Science Break

I will let you know right away that this wasn't an American study, although it could easily have been, so you don't feel that we're so alone. This came out of Germany.

When presented with a tube containing food or a toy, two-and-a-half-year-olds followed an experimenter's example to retrieve the prize, while the apes put all their energy towards simply biting or breaking the tube.

Maybe I've forgotten all my science experimentation points, but...doesn't biting and breaking the tube count as getting at the food or toy inside? (And why would an ape be interested in getting to a toy?)

As part of one of the social learning tasks, the researchers demonstrated how to pop open a plastic tube to retrieve the food or toy inside. The children watched and copied the researcher; the apes attempted to break the tube or pull it apart with their teeth.

Did somebody explain to them the importance of keeping the tube intact? I guess they had reason to think they could get into it that way, too. Perhaps, while the children were copying other humans, the apes were copying the other apes.

All of the subjects performed equally well in terms of the physical cognitive management of space, and in understanding concepts such as quantities and causality. However, the children were correct in three out of four of the social learning tests, while the two ape species were correct only one out of three times.

Now, granted, I don't know what those tests actually were, but considering the rest of the story (particularly the fact that they used toys inside the tubes), I'm going to hazard a guess that the "social learning tests" may have been set up based on human social activity.

According to the researchers, the results of the study support the theory that human social skills give humans an evolutionary edge. A second theory argues that humans differ in skill levels from apes as a result of being generally more intelligent.

Maybe the experiment was actually better laid out, had more detail, and conclusions were based on the evidence, but not from this report can we come to those conclusions. By this report, all we learned was that humans are better at human social skills than apes. Imagine that.