Scientists Scratch Heads Over Nutcracking Gorilla (More Intelligent Design)

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBB98JNYEE.html

GOMA, Congo (AP) - A 2 1/2-year-old female gorilla in a Congo sanctuary is forcing scientists to reconsider what they know about tool use among gorillas.

In late September, keepers at a Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International sanctuary in this eastern Congo city saw a gorilla named Itebero smashing palm nuts between rocks using the "hammer and anvil" technique, considered among the most complex tool-use behaviors.

It had been thought that the premeditated use of stones and sticks to accomplish a task like cracking nuts was restricted to humans and the smaller, more agile chimpanzees.

Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund primatologist Patrick Mehlman said earlier this month the finding indicates complex tool use may not be a trait developed only by humans and chimpanzees and could have its origins earlier in the evolutionary chain - among ancestors common to both humans and their closest relatives, the great apes.

[Ravenseye]

1. Are you implying that this is supporting intelligent design?

I don't read that at all. It just shows that Apes are smarter than people have given them credit for. Heck not to long ago they thought Gorillas wouldn't cross water, but then they witnessed them swimming across a river or something.

[longship]

4. To creationists.

Any evidence which is new, or tends to upend science, regardless of what theory it supports or doesn't support, is automagically Creationist Science. In fact, if a single scientist says that a particular finding does not fit with established theory, the creationists will adopt it as proof that evil Darwinism is not a fact. That's the whole extent of how creationists, including IDers, do science.

[Orsino]

12. I don't think so.

Tool use makes these apes look more like potential ancestors, not less.

[longship]

14. You need to read t.o

talk.origins is a netnews group which focusses on the evolution/creation debate. The creationists there, some of whom claim scientist status, use anything like this to claim that evolution can't be fact.

Yes, I know it's rubbish, but creationists (including the IDers) are not very bright people, plus they have an agenda, plus they have an ideology. That's a very dangerous combination.

[NNN0LHI]

5. No n/t

[melody]

2. actually, tool use has been witnessed in primates for 30 years

It just takes the academic mainstream a looooong time to catch up.

Also, crows have been observed to use tools. It's a fairly basic premise when you think of it - hit this with thing and make that happen.

[Skidmore]

3. The Planet of the Apes may

just be real.

[izzybeans]

6. Evolutionary mutation at its finest; adaptation and all that...

[democrat in Tallahassee]

7. so bush can crack a nut with two stones? amazing!

[FiveGoodMen]

13. Not so fast...

...I don't think Dubya is one of the smarter apes.

[undeterred]

8. I remember a show where there were a bunch of male

anthropologists trying to interpret the fact that a female gorilla was having sex with more than one male. Lots of stuff about evolutionary theory and ideas about caring for her young, confusing the males as to parentage, etc.

Then they turned to Jane Goodall for an opinion and she said: "I think she's just having fun". :evilgrin:

[bonito]

9. Funny post title LOL

Thanks, I needed that.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Did you know that at one time the Catholic Church dismissed

similar signs of intelligence from South Americans Indians? Said they were mimicking behavior they had seen, but they had no real intelligence of their own.

[alphadog]

11. Yow

"nutcracking gorilla"

Sounds painful. :rofl:

[TrogL]

15. I saw a National Geographic show

on tool-using birds. They showed some bird using a stick to pry seeds out of a hole.

[Massacure]

16. A zoo in China had an ape of some type that smoked.

People would drop cigarettes and the ape would pick them up and smoke them.

[Kailassa]

17. If he was intelligent, he would light his own smokes.

And if he was Very intelligent, he would pretend he couldn't so the keepers would light them for him. :smoke: