From: Charles D Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Aug 05 2001 - 16:01:46 MDT
On Sunday 05 August 2001 01:02 pm, you wrote:
> In a message dated 8/5/2001 2:15:16 PM Central Daylight Time,
>
> JoshCahoon@cs.com writes:
> > On another topic entirely, I'd like to confess sympathy with a
> > very anti-extropian idea: Civilization and technology are bad
> > and unnatural.
>
> ....those animals today that show signs of developing
> technology...ever so faintly..(I've been told by "greenies" that
> there are some...??) ..might be identified as "pre" human. Using
> this definition it's obvious that direct genetic descent is
> irrelevant.
>...
> EvMick
> Effingham Illinois...
Actually there are a great many animals and birds that use tools.
To what extent this is culture is, to me at least, quite uncertain,
but it doesn't take much smarts. One of the Galopagos finches uses
a cactus thorn to pry insects out of crevices. Clearly tool use.
I'd certainly be hesitant to extrapolate from that to an increasing
intelligence, however.
--
Charles Hixson
Copy software legally, the GNU way!
Use GNU software, and legally make and share copies of software.
See:
http://www.gnu.org
http://www.redhat.com
http://www.linux-mandrake.com
http://www.calderasystems.com
http://www.linuxapps.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:09:29 MST