Different in degree or kind: Chimp vs. cooking (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, June 08, 2015, 01:14 (3457 days ago) @ David Turell

This twisted experiment tries to tell us chimps might really have some idea about cooking. Quite a stretch as they describe it.:-http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27644-chimps-with-magic-stove-show-evolutionary-capacity-for-cooking.html#.VXTivGDbK1s-"Do chimpanzees have the abilities required for cooking?
Cooking requires a lot more than just access to a fire. It takes a lot of patience. You have to resist the urge to eat the raw food, you have to understand the transformation process and you have to hold on to the food and transport it so it can be cooked in the future.-"It is a more complex skill set than you might think - and requires a good bit of inhibiting impulses. So we tested all of those cognitive skills across nine experiments and found that chimpanzees had many of the cognitive and behavioural abilities required for cooking, although not a fully sufficient set.-****-"You discovered that the chimpanzees could transport raw food for cooking. Can you tell me more about that?
In the wild, chimpanzees tend to forage - they just snack while they go. But cooking requires you to take the food back to somewhere to do the cooking. And it's not that easy. Even we humans sometimes can't resist the urge to nibble as we are cooking our own dinners. But many of the animals were able to do it. We saw one chimp try very admirably to carry the food 4 metres to the cooking device.-"But unfortunately, he tried to carry it with his lips, so he kept "accidentally" eating it. Another chimpanzee would run over to the cooking site very quickly, holding the piece of potato as far away from himself as possible, seemingly so he wouldn't be tempted. It was challenging for them, but many of the chimps were still able to anticipate cooking in the future and therefore save food for that future use. It was remarkable."-If the cooked food tastes better, of course they would try to attain it. Doesn't show much intelligence to me, just using food for training as we do with dogs.