Apes aren't human!!!

Wibbs

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Well teh part about my diet does not need to be backed up, it's the world health organisations stance on the matter.

A little more complicated than that. As an example the Inuit survive and thrive alamost entirely on animal foods and when doing so(not eating "western" food live very long lives. Similar with the Maasai. In fact they as almost exclusive meat eaters are heathier than surrounding tribes eating a more vegatable based diet.

As for the more question of what humans are biologically, that is more difficult.
I have never read about it on the net, just in medical books, other books relating to the topic etc.
So I'll do a quick google.
Hmm, this is the first site I found, I don't know how unbiased it is yet as it has veg in the title. Read it and make your own conclusion.
http://www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm

For a start they completely ignore our development of tool use in our evolutionary biology. Our earliest non tool using ancestors have a very different morphology that is more suited to a herbivorous lifestyle(bigger grinding teeth etc). The first known tools are expressly designed for extracting the marrow from bones. That event radically changes our evolutionary path. Same with the discovery of fire. Cooking makes meat far more digestable. This lessens the need for a more acidic digestive tract. We don't need large canines anymore we have(had) the tools that take the place of what carnivores have built in. We've been eating meat as a species for far longer than we've been eating grains for example. Interestingly, when you look at the boundary between hunter gatherers and the earliest farming communities, it can often be easier to spot the different lifestyles by the differences in the skeletal remains. Hunter gatherers tend to be taller with much higher bone densities than the farmers.
All of the above would be arguably more true for Europeans. We lived therough successive ice ages and survived alomost entirely on a carnivorous diet.

It is a debate. i am not saying which side is right. There is so uch data to take into account and ways it can be viewed that I find it very debatable.

Agree with you there.

The_Minister

Wicknight wrote:

1 - Self aware.
2 - Can experience complex emotions.
3 - Are intelligent to the point of problem solving and imagination.
4 - Are conscious of themselves, others and their enviornment.

1&4 are similar with all creatures being aware of there enviornment.
2 is largly unprovable. My cousins dog has exhibited sadness, happiness etc
3. basic logic is nothing special, many animals are very limited in this capacity. Ravens can problem solve brilliantly but we do not grant them rights.
1. This covers octopi as well.

Zombrex

Firespinner wrote:

1&4 are similar with all creatures being aware of there enviornment.

All creatures are not self-aware. They say one of the tests is to stick a mirror in front of a creature. Only creatures with higher developed brains will be aware they are looking at themselves and not another animal.

Verbal tests with chimps have shown they are aware of themselves to a very large degree, and that they are conscious of their surroundings, ie what is happening to them. A dog isn't aware of what is happening around him or too him, beyond the instant stimulations entering his brain. You can't ask a dog "why are you here"

Firespinner wrote:

2 is largly unprovable. My cousins dog has exhibited sadness, happiness etc

I said complex emotions. Its been shown the chimps can experience apathy, loneliness, jealously, loss etc, in fact most of the emotions we associate with being human.

Firespinner wrote:

3. basic logic is nothing special, many animals are very limited in this capacity.

I said complex problem solving. Most animals problem solve like computers, based on instinctive intelligence patterns. Great Apes, including ourselves, are difference. We can think "out side the box", and develop means to solve problems that are not based on instinct. And most interestingly, we and other Great Apes teach these metions to others, through complex methods of communication and learning.

Banphrionsa

This gives rise to a great idea for a new TV series, perhaps even the silver screen? Let's see, what shall we call it, and who should star in it? Hummmm? Civil rights for apes came up. Giving apes a chance on this planet was a part of the thread. Hummm? How about "Planet of the Apes" for a title? Star? C. Heston is getting a little old. How about one or more of the posters on this thread? Saw a lot of enthusiasm. Can anyone act?:cool:

Plot: Apes brought in as domestic servants, one ape, let's call him, hummmm, how about Caesar (a chimp) is endowed with not only the ability to communicate with apes, but also to speak English (or other languages perhaps, maybe even master Irish, which many of us seem to have difficulty with).

Apes take all the jobs that humans don't want (Hummmm, sounds like a different argument in Bushyland about illegal immigrants coming to the USA?). This places them in key positions for when they become more self-aware of the discrimination against them, and they revolt with Caesar as their leader.

Naaaaaaaaaa, it would never sell. People would never go for apes taking over the planet and dominating humans.:rolleyes:

Galvia

Diet came up in this thread regarding apes. Most, if not all, chimps eat meat as a regular part of their diet, in addition to fruit and veggies. Jane von Goodall, with her photographer husband, studied their behaviour (including diet) in the wild (Africa), not in a zoo. They were funded by National Geographic, as well as other naturalistic oriented organisations. They have photographic evidence of diet established over months of study in the wild, in addition to the naturalistic study by Goodall.

Diet in humans was also mentioned in this thread. Henry G. Bieler, M.D., in Food is Your Best Medicine notes that humans for millions of years have eaten meat, but it has not been the largest part of their diet. He prescribes a diet of 10 percent meat per day, based on the evolutionary evidence of our teeth, with approximately 10 percent useful for meat eating.

Some might say that those meat tearing teeth evolved for defense. Robert Ardrey in African Genesis and another book of his, The Territorial Imperative, cites research that suggests the canine teeth present in homo sapien sapien were not effective in defense, consequently, they invented weaponry to compensate. L.S.B. Leakey, noted discoverer of Australopithecus africanus (an early ancester on the evolutionary tree) discovered teeth, among other remains, and made a similar deduction that teeth in early man were not useful in defense.

StupidLikeAFox

"See the thing about the evil monkey, he wasnt always evil"

Has it come to the stage where we see a chimp whos trained to kick a ball and wonder has he got an irish grandmother?

Black Swan

ColHol wrote:

"See the thing about the evil monkey, he wasnt always evil"

Has it come to the stage where we see a chimp whos trained to kick a ball and wonder has he got an irish grandmother?

Like what about the 3 monkeys? See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil?:D

Gurgle

Wicknight wrote:

Most animals problem solve like computers, based on instinctive intelligence patterns.

Wrong on both counts.

Wicknight wrote:

we and other Great Apes teach these metions to others, through complex methods of communication and learning.

Practically every mammal teaches its young.

Wicknight wrote:

Only creatures with higher developed brains will be aware they are looking at themselves and not another animal.

Yet another bull**** 'demonstration'. How does the animal communicate that it knows what its looking at?

Son Goku

Gurgle wrote:

Yet another bull**** 'demonstration'. How does the animal communicate that it knows what its looking at?

Most animals will either attempt to mate with the reflection (if sexual diffeomorphism isn't that great in the species), go "on the prowl", run or adopt the customary pose for greeting another animal.

Great Apes either pull faces or ignore it.

It would be difficult to go into the rigor of these tests on a forum.
Just because it sounds like bull**** initially, doesn't mean the test isn't conclusive.

Gurgle

Son Goku wrote:

Most animals will either attempt to mate with the reflection (if sexual diffeomorphism isn't that great in the species), go "on the prowl", run or adopt the customary pose for greeting another animal.

Great Apes either pull faces or ignore it.

It would be difficult to go into the rigor of these tests on a forum.
Just because it sounds like bull**** initially, doesn't mean the test isn't conclusive.

Can we get Son Goku site-banned please?
He knows way too much and keeps ruining everybody's made up theories.

Catsmokinpot

lol so does this mean they can get tax deductions for being married?:D

all joking aside tho im with tar and wicknight on this one, equal rights for all, recently i became a vegetarian, i have nothing against eating meat, i actually believe in the natural order of things, and i believe the studies that show the choice to eat meat actually helped the evolution of the human brain. i do however think that the treatment of animals today is hideous, animals brought up on overcrowded farms, and treated like a product, then brought to slaughter houses all at the same time, slaughtered in the same room 1 after the other.

only in the last 15 - 20 years scientists discovered pheromones, chemical signals that are emitted from the skin, which can transmit a feeling from one animal to another, they found that there is a separate pheromone for each feeling you have, love, hate, fear, sadness. they also did studies on slaughterhouses and found concentrated ammounts of these pheramones, so when the cows come in they immediately start panicing, can you imagine being bundled in to a room with your mates with the smell of fear in it, and all you did in your life is stay in one maybe 2 fields, thats not life thats not respect for life, the fact is that insects contribute more to the ecosystem than we do, all we do is polute, and destroy.

i believe we were meant to be the shepards of the world, looking after everything instead of being greedy ignorant bastards that we are, we can get all of our food from other sources, so why dont we? i know because we have this notion that were better than other animals. and we favour our tastebuds over another living creature.... (dont get me wrong i dont think less of someone because they eat meat) but at times humans behave more like dogs than dogs do.

Demetrius wrote:

Because were the same species as disabled people?

Because, animal in nature we may well be, we are different to apes?

Just because they share some of our DNA doesnt make them that special. Weve all sorts of DNA in our bodys. Should we give rights to reptiles and amphibians as were at it?

just because you are more intelligent or lucky to be born with a pair of hands to whack off with instead of paws and scales, does that make you more important?

everyone who takes this view, are just trying to reinforce your completely wrong belief that you are special and that no other animal is as important, when infact were all important we all matter and you cant just treat other animals any different than yourselves.

dolphins are a highly intelligent, highly social species, scientists have taught how to understand sign language (better than apes). they can understand two dimentional television images, they understand words and the significance of word order, and they are one of the only other animals on this planet that understand the word "create" and can create when asked too, scientists are actually trying to translate dolphin language so that one day we might be able to speak to them in a language they understand better, and possibly get more information about them

^i got that info^ bbc wildlife on one - doing studies on dolphins and the show was called dolphin's, deep thinkers.(god bless david attenborough)

at the end of the day were all living breathing animals, and if evolution is right(which i believe it is) we all come from the same place, but split up to give us diversity. so if we all come from the same place then we all matter. and if we all matter then yes, gowan the spanish sociallists ye legends!!!

Zombrex

Gurgle wrote:

Wrong on both counts.

Woohoo ... i'm convinced :rolleyes:

Gurgle wrote:

Practically every mammal teaches its young.

Not through complex communication and learning.

Most mammals will demonstrate behavior for their young. For example a cat will learn to hunt by observing her mother hunt. Yes this is a form of teaching, but a very primative form of teaching.

Great Apes (including ourselves) have been observed passing on complex skills that they themselves have developed. They teach and learn the way we do, through the communication of skills rather than demonstration of behaviour.

Gurgle wrote:

Yet another bull**** 'demonstration'. How does the animal communicate that it knows what its looking at?

It doesn't have to. It's reaction to the image show it is aware that it is looking at itself. Chimps have been show to "play" with the image, for example making faces at it, moving its arms and observing the "creature" in the mirror doing the same thing.

Also, can't remember what study this was, but a chimp was asked (through a keyboard) "Who is that" as the observer pointed to the mirror image, the chimp answered "me"