Mrs. Darth Vader
06-21-2010, 22:07
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.
“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.