July 01, 2014
Well, THIS was unexpected
One of the Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes reacts to the astonishing news that wild Chimpanzees have mastered fire.
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A few individual apes seem to have originally developed a rudimentary technique of rather poor efficiency, but the group gradually improved it through experimentation and observation over the last few months. They are now able to create and maintain a fire, which they have been using mostly to scare off predators and cook some of their food. Some individuals in particular among the group, seem to have rapidly grown a taste for cooked foodstuffs, especially flying squirrels.
That's really COOL!
On the other hand....yeah.....we're doomed.
UPDATE: Doomed I say.
Even Updatier:
In the comments Edward M makes some claims that seem to revolve around the indefensible theory that nicking a story from Ace's sidebar before rushing off to work with none of the regular second source checking is somehow not a blogging best practice.
As"evidence" for this unsupported and scientifically dubious notion, he calls into question the veracity of other news stories on the site linked above.
Given the obvious presence of the word NEWS in the url this means that Edward M is arguing against authority...worse, given that out of a focus group of two blogs, the story has been treated credulously by 100% of the sample, HE'S ARGUING AGAINST CONSENSUS which as we all know is a form of denialism (not to be confused with Denaliism,...the worship of Mount McKinley...which this blog does not have an official position on)
Furthermore, his calling into question the accuracy of other stories is easily debunked by demonstrating the non-impossibility of the news articles. For instance, it is known that Dracula was based on a real person (Vlad Tepes) so it is entirely possible that a descendant of that individual could be a mass murdering cannibal. Assuming they existed, the Knights of the Round Table have to be buried somewhere, and England would be a logical choice, which would make finding the tomb of one of them in the UK unsurprising. I do not find it in any way unlikely that a single set of quadruplets containing babies of 4 different races would surprise experts. In fact, this story would be quite unbelievable if the experts were NOT astonished. If anyone were to claim that Putin is the third Antichrist...it would as likely as not be a Nostradamus expert. Libertarianism is far more likely to appeal to squirrels, than, say, bees. The story about the Sauropod terrorizing a group of oil field surveyors in Nigeria is in the Paleontology section, where dinosaur stories belong. The site has no cryptozoology section which is an actual indicator of high idiocy.
So there you go.
I think my rebuttal speaks for itself.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
12:30 AM
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1
"Get your hands off me you damned d... hey, is that fried squirrel?"
Posted by: Mauser at Tue Jul 1 05:36:59 2014 (TJ7ih)
2
This will open a whole new chapter in the ongoing Fire Good/Fire Bad debates.
Posted by: Peter the Not-so-Great at Tue Jul 1 09:55:07 2014 (2eP1J)
3
IIRC they were actually bonobos, not chimps. Which means hippie love-ins around the resulting fires instead of the cannibalistic cookouts that chimps would probably use fire for, if they had it.
Posted by: Mitch H. at Tue Jul 1 09:55:19 2014 (jwKxK)
4
Hate to say this, but I've looked at some of the other stories on that site, and it may not be a totally reliable source of news.
Posted by: EdwardM at Tue Jul 1 22:55:42 2014 (SlugR)
5
You're no fun.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Tue Jul 1 23:59:42 2014 (+rSRq)
6
Sir, I am abashed. You have put me properly in my place.
Posted by: EdwardM at Wed Jul 2 22:49:32 2014 (SlugR)
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