Simon Paynton

[Simon Paynton]

Unseen wrote:

Don’t honeybees tell each other (reporting information) where to find newly-discovered nectar-hunting grounds, which then send other bees (behavior) to exploit them?

Apparently, when a bee goes to a flower, it leaves sweaty footprints on the petals.  Another bee can come along and smell the footprints and determine how long ago the flower was last visited.

The flower has an electric field around it, going from the top to the bottom of the plant.  When it’s visited by a pollinator, this distorts the electric field for a while, and another pollinator can sense the electric field and again tell how long ago the flower was last visited.

[Simon Paynton]

@strega – that’s a fantastic story.  The thing about pre-industrial people is their strong community ethos.  It shows how good it is for us.

[Simon Paynton]

Enco: the buzz is now snoring.

[Simon Paynton]

According to my studies, one of the big differences between chimps (and the other great apes) and humans, is that we are “domesticated” (compared with them, our society is not structured around male-male dominance relations).  That means that we are able to cooperate and share.  Chimps can’t share, and therefore there’s no point cooperating.

We took this sharing and cooperation, and conquered the world.  Now look at us.

Tomasello said that chimps are social but not very cooperative.  Of course, they are hyper-social.  They’re also very quarrelsome.

[Simon Paynton]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Why humans are not clever chimps. (interesting site)

Theophilus Painter was not a very rigorous thinker, he kept making mistakes, of assuming things when he didn’t know, sometimes rooted in racial bias it is probably true.

New data from the National Institutes of Health show the human genome varies from the chimp genome not by 1.4 percent but by closer to 13.5 percent, says Leaf.

That sounds more realistic than 1.4%.

Many scientists believe that the instinctive lives of animals can teach us much about the inner lives of humans.

In the process, the inner life of humans follows one long chain of degradation. The whole medley of conditions and feelings known as “human behavior” loses its splendid pitch; the delicate sentiments, the exalted thoughts, and the urge to poetry are all viewed from the perspective of the animal, whose sole goal is to survive and reproduce. The scientific approach hardly inspires.

It depends on how good you are at philosophy.

[Simon Paynton]

But it has to be facilitated to some extent – someone has to be there to interpret and read out loud what someone is pointing to.

[Simon Paynton]

If somebody’s pushing somebody’s elbow as they type at a keyboard, or point to letters, then obviously that’s a pointless exercise.  But if they’re doing it themselves, it opens up communication to an otherwise non-verbal person.

[Simon Paynton]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

World of Woo: Facilitated communication.

Facilitated communication may possibly be woo sometimes, but it’s not always, and it provides a communication lifeline for people who can’t talk but can use their fingers.

I have a nephew who is severely autistic and non-verbal, and he now communicates on an i-pad.  He has to have a facilitator because it’s a special skill to be clear what he is pointing at, at least it was before, when he was doing it on a paper letter board; and also, it takes a lot of trust for him to do it with somebody.  There are only 3 people he does it with.  He taught himself to read and spell by himself, when he was a boy.

It’s very possible that some people think they should hold the person’s elbow, but that is just asking for trouble, and nobody can trust the results.

[Simon Paynton]

jakelafort wrote:

i did not notice anything about Islamic terorism.

Based on government and independent analyses, right-wing extremist violence has been responsible for the overwhelming majority of fatalities, amounting to approximately 75% to 80% of U.S. domestic terrorism deaths since 2001.

Illustrative cases include the 2015 Charleston church shooting, when white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine Black parishioners; the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, where 11 worshippers were murdered; the 2019 El Paso Walmart massacre, in which an anti-immigrant gunman killed 23 people. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an earlier but still notable example, killed 168 in the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.

By contrast, left-wing extremist incidents, including those tied to anarchist or environmental movements, have made up about 10% to 15% of incidents and less than 5% of fatalities.

Examples include the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front arson and vandalism campaigns in the 1990s and 2000s, which were more likely to target property rather than people. …

Right-wing extremist violence has been more frequent and more lethal than left-wing violence. The number of extremist groups is substantial and skewed toward the right, although a count of organizations does not necessarily reflect incidents of violence.

It’s all about US domestic terrorism only: right compared with left.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 4 days ago by Simon Paynton.

[Simon Paynton]

Jake,
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/right-wing-extremist-violence-is-more-frequent-and-deadly-than-left-wing-violence-data-shows

[Simon Paynton]

I would miss Sunday School, I read a lot of the articles.

[Simon Paynton]

I really like this oldie.

[Simon Paynton]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Chimp ‘civil war’ breaks out between 200 great apes

I’m not sure it’s all that surprising.  The group got big and split into two.  Now, they do what chimps do and the two groups are fighting each other.

[Simon Paynton]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Since the Dobbs decision, Christians are becoming more aggressive.

I think “aggressive” sums up MAGA in general.  Aggressively stupid, aggressively selfish, aggressively unaccountable.  There was one on the radio today claiming that the Christian God is a God of war.  They’re aggressive.

[Simon Paynton]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

What do Americans consider immoral? (turning left on red is not there).

This is very interesting.  “Marital infidelity” is way out in front by miles, with only 2% finding it morally acceptable.  That’s the only one that is on my list of evolved “moral domains” – sexual pair-bonding.  It would be interesting to see how other domains play out like patriarchy, parenting, family duty.

Also, 50% more men than women find it morally unacceptable to get divorced.  This perhaps demonstrates some truth in the feminist idea that marriage is a patriarchal prison.

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