Chimps Are No Chumps: Give Them An Oven, They'll Learn To Cook

[Potoooooooo]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt...chumps-give-them-an-oven-theyll-learn-to-cook

That's what researchers found when they gave chimps a device that appeared to work like an oven. The findings add to the argument that our ancestors began cooking soon after learning to control fire.

 

[Bronzeage]

The findings add to the argument that our ancestors began cooking soon after learning to control fire.

Who is arguing that we sat around our fire for a long time before cooking something on it?

 

[bilby]

Chimps are not stupid. Hiding cooked food in the way the experimenters are reported to have done likely just taught the chimps to trade raw food for cooked food. How were they prevented from knowing the reward was waiting for them, and learning that the way to get it was to trade the less palatable stuff for the more palatable?

A human would draw the inference that the cooked food was the same raw food after being transformed by heat, because humans are familiar with that process; but the chimps may not make that connection - and would be right not to, because it wasn't what happened.

 

[fromderinside]

Chimps are not stupid. Hiding cooked food in the way the experimenters are reported to have done likely just taught the chimps to trade raw food for cooked food. How were they prevented from knowing the reward was waiting for them, and learning that the way to get it was to trade the less palatable stuff for the more palatable?

A human would draw the inference that the cooked food was the same raw food after being transformed by heat, because humans are familiar with that process; but the chimps may not make that connection - and would be right not to, because it wasn't what happened.

Has anyone ever studied chimps during the dry season when thunderstorms occur relative to use of fire? Or are chimps from areas where there aren't many thunderstorms or volcanoes, or other fire producing phenomena. Just askin ....