I’m reading the beak of the finch and I just got done reading it. There’s a quote that says…
“Chimpanzees in the last day of the African rain forests are teaching their children how to crack nuts with stones. They are taking the kinds of halting,modest steps that might, if favored, if selected for many generations, carry them on a path toward something like our niche. Watching them, human observers notice striking variations in intelligence from individual to individual. Where there is genetic variation, there is room for selection and evolution. Probably in every line of primates there are a few, like Imo on her island, who could lead their kind in our direction. But at the moment of course that path is blocked. The thinking niche is taken, at least for the moment.”
I don’t understand what the few lines mean. If anyone knows, please tell me what it means esp the the thinking niche is taken…
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Evolution Question (need Experts)?
Posted on August 21, 2012.
You might need a category expert as well.
We are the species occupying the “thinking niche,” and I guess we are unlikely to brook any serious competition. What would we do if a chimp decided to brain us with a rock, using planning and strategy? Kill the little bastard, preferably before he or she breeds!
The thinking niche has been taken by us, humans. A niche is whatever technique or adaptation a species uses, which is not in use by other species at that time and place.
Chimps aren’t thinking, “Hmm, I like being a chimp, but I’d sure like to evolve into a human. I really envy their car-driving skills.”
Evolution does not have a plan, or a consciousness. When opportunities open up (usually due to environmental pressures) animals with variations which more suit them to the new conditions breed more. Their offspring dominate.
That’s how it works.
And raccoons wash their food in the river to add moisture to it.
Imagine if they evolved into a great race of intelligent dishwashers wearing too much mascara.
In speculating about how chimps might possibly involve into something more like humans with higher intelligence one day, the author is noting that for this to happen, the opportunity to be forced into this evolution by environment and necessity is essentially stopped – because of the human ability to think like this, and our control of the planet. (Not that intelligence is something only one species can exhibit at a time, but that it won’t evolve in other species as long as we control the planet as we do.)
“Niche” is term used frequently in ecology. It essentially refers to an occupation, a way of making a living. For example, a lion’s niche is predating upon antilopes and smaller mammals of the African savannah and scavanging on kills made by other species. I’m not sure I would agree with the assertion that “the thinking niche is taken,” because I don’t believe that thinking qualifies as a niche. Thinking is a biological function, not a way of making a living.