Comments on: If Chimps Kill With Sticks, Do Bigfoot?

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:29:35 +0000

DWA- “Zen mind”. Excellent way to put it. I think science could use a lot more of it indeed. I also think that beginners can ask some of the most thought provoking things even when they do not have a better way of doing things. Sometimes a student will ask something completely innocently about how something works and it really will make me stop and think. How many times has a kid asked a seemingly simple question that made you really think things through? If more people who are so called “experts” would put aside their regimented thinking and stop to listen, they may actually expand their search for the truth. Its these kinds of questions and searching for answers that feed science and indeed many other things in life. In my opinion, it is what ultimately makes the world go around in a way.

By: DWA

DWA — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:31:07 +0000

mystery_man: exactly. This is what “thinking outside the box” IS. Your box is the way you’ve been taught (professionally) to think.

(And before anyone comes in with “then just believe that sas are four-dimension saucer pilots”: without lines within which it makes sense to paint, there would be no science.)

Zen mind/beginner’s mind is something all of us - scientists included, maybe even especially - need more of. (The best scientists have always had it.) Jane Goodall did things differently from the way mainstream scientists did them. She also wrote all of it down, religiously. Science is documenting process.

As an avid backpacker, I’ve noticed one salient thing over the years: many of the best insights into how to do things better come from beginners. It’s a do-it-yourself sport, and a generalist sport, and it winds up being informed by what the individual brings to it from everyday life.

Hmmmm. Something like science, isn’t it?

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:19:58 +0000

I think there is certainly value to the observations made by people who haven’t studied these things and had their views narrowed. I have degrees in biology and zoology and I can attest to the fact that my own view sometimes seems skewed towards what I have specifically been taught. But in recent years, I have seen the errors of thinking along the lines of “I know what I’m talking about.” Obviously that is not always the case and I find that students of mine often make the most breathtaking little observations. I am even often corrected by others who have no training at all and I think that even one with training should not get indignant about it as I may have once upon a time. I wish there was more of this “thinking outside of the box” going on in all research. Scientists can tend to be conditioned to think one way or another and nowadays, I never write off the observations of a layman, in fact I welcome them. It is one of the reasons I love this site. So many different people with so many different backgrounds that have something to say and more often than not, something useful or profound to say.

By: kittenz

kittenz — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 12:51:02 +0000

We’ve only begun to scatch the surface when it comes to animal behavior.They (the Sas) could even be using highways to procure food, as Remus’s crows appear to have done. I can imagine one chasing a deer til it runs out in front of a truck, and hanging around until traffic clears to pick up the carcass.

By: kittenz

kittenz — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 12:47:09 +0000

To relate all this back to Sasquatch, an animal as intelligent as they are thought to be would not have to “act human” in any way in order to survive. If birds and other animals can learn to store food against famine, so could Sasquatch. Ditto for using tools and forming weapons with which to hunt. And who knows? There are a lot of hot springs in North America. Maybe someday, someone will observe a family of Sasquatch, communing in a long hot soak, or seasoning their food with salt water.

By: kittenz

kittenz — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 12:41:30 +0000

Comment Preview:
Remus,

That is a terrific story, and in light of the recent observations that some birds plan ahead to store food, it’s not that much of a stretch to think that intelligent birds such as crows might plan ahead to use vehicles to procure food.

Here is a link to a story that was posted recently at http://www.sciencedaily.com, announcing the finding that scrub jays plan ahead to store food against shortages:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070222160144.htm

People have known for centuries that some birds store food, but it has now been documented in a behavioral experiment that they can forecast specific times of future need, and store food accordingly.

By: Remus

Remus — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 03:08:30 +0000

Here’s a true story from my own experience. Make of it what you will. A few years ago, a crow seemed to try using my Jeep as a tool.
One day during my daily commute to work, just as I crested a hill in the woods, I came across a crow and a squirrel “fighting” in the center of the lane. I hit the brakes so as not to run them over and as I came to a stop, the crow flew off and the squirrel ran into the woods. I didn’t think much about it until the same thing happened a week later in the same spot. Soon afterward I became aware of the fact that there was often a dead “roadkilled” squirrel on that patch of road. I mentioned this to a few people at work but no-one believed my theory that a crow might have perhaps seen a squirrel get run over and was trying to duplicate the scene. Later that summer, there was a dead crow on the road. After that there were few if any dead squirrels in that area. Purely anecdotal at this point of course, but it did in fact happen!

By: kittenz

kittenz — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 23:17:35 +0000

It’s also important to remember that it isn’t necessarily titled scientists who make the discoveries. Jane Goodall did not even have a degree when she first went to Gombe to study chimps, and she was roundly ridiculed for referring to the chimps she studied by names rather than assigning them numbers, and for having the temerity to suggest that they have unique personalities. Yet Jane Goodall with her “quaint observations” has quite literally changed the way we think about animals, more than almost any other person has done.

The average person, who has made the study of animals his or her passion, may be a better candidate for doing field research than a Ph.D. in many cases, precisely because their focus has not been narrowed so constrictively by what they have been taught. When you don’t have a lot of preconceived notions about what animals should do, you can free your mind to observe what they actually do.

By: kittenz

kittenz — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:50:31 +0000

I don’t think it’s a coincidence, DWA. Scientists who leave their minds open to possibilities are much more likely to make the intuitive leaps that lead to a deeper understanding of the animals around us and of our place within them.

By: DWA

DWA — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:45:56 +0000

I should have said there, “UNCLASSIFIED hairy hominoids.”