most excessive degree. Chimps are feminists compared to these guys. The most minnor infraction of the behavioral code could mean that the female gets her skull punctured and crushed by the male’s jaws. For not being sexually submissive enough, the female is bitten in the neck and killed. The male hamadryas enforces the behavioral code ruthlessly. The male holds her feet with his while having sex to make sure the female will not run away. Sexual coercion is most evident in hamadryas male baboons. The female in this species has a lousy lot. The closest human equivalent is Muslim women in the middle east.
Sagan goes back to the savanna baboon. What a difference in behaviors. The savanna baboon has no size difference between the sexes. Females and males are relatively the same size. There are no harems. They can walk for miles. The savanna baboon it is the male who leaves the group looking for another group to belong to. When the male hits puberty he leaves. When the male finds a new perspective group, he must try to convince the other males to let him in the group. Here it is social skills not ruthlessness that gets you in the group. Compared to the hamadryas baboon, the savanna baboons are civilized. Many tactics are used to get into a group. Submission, bluff, coercion and alliance making in the male hierarchy to name a few. But the best strategy is to get a sponsor. Befriend a female with her children by grooming her and the children. Baby sit and care for the children, in short become indispensable. If this works the female will sponsor him into the group. This tactic is done in human society as well. Need citizenship, a Green Card get an American sponsor. The savanna baboon is a female Dominance hierarchy species. There are other monkeys that have female dominance hierarchies.
“When there are conspicuous differences in stature between the sexes (usually it’s the males who are bigger), there’s exploitation and abuse of the smaller and weaker (usually the females)* The fact that in every human ethnic group and culture males have been on average larger than females has not escaped the notice of Primatologists. It may have something to do with the penchant of men for sexism, coercion of women, rape, and harems when they can get away with it”. Page 322 Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan.
The hamadryas baboons are considered the most hierarchy oriented and brutal of all the primate order. Of course one could wonder about humans. “The hamadryas males, in a species in which nothing else is owned, have a clear sense of females as private property”. Page 323 Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan. This is an interesting note about the hamadryas male. Humans have for many years owned other people as property. Even today secret American fiefdoms exists. Everyone pretends they are not there but they are. We just hide our ownership of people as apposed to the days when we sold them on the auction block.
Sagan then begins to tell the story he stated in the previous chapter that he would cover. Solly Zuckerman was an anatomist to the Zoological Society of London. Zuckerman went and got hamadryas baboons from Africa and brought them back to London. He put them in a partly opened enclosure. Zuckerman did not understand that baboons should all come from the same group. Zuckerman got baboons from many different groups. In short that meant that all the baboons were strangers to each other. So no dominance hierarchies were established. These captured hamadryas baboons no longer lived in their established communities. They no longer had their working governments. The place where they were put was called “Monkey Hill”. The zoologists had no idea what would happen. “Monkey Hill” very quickly turned into “Pork Chop Hill”. Zuckerman put too many baboons in Monkey Hill. Like the rats, it was over populated. They also had more males than females. This is unnatural for hamadryas baboons because they usually, in the wild, had many females to one male. Needless to say it was not long before they went berserk. The males fought each other to attempt to get a dominance hierarchy. They fought over the few females. Females were killed the fastest. These hamadryas baboons were forced to live in conditions which were unnatural to there species. In the wild hamadryas baboons do not kill one another wholesale. Sagan then sights a human example where people behaved like those hamadryas baboons. In 1790 fugitive Englishmen and a few Polynesian women were put on a small boat because they committed mutiny on the H.M.S. Bounty. They landed on a small Island. There was no well established dominance hierarchy. The Englishmen went berserk just like the hamadryas baboons. We now have a more contemporary historical example. In 1985 the country of Liberia collapsed due to the fact the government became too small to run the country. The results of the loss of government was 5 years of total anarchy where the people killed everything that moved. They killed each other. They killed any dogs and other animals who happened to be in the area. Liberia did all the government cuts in 1985 that Newt Gingrich proposed in 1996. Since Gingrich proposed this legislation eleven years after the Liberian incident, one could easily wonder if his goal was to depopulate America. Monkey Hill, 1790 the Bounty fugitives and Liberia all prove that no government means wholesale slaughter.
Zuckerman went from heading the London zoo to become Principle Scientific Adviser to the British Ministry of Defense. Sagan now decides to introduce us to other categories of primates to give you a sample of how varied and different from one another they are. The lemur species are run by the females. Here the females dominate the males. Gibbons with their long arms swing and leap from tree to tree. Gibbons are monogamous. They marry for life and do not cheat on their mates. Gibbons “sing” a lot. They make haunting sounds to protect their territory. Gibbons make use of resonant frequency. Gibbon males and females share pretty much equal social status. Gibbons are one of the more pleasant forms of primates. The bonobos are reclusive. Bonobos are smaller and more slender than chimpanzees. Bonobos are considered a subspecies of the chimp. Bonobos often stand up and walk on two legs. When walking bonobos look like prehistoric man. Bonobos are unique because ¼ of the time they mate face to face. Most other primates mate with his front to her back. When Bonobos engage in sex it is mutual. This too is unique about them because the other primates sex is ordered by the male. The females must comply. Sex is mandatory. Bonobos willingly do sex when both male and female want to. Bonobos smile is like our own smile to express joy. It also is a submissive posture on occasion but it is also for happyness. Bonobos have better social skills than chimps. They also do a form of conflict resolution.
Sagan then comforts us by saying that even though the hamadryas baboon is a relative so is the gibbons and the bonobos. Just like real live human relatives you have some good ones and some bad ones.
Sagan then ends the chapter telling about different apes, chimps monkeys and other primates. He calls this subsection of the chapter “Some Sketches From Life”. He starts with monkeys and how they will enjoy tea, coffee, alcohol and even smoking tabacco. Squirrel monkeys do not like strangers but if the stranger comes with a submissive posture, he might get accepted. “Colobine monkeys: Infants are often passed around to each females from soon after birth. This pattern may continue for the first few months of life. In particular contrast to some macaques and baboons, every colobine infant has free access to every other infant, and females of all ranks have free access to all infants. Swapping of infants may be one of the roots of the [ comparatively] no aggressive colobine society”. Page 336 Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan.
Last the Titis and other small monkeys make the best dads. For some reason these monkeys are the most paternal of primate fathers.
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Post by Empress Palpatine on Mar 17, 2010 21:12:57 GMT -6
Ch. 18: We humans did not come from any primates we see today. All primates, including us, come from a common ancestor. Chimps are our closest kin. Bonobos are very close to chimp.
A long time ago, they think the family tree went something like this: About 8 million years ago, gorillas branched off the evolutionary line leading to us. A million years later, the ancestor of us and chimps broke off. Soon after, chimps and humans diverged, perhaps six million years ago.
To go back a long way, to the dinosaur era, the little mammals of that time had to be smarter and have better senses than the big monster dinos. They had to hunt and do their thing at night when the dinos were asleep. When the dinos died on that fateful day of extinction, the mammals flourished and diversified. Small monkey like creatures were found among old fossils. Early primates had longer snouts, claws and eyes on the side of the head.
Slowly their features shifted, and daylight became preferred. Sense of smell became less. Brains became greater. "The less aggression, the more a true communal life is possible; the longer the childhood, the more parents can teach their young. Alliances and support groups, reconciliation, reassurance, forgiveness, remembering the past behavior of specific individuals, and planning for future actions swiftly evolved." p. 345. Predators forced prey to gang up and get smart especially in terms of military tactics.
Monkeys evolved face and body language. Unfortunately, primates can be smart enough to remember grudges, even for years or generations (feuds and vendettas).
Unlike humans, non-human primate males like females that have already been mothers more than new virgins.
Sex evolved into something more than just a means of reproduction in the case of these primates. Their wild sex life is a means of socialization. "Despite sexual jealousy, it holds the group together. It provides bonds of affection, common goals, means of identification with others, and a gentling of dangerous aggression." p. 347.
Communal life is a defense against predators and makes hunting more efficient. They even have some sort of crude language because they can transmit specific info to each other.
Only two million years ago did we humans separate off. Modern people separated off about 100,000 or 200,000 years ago.
Do monkeys have moments of genius? Yes, there was a witnessed incident of such. There were some macaques on an island. The monkeys' food was delivered on the beach by the scientists who were observing them (due to inadequate food supply on the island).
One day a young female washed the sand off her food in a nearby stream. No one had figured this out before and were stuck eating gritty food. Her playmate learned from her, then her mother, then a male peer. Other of her family members learned to do it, then a few other younger ones (or close to her age). The knowledge was passed down to their kids when they had them later.
Then, this genius young female figured out how to get the sand off a more complicated food item, wheat. She dropped the wheat in the water. The sand sank, and the wheat remained afloat. She could then scoop up the wheat without the sand. This technique spread, but not as fast because this process was more complex.
Oddly, the older males did not copy her techniques due to sheer obstinacy. They did not want to imitate someone lower in the hierarchy. Such would be a humiliation to them. To imitate her is to follow her. This is seen as subservient and losing of dominant status. Better eat sand than this. It took a generation for these useful techniques to get accepted.
Can apes talk? Their throat anatomy will not let them, but they do have dexterity; and scientists did teach one to use sign language. Young females are the best to teach this to. They can learn hundreds of words. They can ask for a specific menu food item. They even mastered some grammar although with very short sentences. One chimp taught sign language to another chimp. They are about at the level of a human toddler.
How do they differ from us? They don't associate ideas by similarity. But then, some chimps actually could categorize things.
They can be taught forms of hieroglyphics, even to press buttons on keyboards that represent a word. Their sentences are one or two words long, but they can understand and act on full sentences spoken to them.
The tragedy was that these chimps who learned language and lived with humans became too hard to deal with as they matured into beings bigger and stronger than us and therefore dangerous. However, they did not adapt to the wild very well, these T.V. watching, human-like apes.
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Post by Mrs. Darth Vader on Mar 17, 2010 23:21:04 GMT -6
Sagan begins chapter 18 with a reminder that all primates living today share common ancestors with us. Each branch from our hereditary tree branched off at different times in our evolution. Primates like chimps and apes are our closest relatives. Others like the monkey category are our more distant relatives. We study all primates because we share behavioral patterns with our most distant relatives as well as our closest relatives. Sagan then sights molecular evidence as to when various primates branched off from us. Gorillas branched off from us about 8 million years ago. Chimps branched off from us 6 million years ago. This is a short time ago in evolutionary time scales since our planet formed 4 billion years ago. And as you go out into space the time scales get even larger.
Sagan then tells the story of 100 million years ago when the dinosaurs still roamed the earth. We were timid little mammals the size of mice. We had to develop a keen sense of smell to maneuver in the dark. Suddenly sixty-five million years ago an impact of a small world into the earth. This changed the earth environment wiping out the dinosaurs. According to fossil evidence there were tiny monkey-like beings weighing a few ounces with teeth a millimeter long. Fifty million years ago there were primates living in subtropical Wyoming. Males were twice the size of females so bullying started in the beginning of the primate order. The earliest primates had longer snouts, eyes on side of head and claws. They looked closest to the lemur. The early primates had eyes large for their faces to adapt to night living. At first after the dinosaurs died out, the earth was a paradise for the mammals. Eventually evolution created predator animals that eat the little monkeys. Birds of prey evolved. You now had to watch the skies.
Sagan then goes back to describing modern primate behavior. Monkey males will quickly make up after a fight. Chimp males to females will make up but female chimps will hold grudges for the rest of their lives. This certainly explains a female I know in my life. We did an offense, in her mind, for which she still tries to make us pay for the same offense over and over. She is even still mad at her daughter for a sighted offense that the daughter did when the daughter was only three years old. I know this as fact because She admitted it to our face. “Even among monkeys, a smoldering resentment against an individual is often broadened to encompass his or her relatives. Among the many new social forms invented by the primates are feuds and vendettas, sometimes extending over many generations”. Page 347 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan. Here is the primate roots of the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s.
Sagan then shifts topics to the varying warning cries of the vervet monkeys. Each warning cry tells each monkey what predator to watch out for and which evasive maneuvers to use. From here Sagan talks about programs in our DNA which controls our behavior based on our relatives the primates. Some programs are hard wired and can not be changed or updated. Other programs are like soft ware and can be reprogrammed. Sagan then uses the example of the human natural fear of snakes. Over time Sagan said he noticed snakes that are not harmful to him and learned what these snakes look like so he is more relaxed when these snakes come around. Here is a reprogramming of fear of all snakes to fear only harmful snakes. All is changed to some. Sagan then tells an account about a 1952 study of monkeys on a small island called Koshima. There was not enough food for the monkeys on this island so the Primatologists had to provide food for then. The Primatologists would dump wheat and sweet potatoes for the monkeys. These items were dumped on the shore far enough in not to get washed away by the water but still in the sand. This made the sweet potatoes and the wheat sandy. The Primatologists wanted to observe these monkeys and learn about them. Imo a one and a half year old female figured out that by rinsing her sweet potato in a near by brook she could eat the sweet potato with out eating the sand. Sagan then names the order in which the monkeys learned from Imo to rinse their sweet potatoes. The first monkey to learn from Imo to rinse their sweet potato was Imo’s playmate. Imo’s mother and another male peer came second to learn to wash their sweet potato. Then three of Imo’s Lineage (younger brother, older sister and niece) and four monkeys from other lineages. Two of these were a year younger than Imo and two a year older. All these monkey’s learned quickly were peers or young close relatives. The only exception was Imo’s mother who also learned quickly. The others learned slowly and still others not at all. After a long time all mothers would gather the sweet potatoes and then take them to the brook and wash them. The infants clinging to their mothers would learn to wash the sweet potatoes. The wheat was still sandy. Imo when she was four years old one day took a handful of sandy wheat and caste it into the water. The sand sank to the bottom while the wheat floated on top. She then grabbed the now clean wheat and ate it. Again it was Imo who figured out how to get the food separated from the sand. Imo was clearly a genius among macaques monkeys. For them Imo was their Nikola Tesla.
“Her invention spread slowly; macaques society, like traditional human societies, is very conservative. Perhaps the fact that she came from a high-ranking family in a species given to hereditary matriarchy aided acceptance. As is usually true, adult males were the slowest to catch on, obstinate to the last; a female invented the process, other females copied her, and then it was taken up by youngsters of both sexes. Eventually infants learned it at their mother’s knee. The reluctance of the adult males must tell something. They are fiercely competitive and hierarchy-ridden. They are not much given to friendships or even to alliances. Perhaps they felt impending humiliation-if they were to imitate Imo, they would be following her lead, becoming in some sense subservient to her, and thereby losing dominance status. They would rather eat sand”. Page 351 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan.
Dominant females can be just as stubborn. In human society both dominant oriented males and females act the same way. We all know the joke “Real men don’t ask for directions”. This is a male human example of those who would rather eat sand. I know this 83 year old woman who even when she was younger could never do something if the idea came from me even if it meant a large financial loss. So there are females who would rather eat sand.
Sagan then changes the subject to chimps in the laboratory setting learning how to speak in sign language. They were taught the language of the deaf. Chimps have a different anatomy than us. They do not have the same vocal cords we have so it is physically impossible for them to speak human languages. So scientists decided to test their intelligence by teaching them the language of the deaf since their hands are similar to ours. The scientists wanted to see chimp intelligence and their ability to communicate. In short these experiments were a success. Chimps could learn to communicate with us using sign language for the deaf. Chimps were proven to learn primitive grammar but correct grammar. They scored higher than scientists at first thought would happen. In this part of the chapter Sagan sights many experiments on chimps using the language of the deaf. He goes into great detail which I did not do since this is only a summery. If you wish to read the actual data you will want to read the book.
Sagan then describes other experiments proving that chimps can think and they prove that our common ancestors probably had these abilities as well. Surprisingly chimps were proven in the lab to have some beginnings of complicated thought. “ArB, BrC therefore ArC” page 357. This is the beginning of that old equation learned in high school. If A = B and B=C than A=C. That is pretty good for a chimp. Sagan then ends this chapter by showing the connection to us and their intelligence also.
“Savage-Rumbaugh and her co-workers toy with the possibility that chimps and bonobos exhibit impressive facilities to learn something of human languages because they have their own languages, vocal or gestural, that we have not yet deciphered. In announcing the location of prey, or predators, or a hostile patrol, rudimentary language would be strongly favored by natural selection. Long before humans and chimps went their separate ways, considerable aptitudes for thought, invention, and language were probably percolating in our primate ancestors”. Page 358 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan.
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Post by Empress Palpatine on Mar 18, 2010 20:48:53 GMT -6
Ch. 19: Why do humans rule? How are we different in kind from them? Any special DNA? No smoking gun has been found. Are we the same as apes and only differ in degree?
So, what is different? Trade and barter? Chimps will trade food and other things for sex. Private property? They consider their females such. Are we more social and political? Not really. Courage? They have it. Rationality? To some degree they even have this. Do they make choices? Yes. Do they have goals? They do. Do they remember the past? They remember. Kissing? Chimps kiss. What about love and sex? There is not much difference here. Laughter and crying? They do both of these.
Do they have a culture? They do because there are differences in the doing of things between different groups and regions. They even have plant remedies for illness. Some would say we humans have one thing they don't: sexual modesty and clothes. That would almost make sense except when one considers certain primitive human tribes that run about still wild and naked. Art, dance, and music? Chimps have done paintings and love resonant drumming. Gibbons sing.
Consciousness and self-awareness? Many creatures have these. Chimps will recognize themselves in a mirror. At first, they will think it is another they saw, but eventually they do figure it out and then start to preen and groom themselves in front of the mirror.
As to our evil side, chimps will do acts of treachery and lying and plots just as we do.
Language? It is proven that they can communicate as well as a human toddler.
Carl Sagan basically believes that in all ways they are just like us. The difference is one of degree.
I would ask if they can feel the Force, but then how do we know that they don't? Do they ever question their hierarchies or the way they do things? Do they have their progressives and their communists? That is hard to say. It is hard to read their minds, and we can only watch what they do. I found myself sitting there thinking, after reading this chapter, what do we humans do that is truly different? Not an easy question.
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Post by Mrs. Darth Vader on Mar 18, 2010 22:05:50 GMT -6
Sagan starts chapter nineteen with the question: What makes humans so special? Why are we unique from all the other animals or are we? There are no clear cut distinctions in our DNA that stands out as special or apart from other animals. Our chemistry works the same as other animals. Is our behavior different? Sagan then gives an example of a chimp that got put in the Manchester England Zoo in 1893. This chimp was able to perform tasks that the everyday gentleman of that time period did. The chimp could put on his coat and hat. Get into his own carriage for a drive. In those days you used a horse drawn carriage, no cars yet. He could use a knife and fork well. Pass his plate for seconds. Use a napkin. This chimp would wash his hands after a meal. He could smoke his pipe and mix his own drinks. Sagan then says that it could be mere mimicry but the chimp could still perform these so-called human tasks. Sagan then asks is there anything we do that is uniquely human that no other animal does? Most of the western philosophers claimed humans to be special and apart from other animals. Then Sagan lists many philosophers that believed that humans were distinct by the fact of reason, intellect, thought and understanding. Sagan then said:
“Only a few of the great western philosophers- David Hume, for instance-argued, as Darwin did, that the differences between our species and others were only of degree”. Page 364 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan.
Most people including the great philosophers believe humans special and distinct from other animals. Many people get upset at scientists for including us in the animal camp. Here eastern philosophy links man and animals closer together. The American Indians had a high regard for animals and thought animals as good teachers and bearer of messages.
Sagan then names two famous scientists who disagree with Darwin and claimed that humans are a distinct animal and are set apart, naming things like politics, awareness, culture, speech and morality as reasons to set us apart from other animals. But this book already has proven primates, wolves and other group animals have basic government structures and politics goes on all the time but in more simple dynamics. Here Sagan shows the great lengths that humans will go to distance themselves from other animals. In fact Sagan shows how we are highly motivated to keep a distance from other animals. It is easier to exploit an inferior than an equal. If animals are considered less than us in some ways, we can be cold and hard hearted.
“A sharp distinction between humans and “animals” is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them-without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. With untroubled consciences, we can render whole species extinct-for our perceived short-term benefit, or even through simple carelessness. Their loss is of little import: Those beings, we tell ourselves, are not like us. An unbridgeable gap has thus a practical role to play beyond the mere stroking of human egos. Darwin’s formulation of this answer was: “Animals whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equals” “. Page 365 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan.
Sagan in this book has proven how much we have in common with other animals especially the primates. But Sagan clearly does not want us to distance ourselves too far from the rest of the animal kingdom whom we share this planet with. Humans have distanced themselves from other humans claiming to be better, smarter or holier than this other person or group. These reasons too have been used as excuses to subjugate other humans. If we enslave other humans, how much more do we enslave animals? If we abuse one another, how much more do we abuse other animals?
Sagan then goes on for the rest of this chapter showing how humans try to say that we are different than other animals and dispelling every one. Sagan goes into great detail. Chimps like us recognize their own reflection in a mirror and like us will begin to groom themselves upon seeing their reflection. Barter and trade was considered a separator from man and animal. Private property was then added to the list. But Sagan asks is this true? Chimps are fond of trade. They do it well. A chimp will change the fallowing items. Food for sex, a back rub for sex, betrayal of a leader for sex, spare my baby’s life for sex. In this example sex is the commodity in place of money. Money is how we do trade and exchange so it is more indirect. Chimps do direct barter, object for object, service for service or object for service. Sagan then gives the example of a broom is left in the chimp cage so the person who left the broom shows an apple to the chimp and then points at the broom. The chimp understands and passes the broom through the bars. The man gives the chimp the apple. So barter does not separate us. Chimps understands private property. Try to take a chimp’s termite tool away or some extra bananas he has. The hamadryas baboon certainly understands private property. They own female hamadryas baboons in harems. So hamadryas baboons certainly understand private property and ‘mine”. so selfishness and exploitation are common place in chimp and baboon society. Our selfishness does not distinguish us from other animals. Cooperation, friendship and altruism certainly these traits must distinguish man from animals. Again, is this true in fact? Prairie dogs and a pack of wolves are known for cooperation, friendship and altruism. So again these traits do not separate us from other animals. Man as social and political to separate us from other animals but this too has been nuked by many preceding chapters in this book. We already discussed primate society and how they live in groups. Many mammals are group animals. All animals have forms of working governments or politics. We went thoroughly through chimp, baboon and monkey political society. Courage is sighted but here again Sagan reminds us of heroic dogs who rescue their own young from danger and have saved humans at risk to themselves showing courage.
After this impressive list where animals have done to one degree or another similar to us proving we are not so different. Here Sagan is making the proof that our differences between people and other animals is a matter of degree not kind. People in their attempt to distance themselves from their animal brethren have gone to great lengths to do this. So Sagan uses this chapter to argue this point for point. I did not write down all of Sagan’s arguments. This is a summery to give an idea of the contents of this book. It can not replace the reading of this book.
Sagan argues against the philosopher camp where animals are down graded and put down while humans are exalted. Sagan then names a philosopher named John Dewey who claimed that if you cause an animal to suffer that the animal does not remember the instance were as humans do. Sagan proves this wrong sighting data from lab tests. Cats experiencing a hot stove will avoid the hot stove there after. Elephants and dear after being hunted will be more wary the next time. Dogs who have been beaten will cower when they see the object they were beaten with at another time. Clearly animals remember as we do. Sagan chillingly reminds us how we distance ourselves from animals to allow humans to be free of guilt while they treat animals cruelly. Here humans are seen as psychopaths justifying their cruelties.
Humans are distinct that we practice medicine. We have a pharmacy and get drugs to cure sicknesses. We realize that we are subject to illness. “But chimps have a vast pharmacopia all around them, and a kind of folk or herbal medicine. For example, for chimps both at Gombe and at Mahale, leaves of a plant called Aspilia are a kind of dietary staple, preferentially eaten in early morning. Despite the wrinkled noses of those partaking (the taste is bitter), it’s consumed by both sexes, all ages, healthy as well as the sick. But there’s something odd about it: The chimps eat these leaves regularly, but consume very few of them at any one time-so their nutritional value is in doubt. In the rainy season, though, when apes are plagued by intestinal worms and other illnesses, ingestion increases dramatically. Analysis of Aspilia leaves reveals the presence of a powerful antibiotic and an agent that kills nematodes. It’s a good guess they’re treating themselves”. Page 374 and 375 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan.
An example a little closer to home would be your cat or dog. When they are having digestive trouble that is not bad enough for the Vet., they eat grass to heal themselves. Sagan continued until the end of this chapter sighting everything from A to Z of how we are in common with other animals. He went in great detail. I gave a sample of the many arguments Sagan gave. If you want all the details and the blow by blow then reading the book is a must.
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Post by Empress Palpatine on Mar 19, 2010 20:16:10 GMT -6
Ch. 20: We really do not know all the inner thoughts of chimps. We don't know what contemplation they do. Do they have religion? Do they think of their alpha as a god? Do they think we humans are gods because of our incredible power? "Over the course of human history, some religions, it is true, have become much more than this-at their best transcending intimidation, hierarchy, and bureaucracy, while providing comfort for the powerless. A few, rare religious teachers have acted as a conscience for our species, have inspired millions by the example of their lives, have helped to break us out of baboonish lockstep. But none of this contradicts the thesis that a generalized religious predisposition, ready to be put to use by the local social structure, may be a commonplace in the kingdom of the animals." p. 388.
For most of human history, we were primitive, not too far different from apes.
As to tools, chimps really think about them and their use. They will hunt far for just the right stick or rock for a purpose. They will find the right reed to stick in a termite mound to draw out termites to eat. A human, after observing chimps do it, found this technique hard to master. Chimps teach their young by example and not by rote. The student experiments with the tools and eventually gets the technique down. Groups of chimps vary. Some are better tool users than others.
Chimps can come up with solutions to problems. In one experiment, they tied a banana by a string from the ceiling out of reach. They left a box and a stick in the room. The chimp, after a time of reflection, put the box under the banana, stood on it, and used the stick to get it.
Like us, they have their stubborn uninventive ones who obsess over hierarchy; and they also have their clever ones who figure stuff out. It is true that necessity is the mother of invention. If there is no need, nobody tries anything.
It seems all differences we have with them are of degree and not kind.
Smartness is determined by how big your brain is compared to your body size (typical body weight of your particular species). We weigh, as adults, only slightly more than adult chimps; yet our brains are three or four times as big. We have more speech software in the brain. Our cerebral cortex (thinking center) is a lot bigger. Evolution-wise, our brain size and capacity increase happened quickly, only the last few million years.
Are we just like them and the only difference is that we are the new upgraded model, like comparing a Windows '95 to a Windows 7? Darwin really made people uncomfortable in his day with these comparisons of our similarities with apes.
It also raises the issue, do we have an inner beast? Yes, we do. Sometimes they call it the "id." It lies within a very old part of our brain which we still have, a part of the brain we got from long ago, our reptile brain, source of sex, aggression, dominance, and territoriality. It loves to sneak out once in awhile.
"We go to great lengths to deny our animal heritage, and not just in scientific and philosophical discourse. You can glimpse the denial in the shaving of men's faces; in clothing and other adornments; in the great lengths gone to in the preparation of meat to disguise the fact that an animal is being killed, flayed, and eaten. The common primate practice of pseudosexual mounting of males by males to express dominance is not widespread in humans, and some have taken comfort from this fact. But the most potent form of verbal abuse in English and many other languages is 'F-ck you,' with the pronoun 'I' implicit at the beginning. The speaker is vividly asserting his claim to higher status, and his contempt for those he considers subordinate. Characteristically, humans have converted a postural image into a linguistic one with barely a change in nuance." p. 404.
An animal lurks within with all its savagery; and yet, not all traits of animals are bad. They can love and invent.
Why is it important to understand our animal side? We cannot solve human problems if we don't know what we are dealing with (our natures good and bad). We have our intelligent side and our primitive side. If we don't want to destroy our world, we better use the intelligent side.
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Post by Mrs. Darth Vader on Mar 19, 2010 21:35:19 GMT -6
Chapter twenty almost seamlessly merges with chapter nineteen because Sagan continues with the theme of how we are similar to other animals. Sagan continues to show how humans out of arrogance and the desire to put ourselves on top to distance ourselves from the animals. Sagan then makes an interesting point here. Even though the animals can not argue with us in a debate or write poems to shut us up this does not mean that animals have nothing to say. It means as of today we have no evidence to support what they are feeling about a subject. But Sagan also admits that humans have never tried to learn the languages of different species of animals. “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. Carl Sagan. Sagan quotes Viscount Bolingbroke because Bolingbroke defended how really close and like the animals we are. “If we had the means of knowing their motives as we have of observing their actions”. Viscount Bolingbroke Page 383 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan. This is the old question of if scientists actually took time to actually learn how to understand animal communication would that remove yet another barrier that separates us? Here atheists are asking the question. The American Indian Shamans of long ago would say of course the animals talk. The shamans did attempt to learn animal languages. Much of their knowledge is lost because of the wholesale slaughter of the Indian populations of both south America and north America. What we know today about shamanism is not the whole picture. They taught by word of mouth and taking the young initiate shaman in the woods to learn directly from the animals. Sadly this stuff is not written down for scientists to study and look at. We do know that shamans studied animals and observed their behavior much like scientists do in the wild. This explains why Carl Sagan gave them some credit for scientific method applied to their religion in his book called “The Demon Haunted World” “Science As A Candlelight In The Dark”.
Sagan then gives an interesting proof about intelligence of animals. “Late in life, he (Darwin) made extensive studies of what you might think is an unpromising subject, the intelligence of earth worms. He gave them intelligence tests involving the manipulation of real and artificial leaves. They did very well. Flat worms can work their way through a simple maze to get a reward; even worms have a degree of intelligence. Galapagos, woodpeckers, finches, studied by Darwin on the voyage of the Beagle, used twigs to worry wood-dwelling larvae out of branches; even birds have a rudimentary technology”. Page 390 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan.
Sagan then describes how these particular chimps who live in the Tai Forest choose a club and found a branch. They then climb a cola tree to pick the best cola nuts. They crack the nuts using the branch as an anvil and the club as a hammer. “Female chimps are more likely to employ hammer-and - anvil technology than males, and they’re better at it”. Carl Sagan. Then Sagan says something interesting because it is about another species of animal other than the primates.
“Similar examples occur in other species. The playful Sea Otter regularly dives to the ocean floor, retrieves hard-shelled mussels and an appropriate stone, swims to the surface, floats on it’s back, and then cracks open the mussels using the stone as an anvil”. Page 391 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan.
Sagan gets into detail about how chimps use and find tools. Sagan recounts a scientist who followed chimps around, noticed they know where to find termite mounds and how to locate the tunnels in the mound. The chimps could with accuracy choose the right stick to probe the tunnels with. From there the chimp would put the stick in the tunnels twisting and turning it to make it go down a twisting turning tunnel. The tunnels spiral downward. The chimps did this with ease. When they pulled out the stick probe, the chimp would get many termites on a stick and eat the termites. When the scientist tried to copy the chimps, he was a total Clod. It took the scientist months to master this chimp art proving the chimps have intelligence. The scientist could only achieve the ability of a 4 or 5 year old chimp. The older ones were even better. A particular chimp was kind enough to “apprentice” the scientist in termite getting so when the scientist wrote his book he put a line thanking the patient and tolerant chimp named “Leakey”.
Sagan then shows that chimps are smarter than baboons by telling how baboons eat termites only during the few weeks that the termites leave their mounds to migrate. The baboons eat the termites as they walk or fly by. Even when baboons watch the chimps getting their sticks and fashioning them for termite gathering and then enjoying a nice meal. When the chimps leave not one baboon to date has ever picked up a left behind chimp tool and tried to use it. Chimps use leaves for drinking water like a primitive cup. They use other leaves for toilet paper. Captured chimps can use keys to get out of their cages when the zoo keeper leaves them too close so the chimp gets them. Chimps can devise ways of escape like us. Chimps use tools to attack a fake leopard. The chimps would pick up clubs and stones and beat or pelt it to death. Baboons do not use tools. They will furiously attack the leopard with just themselves. Baboons do not have the brains to use tools.
Sagan then tells an interesting story about a chimp in a lab who was tested for deductive reasoning. The chimp was put in a room where bananas were suspended from the ceiling. There was a box in the room as well. The bananas were suspended in the middle of the room. The box was against the wall open side up. First the chimp tried to jump to get the fruit. This failed. The chimp quickly figured out he could not get the bananas that way. He paced restlessly until he noticed the box. He grabbed the box, turned it upside down, climbed on the box and jumped from the new height added by the box. The chimp got the bananas.
Sagan then lists with excitement all the things that chimps and baboons have done to blow away our misconceptions of them. He excitedly shows how similar to us they are by naming their good traits and their bad traits in a long succession. Sagan then lists the order of brain size in the animals.
“Humans have bigger brains than other primates; primates than other mammals; mammals than birds; birds than fish; and fish than reptiles”. Page 400 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan. This is based on the body size and weight of each category. Sagan then gets into discussion about the brains of various mammals. Sagan then goes back to history when Darwin first wrote “Origin Of Species” and how Darwin argued that we are no more than deluxe model apes. Again stating an improvement or a degree of difference but not of kind. A few years after Darwin wrote his book Huxley had to defend his position and wrote his position. Sagan then changes the subject to us and whether we will cause extinction or choose our intellect. Do we have that choice? Sagan asks will we use our cerebral cortex or our R-complex brain? R-complex, the R is for reptile. Will we let our lizard brain run the show?
Sagan then says why it is not bad that we come from animals. Some animals as was proven in earlier chapters proved to be kinder and better than a lot of people. So here Sagan ends the chapter with the idea of do not blame animals for our bad behavior. Sagan here reminds us that we are capable of being good as well as bad. Cooperative as well as selfish. Here Sagan reminds us to choose.
Sagan reminds us that animals in the wild do not commit mass murder. Only humans have that distinction so do not blame them for our bad deeds. Sagan tries to get man to choose to look at ourselves squarely and make decisions out of knowledge not of arrogance. Stop being like the alcoholic who says that he does not drink. We can only fix the world, our country and ourselves if we look at ourselves squarely for who we are with our faults as well as our strengths. Sagan then sights fossil remains as proof that we can choose to cooperate with one another. We do not have to just be selfish. We did primitive communism long before Karl Marx so we are capable of cooperating again.
“Even fossil remains of the earliest life forms there is unmistakable evidence of communal living arrangements and mutual cooperation”. Page 407 “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan.
Sagan closes by telling us to use our intelligence well and be logical. Here Sagan reminds me of the old classic Star Trek with Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The Vulcans saved their civilization by choosing the path of logic over passion.
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Post by Empress Palpatine on Mar 20, 2010 17:20:49 GMT -6
Ch. 21 is the last chapter of this book. It is a short chapter. In it he wraps things up by giving a certain message to arrogant humans. "We are rendering many species extinct; we may even succeed in destroying ourselves. But this is nothing new for the Earth. Humans would then be just the latest in a long sequence of upstart species that arrive on-stage, make some alterations in the scenery, kill off some of the cast, and then themselves exit stage-left forever. New players appear in the next act. The Earth abides. It has seen all this before." p. 412
Sagan emphasizes our kinship with all life on earth and yet "over the last few decades we have caused the extinction of something like a million species." p. 413.
We act too much like apes with our territoriality, aggression, and hierarchies. "But we cannot wait for natural selection to further mitigate these ancient primate algorithms. That would take too long. We must work with what tools we have-to understand who we are, how we got to be that way, and how to transcend our deficiencies. Then we can begin to create a society less apt to bring out the worst in us." p. 414.
Certain extremes have been lessened in recent years: absolute monarchies and chattel slavery. This proved we can move past chimphood. We are smart enough not to have to wait for raw natural selection. We are no longer slaves to natural selection entirely. His last words are very Sith-like with perhaps a little Jedi: "Maturity entails a readiness, painful and wrenching though it may be, to look squarely into the long dark places, into the fearsome shadows. In this act of ancestral remembrance and acceptance may be found a light by which to see our children safely home." p. 415.
END OF BOOK
Discussion and comments are welcome. I started another discussion inspired by this book in the Sith Training section, Sith Science of the Force, "Sith Implications of Evolution."
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Post by Mrs. Darth Vader on Mar 20, 2010 22:14:20 GMT -6
Chapter twenty one is a quick over view of the entire book. Sagan gives a quick fast paced panorama of what you just finished reading. This is the last chapter of the book. Sagan then has a one paragraph Epilogue after this chapter in closing. To this Sagan adds an appeal that humans have evolved brains and we should use our intellect to over come short comings in our evolution. He warns us against becoming break away republics of small groups or city statism. Sagan appeals to the idea of cooperation and working together as a species to ensure a future.
Sagan reminds you like he did in the introduction that he only promises the facts as discovered by science. No great elixirs or golden parachutes. To say it in the language of “The Matrix”, Sagan offers the “red” pill of truth. If you wish to take the blue pill of delusion, than do not read this book and stay in your delusion. “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan only promises a square look at us and who we are. This attitude is clearly brought out at the end as well as at the very beginning of this book.
Sagan reminds us that we have the power to extinguish ourselves and many other species and destroy all life on earth. Here Sagan reminds us of the choices we have before us. We could cooperate with one another and change the way we do things on earth thus saving ourselves and our grandchildren and the many species that share the earth with us. Or we can continue in our short sighted greedy individualistic ways and destroy ourselves and the many species with us and possibly all life on earth. Sagan here plays the role of Ten Bears offering “Words of life or words of death”.
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Post by Mrs. Darth Vader on Mar 20, 2010 22:27:59 GMT -6
My Opinion:
For me “Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan answered questions that just physics did not answer. I wanted to know more about the person I am stuck living with and why she behaves the way she does. I found all my answers in the pages of this book. Religion was hollow in answering my questions because it promised freedom with a golden parachute which was not there. Religion only delivered disappointment. Here Sagan with evolutionary biology at least delivered what was promised, the facts revealed by science. This promise was delivered. The promise was lesser, no rescue, no knight on a white horse, but what was promised was in fact delivered which is more valuable than all the delusions offered by religion and Christianity in particular. God is supposed to be concerned with us humans on earth and supposed to intervene when injustice is done. Well this is certainly not done and is observable fact. God is supposed to rescue you from your captivity. Well he does not, either because God does not exist or he has no power in the material plane or the Time-Space Continuum. God, if he exists, is out side of the Time-Space Continuum in the undiscovered world of the Shards of String. In our world, on earth, science has removed mysticism and superstition and given us the hard facts. If God exists he is like that of the Deist religions. But this has yet to be proven. Here again we are reminded by Sagan “The absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence”.
This book did not swing open the doors of my cage but it never promised that any way. It explained the obsession with dominance hierarchy my warlord has. The fact that too much endorphins like testosterone flows threw her blood stream heightening her desire to fight all the time and why she is so unpredictable again a chimp tactic to maintain dominance hierarchy. People make God in their own image. A kind person sees a kind God. A "person" who is a hamadryas baboon makes a God who is obsessed with dominance hierarchy the way she is. After 30 years of searching for the answers that plagued me all that time they finally came in the pages of this book. In short to me the answers in this book had the value of the biggest most expensive diamond in the world. Thank you, Carl Sagan!
Note: I doubled posted to separate my opinion and my analysis from the book "Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors" by Carl Sagan to not mix up the two. Admin please forgive the double post but it was necessary. Thank you.
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Darth Agur
Sith
The Force will set me free!
Posts: 18
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Post by Darth Agur on Jun 15, 2010 13:35:57 GMT -6
We may eventually find evidence that Darwin was a Sith, you know, Darth Win
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Post by Empress Palpatine on Jun 29, 2010 15:45:00 GMT -6
One could definitely consider Evolution Sith.
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Post by Mrs. Darth Vader on Jun 29, 2010 16:22:24 GMT -6
Charles Darwin certainly won the debate of creation vs evolution. Carl Sagan slam dunked the remaining questions.
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