Scientists investigating video of a cow using tools, and later conducting some basic psychology experiments on said cow, say their findings could expand the list of animals capable of tool use.

  • InabaResident@feddit.org
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    6 days ago

    Our tool use and application of our intelligence is still quite unique. Special is a loaded term, but humans are very different from all other life forms on this planet - and of course, in many ways, still very much the same.

    • MotoAsh@piefed.social
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      6 days ago

      We’re only so different because we already murdered or fucked the species that were similar enough to be a threat.

      Also, scientific advancement has been so rapid that it is wholly inaccurate to compare modern humans to apes and then gesture to technology… It wasn’t even 400 years ago that Newton was explaining what gravity is, and 400 years is a damn blip on the evolutionary scale of a species that can live 100+ years.

      • ɯᴉuoʇuɐ@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

        It wasn’t even 400 years ago that Newton was explaining what gravity is, and 400 years is a damn blip on the evolutionary scale of a species that can live 100+ years.

        But that’s just further proof that we are special. In just some 5000 years we broke the nature meta countless times, and we’re doing it again and again faster and faster, we’re so fucking smart we’re doing the Paleoproterozoic extinction (“Oxygen holocaust”) all over again.

        • MotoAsh@piefed.social
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          6 days ago

          No it’s not. No it is not proof that we are special. We have NO IDEA what differences make such things unique. To pretend it is our gift alone is to be a self-centered piece of shit.

          • ɯᴉuoʇuɐ@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 days ago

            We have NO IDEA what differences make such things unique.

            What do you mean by this? Make what things unique? Why do we have to understand the differences to be sure that the outcome is unique?

            To pretend it is our gift alone is to be a self-centered piece of shit.

            I also think you’re a piece of shit, if I may respond directly to this indirect insult; now, can we get back to talking normally?

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 days ago

        i’m not aware of there actually being any evidence for us being the cause of other humans going extinct, could you cite a source for that?
        To my knowledge we don’t really have a clue what killed them, and the best bet would just be “skill issue” basically. The world changed, they didn’t manage to survive the changes, we did.