falasha wrote:Here is a definition of culture that I found: Culture: is a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that shapes and influences perception and behavior -- an abstract "mental blueprint" or "mental code." This definition would preclude all species except Homo Sapien Sapien because of the ability to symbolically represent a belief system. Symbolic representation is a function of language.
This is unequivocally false. Pick almost any animal you like, and type that into google scholar with the phrase "
Symbolic matching to sample" after it and you'll get millions of hits. SMTS is a standard behavioral procedure where the subject is presented with an abstract symbol and they have to respond by correctly identifying what this symbol represents. I'm not aware of any animal that can't do this. And as for language, animals are incredibly good at picking up language.
I made a post
here with links to a few areas of animal research, including animals learning language, concept formation, their appreciation of art, etc.
falasha wrote:It is not surprising that pidgeons are able to differentiate between natural and man-made. Today's pidgeons that inhabit the cities of Africa, Middle East and Europe are descendents of domesticated birds used in religious worship many thousands of years ago.
Sure, but pigeons aren't the only animals that can do this - it was just an example.
falasha wrote:IIzO wrote:falasha wrote:Not all social behavior created culture. As a matter of fact, only in Homo and Cetaceans has social behaviour contributed to culture. As stated before, many social species never created culture, therefore, cooperative hunting efforts is not the key.
Not only homo and cetaceans , every species where the behaviors (i don't use the word belief ) are learnt and transmited from social interactions and not directly the result of their genes.
Of course humanity did not appear out of thin air! It evolved over hundreds of thousands of years building on cultural concepts of predecessors.
Before language was complex it was rudimentary. The rudimentary roots of language still exist within the words we use today.
You should use "language
S" since the diversity of them show that the signs and symbols used are arbitrary and still coexisting.
As words were built, more complex concepts could be conveyed. More complex concepts created new words and so on and so on. A word is a meme because it can be replicated, modified and passed along. It can also be deconstructed to analyse it most basic components (like genes).
Now all i need you to explain me is what is "religion" and what it has to do with everything else as a "necessary" component for bringing up competitive kids.
I totally disagree. No other specie learns behaviors and then passes it on. The dog that is laying on the floor beside me has pretty much the same behaviors as the wolf in the wild.
Definitely incorrect. Whilst I understand that you're trying to make a point in this thread, falasha, I recommend that you avoid comments on animal behavior as so far you appear to have been wrong on every claim you've made. Firstly, many species learn behaviors and pass them on. The best example I can think of with regards to this is the New Caledonian crows who pass down tool making and tool-use skills to their young, who then pass it on to theirs etc. The crows have an innate behavior that leads them to pull and try to modify leaves and twigs, but the tools they make "instinctually" are useless - they require a social input. And if you look at different crow populations across New Caledonia, you find that each group has it's own methods and tools. In effect, they have their own cultures of tool manufacture.
You'll also love to learn that they modify their tool depending on the unique situation, making it thinner or thicker, using barbed leaves for some food sources and using blunt sticks for others, and they also change methods of "catching" their food - they can either 'fish' them out of a tree with a hook, or they can push them through the other side and pick them up, etc. And this is just one species, there are many other examples of species behaving in similar ways - as Hugh pointed out, chimps use tools very effectively also.
As for dogs have pretty much the same behaviors as wolves in the wild, this is ridiculously bad on many levels. Firstly, wolves and dogs are different species, so naturally their behaviors differ greatly. And secondly, the behavior of a domesticated dog is vastly different to that of a wild dog due to it's learning. We shape the behaviors of our animals, so much so that they no longer resemble their "natural" counterparts.
by 
...your use of the word in the sentence made no sense in regard with my post.
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