Stan Galat posted:Jim Kelly posted:I offer a slight correction to the post above by Professor Galat of Stanistan U. Since tool usage among chimpanzees of stone and twigs in food-gathering is widely documented, what really separates man from other primates is Snap-On tools.
The great thing about being tenured at Stanistan U is that I get to decide anything I want (even if nobody agrees with me). I can create my own definitions of things, and my students (and the other faculty) can't do anything about it. It's settled science. It's good to be king.
I humbly submit that (while I'm pretty much the only one who feels this way) I don't think that using a rock to smash the thing the food is hiding in, and a twig to pick the food out is really using tools. Mrs. Galat (and most of the scientific community) does not agree with me on this-- but my definition of a "tool" is something manufactured for a specific purpose. By this definition, I'd need to see my orangutan brothers (and dogs, and crows, and a dozen other "tool using" species) shaping rocks with other rocks, or sharpening sticks with stones, then saving them for future use.
Keeping them in roll-around cabinets in special caves with decent light and heated floors would help convince me as well.
Stan you reminded me of this scene in a old movie..... and start at 1:20 ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jM0hRiX5xc