Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA28167 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 19 Nov 2001 12:25:25 GMT Message-ID: <3BF8F824.80602@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 12:16:36 +0000 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-GB; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20011019 Netscape6/6.2 X-Accept-Language: en-gb To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Study shows brain can learn without really trying References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3102A6D115@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> <Not only is male dominance absent in early humans, even our hominid
> ancestors two million years ago were roughly equal in size between genders.
> Our fundamental mistake has been to assume that apes somehow segue into
> humans. In reality, we began as a radical departure from primate (or any
> other) evolution, and only recently, in the last dozen or so millennia, has
> the atavistic ape-like world of "history" emerged. The popular image of
> "ape-men," as depicted in Kubrick's 2001, is a projection of the modern
> world onto our pre-technological past. If our ancestors half a million
> years ago had been as primitive as we are, they could never have survived
> and proliferated.>
I'd say whales were a pretty radical departure from the rest of the
even-toed ungulates (deer pigs cattle etc.), with lots of intermediates
of course. It all depends on how steep the side of your fitness peak is
(steeper -> faster evolution)(paradoxical metaphor - we should have
stuck to basins rather than all this protestant work ethic inspired
nonsense...)
> Well you see that's the core question. I don't know the answer,
> initially on this list I was reluctant to acknolwedge the possibility of
> animal cultures, but now I find some reasonable evidence and arguments for
> that, which I think bring into question the necessity of self-referential
> mentality for memes.
Whales (bit of a theme emerging here) are interesting - hunting for
either fish or seals (where an option exists) is a culturally inherited
thing. Then there's all that stuff about different chimp populations.
Difference with me is I was eager to find animal culture (albeit a
'primitive' version). I'm terrible for that.
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Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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