Animals could have a desire seek revenge it seems!

steddyeddy

A article in Time magazine suggests that animals may be taking revenge on certain humans. First two seperate tiger revenge stories have hit the media in recent times. First one is set in Siberia.

Man comes across a siberian tiger eating a boar. Man shoots the tiger and steals the boar. The tiger escapes waits 12-48 hours and then tracks the man to his cabin. The man isn't there when the tiger arrives at the cabin so the tiger destroys object the man owns then waits for the man to come back. When the man gets back the tiger kills him and then eats him (zoologists think the eating might be secondary).

The second story is set in San francisco zoo. Involving a group of young men who were thought to have been taunting a female Siberian tiger. The tiger then escapes, walks 300 yards past other zoo goers and kills one of the men and mauls the other two before she was unfortunatly shot dead.

There was also the story of elephants who are thought to be developing post traumatic stress disorder as a result of poaching and culling of their numbers. These elephants have been attacking rhinos and have even attacked people.

Elephants, whose memory is often celebrated, have also been thought by some experts to hold grudges. But "grudge" may be the wrong word — and it's not exactly a scientific term. More tenable than the notion of animals bearing grudges is the theory that they suffer stress. A 2005 paper in the journal Nature examined what some scientists called an "elephant breakdown" in Africa, and argued that elephants that had randomly attacked rhinoceroses were behaving pathologically. They were, the scientists suggested, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder — terminology usually reserved for humans — responding to years of hardship, inflicted by people. Their population and social order had been decimated by poaching, culls and habitat loss, and the elephants, in a sense, were striking back. Neuroscientist Allan N. Schore, one of the paper's authors and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the UCLA Medical School, demurred at calling such actions "revenge" or evidence of a "grudge" — but says the fact that elephants act out under stress suggests that their psychology may not be so different from ours.

Full article below:

The Siberian tiger that killed Carlos Sousa Jr., 17, and mauled two other men, brothers Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day, has sparked a police investigation and much speculation as to who is to blame. Authorities are still investigating how the animal escaped — recent reports indicate she could have jumped or scaled the enclosure's wall, which is nearly 4 ft. lower than the recommended standard — and whether or not the victims taunted her before the attacks.
However uncertain the preceding circumstances, the facts of the assault are clearer: Just before the zoo's closing time, the 4-year-old tiger named Tatiana escaped her pen and attacked the older of the Dhaliwal brothers, then turned on and killed Sousa, who was apparently trying to save his friend by distracting the animal. She then made her way 300 yards to the zoo café, following a trail of blood left by the first injured man who had fled with his brother. It was there she attacked her third victim, the younger Dhaliwal, and was shot dead by police officers — 20 minutes after they had received the call that the tiger was loose.
So, what exactly was Tatiana's motive? It may well be that she, despite being born into captivity and identified with a human name, was simply being a tiger — acting as any other predator would in nature. It's no surprise that tigers can be aggressive. But is it possible that Tatiana may have remembered the three men — who may have taunted her — and set out for them specifically? Was she, in other words, holding a grudge?
"That tiger could have been surrounded by 10,000 people," says Dave Salmoni, the Animal Planet network's predator expert, who spent years training big cats; but if the animal has a mission, "it will avoid all of those people and just to go to those three people." Says Salmoni, "There's nothing more focused than a tiger who wants to kill something." The thing is, though, it's not easy to prompt such enmity: "To get a tiger to want to fight you is pretty hard," says Salmoni. "Tigers don't like to fight. They hunt to kill and eat. That's it." Unlike lions, which grow up in groups and are used to sparring, tigers are solitary animals, responsible for their own food and survival, Salmoni says. They will take the risk to fight only "if they feel they have to."
The gap between Tatiana's attacks on the men at the San Francisco Zoo was relatively brief, so the word "grudge," which implies ill will that persists over time, may not be appropriate in this situation. Perhaps Tatiana's behavior would more accurately be described as a crime of passion — no grudge necessary. Still, could years of captivity have led to harbored resentment against humans, and her eventual attack?
Citing Tatiana's so-called history of violence — her assault just over a year ago on a zookeeper during a feeding — Salmoni says, "It may hold what we call a grudge on people." Tatiana wasn't put down then because the zoo director had determined that the tiger was acting as a normal tiger does.
Captive animals have acted violently before. In 2006 an orca (a.k.a. killer whale) at SeaWorld in San Diego attacked its trainer, who survived. That summer an elephant killed its handler at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. In 2004 a gorilla at the Dallas Zoo went on a rampage, injuring four people. A white tiger critically hurt illusionist Roy Horn, half of the performing duo Siegfried & Roy, at the Mirage Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas in 2003. More recently, in February 2007, a jaguar at the Denver Zoo killed a keeper. Despite these, among other dramatic attacks, some people wonder why they don't happen more often. Salmoni suggests it's because animals are actually "very forgiving," and that the stories we hear are the exceptions. So, are those exceptions evidence that animals bear grudges?
It's controversial, but some experts believe it's possible. "There's a difference between what we know anecdotally and what we can prove," says Salmoni. Most people who work with animals, he says, would agree that they act on past experience. True, what we refer to as a grudge might more accurately be characterized, in the animal world, as conditional reinforcement. "Any animal that can be trained can remember, and if you can remember, you can hold a grudge," says Salmoni. If a 6-ft.-tall man once threw rocks at a puppy, that puppy could be conditioned to believe, later in life, that another 6-ft.-tall man is a threat, and may attack him.

Elephants, whose memory is often celebrated, have also been thought by some experts to hold grudges. But "grudge" may be the wrong word — and it's not exactly a scientific term. More tenable than the notion of animals bearing grudges is the theory that they suffer stress. A 2005 paper in the journal Nature examined what some scientists called an "elephant breakdown" in Africa, and argued that elephants that had randomly attacked rhinoceroses were behaving pathologically. They were, the scientists suggested, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder — terminology usually reserved for humans — responding to years of hardship, inflicted by people. Their population and social order had been decimated by poaching, culls and habitat loss, and the elephants, in a sense, were striking back. Neuroscientist Allan N. Schore, one of the paper's authors and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the UCLA Medical School, demurred at calling such actions "revenge" or evidence of a "grudge" — but says the fact that elephants act out under stress suggests that their psychology may not be so different from ours.
One of Schore's co-authors, Gay Bradshaw, professor of psychology and ecology at Oregon State University and director of the Kerulos Centre for the Study of Animal Psychology and Trauma Recovery, uses the term "trans-species psychology" in her work. She acknowledges that human and animal psychology are not the same, but says they hold more similarities than we tend to think. Like Schore, she's reluctant to use the word "grudge" when it comes to animals' motivations. But she believes that animals, like humans, can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, of which captivity is a key trigger, and can act abnormally.

Tatiana, a zoo tiger, was not acting under "natural" conditions, Bradshaw points out, and the animal's physical and social limitations ought to be taken into account when examining her violent behavior. This is not to say the tiger might not have attacked had she been in the wild, but Bradshaw says her history of captivity can't be ignored. Like the elephants in Africa, she might have been striking back.
The science of animal sentience is far from a firm one; there's no way of knowing exactly what any animal is feeling. But it's conceivable that something in Tatiana's life, beyond her instinct, could have impelled her to attack. She may have been simply behaving like a tiger — but, perhaps, behaving like a tiger is not so psychologically distinct from behaving like a human.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1698987,00.html#ixzz2I0AAxshf

strandroad

Fair enough, I'd say. You mess with a tiger, you face them next...

pushkii

Fair is fair !
Its a pity that more animals don't seek revenge for humans being cruel to them

Doc Ruby

steddyeddy wrote: »

before she was unfortunatly shot dead.

Unfortunately? I'm a big animal rights person but when it comes to where we sit on the food chain I've no sympathy.

In other news, animals are a lot smarter than people think.

Hal1

Cats evil backstards, nuff said.

/thread

Auntie Psychotic

After reading this, I will never make fun of another animal at the zoo again.

Except maybe the penguins. Cause what the fùck is a penguin goin to do about it?

Chuck Stone

Hal1 wrote: »

Cats evil backstards, nuff said.

You wouldn't say that to a Tiger because he'd rip the face off you while you screamed like a little girl. :pac:

Jacob T

What's the story with all the grammatically incorrect thread titles lately?

ladysarastro

The only shame in this story is the tiger got put down, There's less then 4000 tigers left in the world and yet there's still 7 billion pesky humans running round.

steddyeddy

Doc Ruby wrote: »

Unfortunately? I'm a big animal rights person but when it comes to where we sit on the food chain I've no sympathy.

In other news, animals are a lot smarter than people think.

Well she should have been shot dead in the circumstances but she's an endangered species. For an animal of her power she shouldn't be in a cage. I'm just sorry we lost a tiger to something like this.

steddyeddy

Jacob T wrote: »

What's the story with all the grammatically incorrect thread titles lately?

Well in my case it's eleven hours of work with little rest. It's a mistake I suggest you get over it.

Turpentine

Jacob T wrote: »

What's the story with all the grammatically incorrect thread titles lately?

Per fur the curse here I'm efrayd

Czarcasm

It always strikes me as pseudo science when people try to attribute human characteristics to animals.

Humans are capable of forming rational thought and overriding their instinctual behaviour. Animals react because they are incapable of thinking. They act purely on instinct.

Hal1

Or just go to sleep and stop posting threads when you're tired .

Fromthetrees

Lets eat all the animals alive now over bottles of good chardonnay and some nice jazz music. Hmm, tiger and elephant cutlets with potatoes and honey glazed carrots sounds delish, we have some good eating ahead of us friends.

Auntie Psychotic

Auntie Psychotic wrote: »

After reading this, I will never make fun of another animal at the zoo again.

Except maybe the penguins. Cause what the fùck is a penguin goin to do about it?

Have you never seen Madagascar? Penguins are sly bastards.

Yakult

Auntie Psychotic wrote: »

After reading this, I will never make fun of another animal at the zoo again.

Except maybe the penguins. Cause what the fùck is a penguin goin to do about it?

They will write terrible jokes, that slowly kill your humor as you read them.

JustAThought

boneyarsebogman wrote: »

Have you never seen Madagascar? Penguins are sly bastards.

And extremely inventive : )

Doc Ruby

Czarcasm wrote: »

Humans are capable of forming rational thought and overriding their instinctual behaviour. Animals react because they are incapable of thinking. They act purely on instinct.

Depends on the animal. I've never met a reptile I couldn't predict 90% what they were going to do next, but you can't say its a pure on-off switch. Some animals are a lot smarter than others. Grey parrots are very quick, and many breeds of dogs show signs of high intelligence, relatively speaking.

My own dog understand two dozen verbal commands, eight patterns of claps, and three hand signals. And she knows by context as well, if I say "outside" when we're on the beach she just cocks her head from side to side, but if I say it in the house she runs to the door. You can't say that's instinct.

Turpentine

Czarcasm wrote: »

It always strikes me as pseudo science when people try to attribute human characteristics to animals.

Humans are capable of forming rational thought and overriding their instinctual behaviour. Animals react because they are incapable of thinking. They act purely on instinct.

Yeah but the whole point of this is that the animals in question are acting in a way that would imply rational, revenge-fuelled thought.

Apparently the tiger in this article by-passed other people and sources of food:

http://www.cracked.com/article_20141_5-mind-blowing-ways-animals-display-human-emotions.html

im invisible

dodderangler

ladysarastro wrote: »

The only shame in this story is the tiger got put down, There's less then 4000 tigers left in the world and yet there's still 7 billion pesky humans running round.

Well we could start cullin the humans but seems with all the shootings happening in Ireland lately that Irish hit men can't shoot straight

1ZRed

I'm scared to think what that surviving pack of snails is going to come up with to put me in my place...

Some doors are better off left unopened

Turpentine

1ZRed wrote: »

I'm scared to think what that surviving pack of snails is going to come up with to put me in my place...

Some doors are better off left unopened

Run. Run quite fast.

steddyeddy

Czarcasm wrote: »

It always strikes me as pseudo science when people try to attribute human characteristics to animals.

Humans are capable of forming rational thought and overriding their instinctual behaviour. Animals react because they are incapable of thinking. They act purely on instinct.

Well In fact the reverse is the case.

human characteristics to animals

The above quote has been called anthropomorphism by several commentators and this accusation has no scientific basis. Psychologists and animal behaviour experts (ethologists) have studied animal behaviour and psychology for years now and it was religious bodies like the Catholic Church and church of England who accused these scientists of anthropomorphism or attributing human characteristic to animals.

The real pseudoscience occurs when people assume that only humans possess any degree of certain traits. A condition called anthropocentrisim. Scientifically speaking there is no such thing as an exclusively human trait.
Certain animals have been found to possess neuronal cells called spindle cells. Spindle cells are responsible for rapid communication in the brains of intelligent animals. They also play a part in the limbic (emotion) system of the brain. To find these in animals and then say animals are not capable of rational thought would be akin to finding legs on an animal and saying it cannot walk.
Several members of the great ape family have learnt sign language. They have, through sign language expressed what they like, what they don’t like, what scares them, what they think of humans and what they think of captivity.
Humans are a new species relatively speaking and we inherited our brains from the other animals which came before us. It is extremely unscientific to come to the conclusion that animals (we are a species of animal by the way) are not capable of rational thought.

steddyeddy

Turpentine wrote: »

Yeah but the whole point of this is that the animals in question are acting in a way that would imply rational, revenge-fuelled thought.

Apparently the tiger in this article by-passed other people and sources of food:

http://www.cracked.com/article_20141_5-mind-blowing-ways-animals-display-human-emotions.html

This and many other examples of an animal over riding instinct. Chimps, elephants and other intelligent animals have been known to give up food if their mother dies. The infants even refuse food even if they're being cared for and end up dying. This is hardly an example of following survival instinct.

Czarcasm

Doc Ruby wrote: »

Depends on the animal. I've never met a reptile I couldn't predict 90% what they were going to do next, but you can't say its a pure on-off switch. Some animals are a lot smarter than others. Grey parrots are very quick, and many breeds of dogs show signs of high intelligence, relatively speaking.

My own dog understand two dozen verbal commands, eight patterns of claps, and three hand signals. And she knows by context as well, if I say "outside" when we're on the beach she just cocks her head from side to side, but if I say it in the house she runs to the door. You can't say that's instinct.

I trained my cockatiel to say "Go fùck yourself!" whenever somebody entered the room, it doesn't mean the bird understood what he was saying, it just means he reacted with a trained behaviour when somebody entered the room.

You have trained your dog well. It means he reacts in a specified manner to your commands. He does not understand your commands, but is trained to react in a specified manner. A chinese shìh tsu will not understand english, but will recognise verbal patterns that you are speaking in english and react accordingly. They will not understand the same pattern in Chinese unless they are trained to respond to chinese verbal commands.

Doc Ruby

Czarcasm wrote: »

You have trained your dog well. It means he reacts in a specified manner to your commands. He does not understand your commands, but is trained to react in a specified manner. A chinese shìh tsu will not understand english, but will recognise verbal patterns that you are speaking in english and react accordingly. They will not understand the same pattern in Chinese unless they are trained to respond to chinese verbal commands.

I never claimed the dog understood or spoke English, merely that she acts beyond the requirements of instinct. Instinct is when she buries food or turns around in a circle before lying down for sleep, I never taught her that. There is real evidence of thought patterns going on there though, filtered through that tiny doggy brain. When cadging treats for example, she's quite the drama queen.

steddyeddy

Czarcasm wrote: »

I trained my cockatiel to say "Go fùck yourself!" whenever somebody entered the room, it doesn't mean the bird understood what he was saying, it just means he reacted with a trained behaviour when somebody entered the room.

You have trained your dog well. It means he reacts in a specified manner to your commands. He does not understand your commands, but is trained to react in a specified manner. A chinese shìh tsu will not understand english, but will recognise verbal patterns that you are speaking in english and react accordingly. They will not understand the same pattern in Chinese unless they are trained to respond to chinese verbal commands.

Can you explain the discovery of spindle cells in some animals? Or can you back up the ascertation that other animals (we are animals) are incapable of rational thought using nueroscience or any other science that can explain behaviour?

Czarcasm

steddyeddy wrote: »

Can you explain the discovery of spindle cells in some animals? Or can you back up the ascertation that other animals (we are animals) are incapable of rational thought using nueroscience or any other science that can explain behaviour?

I'll be honest eddy I can't, as you've just gone WAY over my head with this post-

steddyeddy wrote: »

Well In fact the reverse is the case.



The above quote has been called anthropomorphism by several commentators and this accusation has no scientific basis. Psychologists and animal behaviour experts (ethologists) have studied animal behaviour and psychology for years now and it was religious bodies like the Catholic Church and church of England who accused these scientists of anthropomorphism or attributing human characteristic to animals.

The real pseudoscience occurs when people assume that only humans possess any degree of certain traits. A condition called anthropocentrisim. Scientifically speaking there is no such thing as an exclusively human trait.
Certain animals have been found to possess neuronal cells called spindle cells. Spindle cells are responsible for rapid communication in the brains of intelligent animals. They also play a part in the limbic (emotion) system of the brain. To find these in animals and then say animals are not capable of rational thought would be akin to finding legs on an animal and saying it cannot walk.
Several members of the great ape family have learnt sign language. They have, through sign language expressed what they like, what they don’t like, what scares them, what they think of humans and what they think of captivity.
Humans are a new species relatively speaking and we inherited our brains from the other animals which came before us. It is extremely unscientific to come to the conclusion that animals (we are a species of animal by the way) are not capable of rational thought.

I'm going to have to read up some more about anthropocentrism tbh as I'd always thought of animals as reactionary creatures that reacted rather than thought about their behaviour (yes, I know as you mentioned that humans are animals and we did indeed evolve from the apes), but it's after throwing me an awful lot tbh, lol, I'm reminded of tv programs like "flipper the dolphin" and "skippy the kangaroo" and how much we all used laugh at the way they "understood" english...

steddyeddy

Czarcasm wrote: »

I'll be honest eddy I can't, as you've just gone WAY over my head with this post-



I'm going to have to read up some more about anthropocentrism tbh as I'd always thought of animals as reactionary creatures that reacted rather than thought about their behaviour (yes, I know as you mentioned that humans are animals and we did indeed evolve from the apes), but it's after throwing me an awful lot tbh, lol, I'm reminded of tv programs like "flipper the dolphin" and "skippy the kangaroo" and how much we all used laugh at the way they "understood" english...

Well you are right aswell to be honest. We dont know what animals are capable of but I dont think we can say what they're not capable of either! Good night xxxx!!

Doc Ruby

steddyeddy wrote: »

This and many other examples of an animal over riding instinct. Chimps, elephants and other intelligent animals have been known to give up food if their mother dies. The infants even refuse food even if they're being cared for and end up dying. This is hardly an example of following survival instinct.

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/translat/18v.hti

When Apius and Junius Pictinius were consuls, a dog that could not be driven away from its master, who had been condemned, accompanied him to prison; when, soon afterwards, he was executed, it followed him, howling. When the people of Rome, out of pity, caused it to be fed, it carried the food to its dead master's mouth. Finally, when its master's corpse was thrown into the Tiber, the dog swam to it and tried to keep it from sinking.

I've seen the carrying food behaviour myself...

Lightbulb Sun

About time, gwan the lads!

seamus

Not really surprising. We're barely an ant's step away from the other animals as it is. We like to think of humans as unique and in possession of a whole heap of things which animals are incapable of, but in reality the differences are less than 0.01%.

Death and Taxes

Auntie Psychotic wrote: »

After reading this, I will never make fun of another animal at the zoo again.

Except maybe the penguins. Cause what the fùck is a penguin goin to do about it?

AP, ain't you ever seen Madagascar???

Wibbs

seamus wrote: »

Not really surprising. We're barely an ant's step away from the other animals as it is. We like to think of humans as unique and in possession of a whole heap of things which animals are incapable of, but in reality the differences are less than 0.01%.

I dunno S. I'd be on the side of steddyeddy and Doc Ruby that has animals understanding way more than some instinct driven machine. There's a border collie in Germany who understands 300 words and can understand symbolic representation better than a human 3 year old. I've seen examples of clear thinking even with my own pets. Hell I've a turtle who will follow me around a room but only me, so while no Einstein he's recognising me specifically(though some species of turtle can navigate mazes better than rats. They appear to be the brainiest of reptiles, even though the most primitive in many respects).

Another example was a cockatiel I had growing up. He had a few phrases. When his cage was being cleaned we'd say "Cocky(inventive:)) is a dirty birdie" and when he was being fed we'd say "cocky want seed?" and he'd repeat this back. So far so good. Down the line if we left his cage go for too long without cleaning he'd actually say "Cocky wants dirty birdie". OK his grammar was dodge, but he seemed to understand "cocky wants" was a request that caused an action and that "dirty birdie" had something to do with cage cleaning so mixed the two to make a different request. That's pretty mad Ted.

That said I'd not go too far the other direction and think there's little difference. We are an amazing species on the intelligence front and it's more than "animal with a few extras" or even "great ape with a few differences". There was an exponential leap in cognitive powers with us, an emergent behaviour that made us very different, even when you look at earlier versions of us to compare. The percentage between us and the rest of the animal kingdom is way more than 0.01%

Boombastic

My dog likes to get revenge. Last night I kept him up late with my shuffling about, this morning he wakes me up early and annoys me until I get up B@stard

Chiorino

Maybe the tiger was unhappy with the zoo being open on Christmas day??

monkeysnapper

I remember when I was a wee boy my uncle telling me how himself and his friend were putting up a fence on the farm and he tied up the farm dog, the dog was barking so the friend gave the dog a kick . Anyway a couple of days later the friend came back to the farm and the dog instantly attacked the man and cut his legs to sh1yte.

What made me laugh was as he was telling us story the dog was in kitchen and my uncle was stroking dog and all us kids playing with him outside after. You wouldn't see at today . He'd have been shot

Shenshen

Wibbs wrote: »

That said I'd not go too far the other direction and think there's little difference. We are an amazing species on the intelligence front and it's more than "animal with a few extras" or even "great ape with a few differences". There was an exponential leap in cognitive powers with us, an emergent behaviour that made us very different, even when you look at earlier versions of us to compare. The percentage between us and the rest of the animal kingdom is way more than 0.01%

I'm not so sure there... the way I see it, we are an ape with a little extra, and that little extra has allowed us, over time, to become very distinctive by an accumulation of knowledge and culture.
Biologically, we are still very similar to our nearest cousins, but with the background of thousands of years of applying our cognitives powers, and by making use of everything those before us thought of and came up with, we are now very different in behaviour and capabilities.

If you strip away our culture and our combined knowledge, all you'd be left with is an ape that's a little different really.

bgrizzley

Auntie Psychotic wrote: »

After reading this, I will never make fun of another animal at the zoo again.

Except maybe the penguins. Cause what the fùck is a penguin goin to do about it?

daRobot

pushkii wrote: »

Fair is fair !
Its a pity that more animals don't seek revenge for humans being cruel to them

Our old Jack Russell did anyhow.

My dads pal, drunk after some rugby game, literally kicked the dog off the couch in the living room (we called him up this obviously)

Next morning, with him feeling guilty, he goes to pet the dog before he leaves. Chomp!

A well deserved revenge attack by the dog. These animals are much smarter than we give them credit for.

OneArt

Hal1 wrote: »

Cats evil backstards, nuff said.

/thread

That's why they're great.

floggg

Of course there are some animals who act on more than instinct (while I'm sure plenty of others don't).

Chimps for example have been known to commit murder. Not even just killing a rival encroaching on their territory or competing for a female, but a group of chimps carrying out an unprovoked premeditated and organised assault on another member of the group and beating them to death.

I watched a nature programme the other night where an elephant returned to the same spot where her sister died every day for weeks and just stood there. That's not instinct.

And there have been various experiments where primates in particular have used logic and rational thought to solve various puzzles and problems.

CatFromHue

daRobot wrote: »

Our old Jack Russell did anyhow.

My dads pal, drunk after some rugby game, literally kicked the dog off the couch in the living room (we called him up this obviously)

Next morning, with him feeling guilty, he goes to pet the dog before he leaves. Chomp!

A well deserved revenge attack by the dog. These animals are much smarter than we give them credit for.

I wouldn't say that's revenge more that the dog learned that your dad's pal is someone who will hurt him and so defended himself.

Procasinator

Shenshen wrote: »

I'm not so sure there... the way I see it, we are an ape with a little extra, and that little extra has allowed us, over time, to become very distinctive by an accumulation of knowledge and culture.
Biologically, we are still very similar to our nearest cousins, but with the background of thousands of years of applying our cognitives powers, and by making use of everything those before us thought of and came up with, we are now very different in behaviour and capabilities.

If you strip away our culture and our combined knowledge, all you'd be left with is an ape that's a little different really.

If you strip away out culture and combined knowledge, however, we are still anatomically and behaviourally very different (as you already mentioned). I think we would still be considered very different to chimps and bonobos.

Froyo

Czarcasm wrote: »

It always strikes me as pseudo science when people try to attribute human characteristics to animals.

Humans are capable of forming rational thought and overriding their instinctual behaviour. Animals react because they are incapable of thinking. They act purely on instinct.

The use of the word 'pseudo' is very ironic in this post.

Czarcasm

Froyo wrote: »

The use of the word 'pseudo' is very ironic in this post.

Well up until eddy posted information that changed my opinion and meant I had a more informed opinion, I had always thought it WAS pseudo science. Hardly that ironic now, is it?

At least eddy didn't feel the need to be a pseudo intellectual about it.

Oops, there's that word again.

Dun laoire

Never get too close to a horny elephant. Sad story though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCf950nbCVY

The Sunday Times
June 17, 2007

Kelvin Parker's holiday at Victoria Falls turned into a nightmare because of
a guide's lapse of judgment. He tells of the minute his world fell apart
Ann McFerran
Today, as he does every day, Kelvin Parker will walk for five or six hours.
In March this year his beloved wife Veronica and daughter Charlotte were
savaged to death by an elephant in a Zimbabwean game park. He, too, was
chased but escaped. Such is his grief that trudging the streets has become
the only way he can keep his mind from returning to that sunny morning in
the African bush.

"I still feel as though I'm being chased by the elephant," he says. "Walking
is the only time when I don't feel bad and I don't weep. If I'm not walking
or somehow keeping busy I am hit by this terrible weight of grief and
loneliness."

Kelvin, 53, is a likable, slightly chaotic man who weeps frequently as he
describes how Veronica and Charlotte were wiped out in less than a minute on
what should have been a glorious holiday. For the previous four years, the
Parkers had been living in a remote part of South Africa, but with
10-year-old Charlotte's secondary education looming, the British-born couple
had decided to settle in France, where they'd once lived.

Throughout their somewhat unusual and peripatetic 18-year marriage - they'd
also lived in Japan, Hong Kong and Portugal - the Parkers financed
themselves by renovating houses. "We were hedonists, lotus-eaters,
travellers," says Kelvin. "Making money and careers didn't matter to us.
Life was what mattered."

When they met they were both working for an advertising agency in Hong Kong
and proved the perfect match: "I was good at the big things; Veronica was
good on detail. She was charming and calm; I was emotional and explosive."
Their daughter, whom they called Charlie, after Charlie Parker, was
"exceptional - brilliant at school, an outstanding athlete", according to
Kelvin. "I know everyone says this about their children, but with Charlie it
was true."

In recent years they had spent most of their waking lives together: "I might
be plumbing; Veronica might be cooking or even holding the other end of a
pipe for me. Even our work had a terrific intimacy."

Every evening at 6.30, the Parkers sat down to talk about their day over
drinks and snacks. "Veronica and I would have two glasses of dry white wine
while Charlie had Appletiser. In the school holidays she'd have tea and
bickies in bed with us, first thing. The three of us were completely
entwined." Kelvin pauses to blink back tears: "At least I know that when
they died we'd done everything we could to know and love each other."

Before they left South Africa they decided to make a trip to Victoria Falls,
which Veronica had always wanted to see. Kelvin found a four-day package
deal that included two days of safari in the nearby Hwange national park.
"Quite honestly we weren't terribly interested in the safari," Kelvin says.
"We'd seen lots of animals. But the package made sense financially."

The family loved Victoria Falls and were delighted with the safari lodge. On
their first evening they watched wildebeest, giraffes and elephants at a
nearby watering hole. Charlie enthused: "This is the prettiest place I've
ever been."

At dinner an English couple raved about the lodge's safari guide, Andy
Privella. "He's fantastic," they said. "He took us right up to an elephant
and we stroked it."

Early next morning, on their first safari walk, the much-praised guide told
the Parkers what they must do: "You walk when I say walk. You stop when I
say stop. If something happens I will take care of you."

"He explained he had a rifle, and I noticed he put one bullet in the
chamber, leaving the rest in his belt," says Kelvin.

They set off, in single file, following the guide, who pointed out
footprints, animal droppings and food. They saw giraffes and zebra but no
elephants. After returning to the lodge for breakfast the guide took them
for a drive.

"Maybe what we said on the drive helps to explain what happened," says
Kelvin.

"The guide had been a hunter. We said we didn't like hunting because it
seemed to be about people's egos. On the other hand, we said, you have to
cull elephants where there are too many, like in part of South Africa. We
also talked about male elephants 'in musth', in a state of sexual arousal,
and how you have to be very careful around them. The guide said he thought
that might be exaggerated."

They drove near some woodland where elephants usually gathered but there
wasn't one in sight. The Parkers didn't care but the guide seemed bothered.
"That sucks," he said. At 10.30am, when they stopped by a waterhole to enjoy
a beer, an elephant lumbered into view, about 600 yards away.

The guide suggested he take them to see it up close. The Parkers felt they
couldn't refuse. "We felt the guide would be disappointed if he didn't
deliver for us," says Kelvin. "Maybe this is the kind of people we are.
Bloody stupid, when I think about it now. We did that walk for him!"

The plan was to observe the elephant from an ant hill about l00 yards away.
As they walked Kelvin saw the guide look at the elephant with his
binoculars. "He must have seen large wet patches around its ears which meant
the elephant was in musth and potentially aggressive." But the elephant,
too, was ambling towards the ant hill so that soon they were only 30 yards
apart. At the ant hill the guide urged Kelvin to take photographs. Just as
the Parkers began to walk back from the ant hill, Kelvin turned to see their
guide peering out - "and the elephant saw him", he says.

Only that morning the Parkers had been told how elephants when they're angry
put their heads back, flap their ears and their trunks shoot up. And that is
exactly what this elephant did next.

The guide shouted: "Stop!" The Parkers stopped, whereupon the guide waved
his hands in the air and yelled loudly.

"I'll never understand why he did that as long as I live," says Kelvin,
"because of course it really pissed off the elephant." Then the guide raised
his rifle and fired above the elephant's head - "So he'd used the only
bullet he had."

The elephant charged. "Because I'm at the back the elephant goes for me,"
says Kelvin. "I run, thinking, 'I'm dead'; the elephant is so big and so
close and so fast." In a desperate attempt to outwit the elephant Kelvin
zigzagged. Confused, the elephant stopped, turned and ambled back to the
forest.

At this moment, Kelvin turned to see the guide by the ant hill blubbering:
"I'm sorry; I'm sorry." And near him lay Charlie's white T-shirt. Kelvin ran
over to find his daughter "completely, utterly dead. Poor little thing; her
eyes were open but rolled back. I picked her up and her little head just
fell back. Her life spirit had gone".

Imagining his wife was hiding, he began to search for her. He found her, or
rather her brain, with bits of the top of her skull lying not far from
Charlie. "So I knew I couldn't find her in one piece," Kelvin says, tears
streaming down his cheeks.

Kelvin carried his wife and daughter to the ant hill, sent the guide to get
help, and sat for 45 minutes cradling them in the blistering sun. He says he
talked to them both, telling them, "I'd look after them and get them safely
home. I certainly wasn't scared. In a way I wanted to be dead too. But I
realised if I were alive then in some sense they were too".

When he was rescued and taken back to the lodge he couldn't face seeing the
guide but he felt no anger towards him. "He'll have to live with this for
the rest of his life." And so will Kelvin: "The worst time is when I wake
up. So I have to keep busy or walk."

This time last year Kelvin was in Britain for Father's Day, so Charlie wrote
him a card at her school in South Africa. Addressed to "a really cool dad",
and written in green and turquoise with lots of red hearts, Charlie's card
reads: "Dads are cool. Dads really rule! . . . I thank God for a dad like
you!"

Today Charlie's "cool" dad has found some solace in setting up a charity
called CharChar, commemorating her and her mother, to fund the teaching of
African children to read - reading was one of Charlie's greatest pleasures.

"The charity seems to make more sense than anything else," says Kelvin.
"When I look back I wouldn't change anything about our lives together -
except for that final minute." And with that he goes off to walk some more,
to try to obliterate the pain of his loss

marcsignal

I know this couple from my local. The girl owns a cat, which the bf hates. Whenever he mistreats the cat, it goes straight to the bedroom, sneaks under the covers and shits on his side of the bed

Wibbs

Shenshen wrote: »

I'm not so sure there... the way I see it, we are an ape with a little extra, and that little extra has allowed us, over time, to become very distinctive by an accumulation of knowledge and culture.
Biologically, we are still very similar to our nearest cousins, but with the background of thousands of years of applying our cognitives powers, and by making use of everything those before us thought of and came up with, we are now very different in behaviour and capabilities.

If you strip away our culture and our combined knowledge, all you'd be left with is an ape that's a little different really.

My point would be that our culture and combined knowledge is the huge extra and unseen anywhere else in the animal kingdom. Indeed it was barely seen in our own ancestors until we, modern humans came along. What was seen in them and very marked in us is that we externalised our own evolution. While natural selection still pressured us we were no longer complete slaves to it. How? Invention of tools to limit it's impact on our spread and progress. We started off as pretty weak vegetarians and scavengers. Then we became active predators. Predators with small teeth, low enough strength(Neandertals the exception), low stomach acid and no claws. Not a great blueprint for an apex predator. We came up with knives and spears to kill and butcher prey and we tamed fire to predigest the meat for our weak stomach acids. Then we migrated into new environments*. Sometimes very cold ones. Did we need to grow fur to adapt? Nope, we could use others fur by proxy. We could travel through or even live in arid environments and didn't have to adapt a hump to store food and water, we could carry it. That's all before the cultural stuff really kicked off. We're still at it. Hell there are folks reading this who would have been dead 100 years ago, but because we externalise our evolution we didn't have to directly adapt to the various illnesses and conditions that would have killed us, instead we invented external cures and treatments. Now we're even beginning to glimpse and influence the very building blocks of evolution itself. If we survive long enough it's likely that the next human species to evolve on this planet will be evolved by us, not nature. No other animal has come within sniffing distance of that level of culture as tool and externalised evolution.

As you say we have "become very distinctive by an accumulation of knowledge and culture". I agree, but to remove that from any equation is akin to removing the wings from birds and saying they're just lizards with funny scales.






*it's far easier for predators to do so. Plant food sources vary a lot between environments and many are poisonous, but so long as there are animals a predator can survive. Drop a Wildebeest into Donegal and chances are the local plant sources won't be the right ones, drop a lion into Donegal and it's grubs up.