Proposition 8,the Supreme Court and Chimps -Part 2

 "The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it."– John Ruskin

 In a second experiment, Kandula was given a sturdy box that was placed in a different section of his containment. Did this young elephant use that sturdy box to get the food? We know that humans and apes can figure out this problem. Well, as it turned out, Kandula got the box and moved it in order to get the food reward. So what conclusions would you draw from these experiments? Would you generalize the findings? This article was found in the March 23-24, 2013 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

In an experiment, at Emory University, researchers tested chimpanzees on portraits of their own species. These chimpanzees were trained on computer screens. They apparently recognized which juveniles were born to which females.  I’ll bet you could tell or recognize your offspring too. Another experiment trained the chimps to detect similarities among images. The chimpanzees were shown a females portrait and then given a choice between two other faces one of which showed her offspring.  The apes chose purely on family resemblance. Can you do the same?

In a more recent study, the experimenter tracked the eye pupil movements of chimpanzees. They found that they followed the gaze of members of their own species far better than that of humans. This finding might explain their skill when they have to pay attention to human experimenters during the experiment .if only the chimpanzee could test the other chimpanzee?

 Another question the experimenters evaluated was whether we’re the only species to care about the well-being of others. It is well-known that apes, in the wild, offer spontaneous assistance to each other, such as defending against other animals or even consoling distressed companions with tender embraces. In captivity, the experimenters asked whether or not one chimpanzee was willing to push food toward another. Guess what they found out? When the experimenters used a simple choice between tokens, they could exchange for food-one kind of token rewarded only the chooser, the other kind rewarded both and -lo and behold these chimps preferred outcomes that rewarded both. How do you think you would do on that experiment if your partner had a different skin color or was from a different socio- economic group? I’ll bet that if the partner was both attractive and of the other sex you might make sure both of you are rewarded.

 Did you know that the octopuses, in captivity, were able to recognize their caretakers and learn to open pill bottles protected by childproof caps? Further, their brains are the largest among invertebrates. Do you think that brain size has anything to do with the skill? Also, octopuses have hundreds of suckers, each one is equipped with its own ganglion this with thousands of neurons. These mini brains are interconnected making for widely distributed nervous system; and that an octopus with a severed arm may crawl on its own and even pick up food. Moreover an octopus can change skin color in self-defense and can mimic a poisonous sea snake.

If you have children, I’ll bet their precocious too. On the other hand if you have animals, I’ll bet you taught them tricks as well. And one way to test your intelligence is determined by your choices. Are you expecting different results even though you’re making the same choice over and over? You might remember that Einstein said something like the following: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I hope the Supreme Court gets it right.

Yesterday, Alpha, Jade and I ran on the trail towards Browns Bar for about an 8 mile loop. Keep moving and laughing.