[dhYTvlAv]

Apparently the stone throwing did actually occur. He had been storing a load more rocks for future outbursts.

[freevideoandoicsI]

He has a t-shirt, "People are stupid. Throw rocks at them."

[Aeaefee]

chimps aren't monkeys

[opergolon]

Apparently the stone throwing did actually occur. He had been storing a load more rocks for future outbursts.

Yeah. Luckily they prevented him from doing more harm. Otoh had he been storing shoes to hurl them at people he'd be a hero now

[Varbaiskkic]

Fight the Power!

[OlegSan]

Monkey! Hey!!!

Animals can't sin, so that's rather ironic/fitting.

[JacomoR]

I don't remember "Jesus saves" as a message of the Planet of the Apes or its descendants. Which one was that, Frosty? Seems to me that animals that lie in ambush along a game trail are involved in planning, yet we have these breathless articles every few years saying "Animals Plan!" like that is new information. We really are a specieist species. "There has been scant evidence in previous research that animals can plan for future events." is utter nonsense. They put their nests in defensible positions; they select who in the pack will hunt and who will defend, leving one of the most dangerous behind in the case of wolves and lions. They do plan. However, they don't spend significant parts of their lives complaining that life is too short.

[Annevecenqp]

He wouldn't stop, so they cut his balls off.

[cewIdeatovace]

...none of that is necessarily evidence of planning. It's more likely to be instinctive behavior for which the animals don't even comprehend the purpose; you might as well say that a horse growing a long tail is a clear sign that it anticipates biting flies landing on its arse. It's nothing of the sort. The ability has merely been programmed in by evolution so that the animal has all the tools required to survive when the time comes. This case is different because it's clear the animal discriminates between different wholly artificial sets of circumstances which are very unlikely to have been selected for. It is perceiving a situation, analyzing it, and coming up with a plan to deal with it. Also being a total antisocial douchebag, but I guess researchers already knew chimps can be like that.

Well initially some birds were the first members of their species to build defensive nests.

[Uvgsgssu]

Elok, you are presenting a very prejudiced view of man's place in the animal kingdom. No one who has followed large predator behavior patterns believe their hunting styles are "instinctive" rather than exhibitions of planning. It is instinctive for them to hunt, but the how indicates planning.

I'll skip other examples to point out that this theory that all animal behavior is instinctive, generally grows out of the arguments about man having a soul, which gives him choices in his behavior. THAT argument in turn arises out of the mind/body dichotomy very much in debate at the time of Christ. Short summary : Only mankind has a soul which gives him choices for good or evil independent of the needs and urges of his body. Therefore, a whole bunch of things including the rest of the animal kingdom operates on instinct only.

Neither Sufis or scientists would find that blather meaningful. For the Sufis, it is not your soul that gives you choices, the power of choice is inherent in you. There is no mind - body dichotomy. To the scentists, all adaptation by animals in the wild, changing behaviors and patterns is thinking, not instinct. Thus many animals exhibit rudimentary planning, adapting, hunting, tool-using behaviors indicating they think. None show thinking on our scale with language, mathematics, abstractions, long-range projections,speculations, or creations of deities; but they do mourn, adapt, plan, and abandon non-productive patterns.

[tipoketpu]

I'll leave it to the scientists, if we have any biology specialists now that Odin's gone, to tell me What Scientists Think. I'll only ask, why on earth are you dragging the Sufis into this? That's a real head-scratcher.

[Itrtuawh]

They're a mystic subset of Islam, IIRC. Not a very large one, which is what makes it odd that he brings 'em up.

[StevenS]

The San Diego wild Animal Park lets the animals roam free and the people ride a train to look at them.

[disappointment2]

I'm confused, AC. Where's the innuendo in that post? Does it involve the word "bone?"

[valiumcheepval]

Time to declare war on these apes.

KILL ALL PRIMATES!~