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WBraun
climber
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Mar 31, 2015 - 08:19am PT
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Those who bluff in the name of scientific method that are too much addicted to the gross plane of scientific mode of thinking
are unable to transcend the stage of direct perception.
Thus they remain as none other then polished animals.
The intelligent class are the real human beings far separated from the animalistic consciousness of the materially conditioned souls .....
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 31, 2015 - 09:02am PT
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paul's got his feathers all in a ruffle..
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/science/a-farmer-ants-unique-fungal-crop.html
Much like human farmers, fungus-farming ants meticulously maintain their subterranean gardens. They regularly fertilize, weed and tend to their crops.
Now, researchers have discovered that one primitive species cultivates a kind of fungus that is entirely domesticated.
“These ants make their living by being farmers, and they are absolutely dependent on this fungus,” said Ted Schultz, an entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution. He and his colleagues will describe their findings in a coming issue of The American Naturalist.
Apterostigma megacephala was first described in 1999, based on four specimens found in Peru and Colombia. Ten years later, researchers discovered its nests in the eastern Amazon region of Brazil and realized that the ants cultivate a type of fungus that grows only in its nests and those of a species of leaf-cutter ants.
The fungus, Leucoagaricus gongylophorus, evolved only two to eight million years ago. DNA sequencing shows that the ant belongs to an ancient lineage that dates back 39 million years.
How and when the species got hold of the fungus remains a mystery, Dr. Schultz said. The leaf-cutter ant that cultivates the fungus evolved more recently, about 12 million years ago.
Other primitive fungus-farming ants cannot digest the fungus without dying, Dr. Schultz said.
when did the first human farmers occur? relatively recently (certainly less than a million years ago)...
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/680501
The Most Relictual Fungus-Farming Ant Species Cultivates the Most Recently Evolved and Highly Domesticated Fungal Symbiont Species
Ted R. Schultz, Jeffrey Sosa-Calvo, Seán G. Brady, Cauę T. Lopes, Ulrich G. Mueller, Mauricio Bacci Jr., and Heraldo L. Vasconcelos
Abstract
Fungus-farming (attine) ant agriculture is made up of five known agricultural systems characterized by remarkable symbiont fidelity in which five phylogenetic groups of ants faithfully cultivate five phylogenetic groups of fungi. Here we describe the first case of a lower-attine ant cultivating a higher-attine fungus based on our discovery of a Brazilian population of the relictual fungus-farming ant Apterostigma megacephala, known previously from four stray specimens from Peru and Colombia. We find that A. megacephala is the sole surviving representative of an ancient lineage that diverged ∼39 million years ago, very early in the ~55-million-year evolution of fungus-farming ants. Contrary to all previously known patterns of ant-fungus symbiont fidelity, A. megacephala cultivates Leucoagaricus gongylophorus, a highly domesticated fungal cultivar that originated only 2–8 million years ago in the gardens of the highly derived and recently evolved (∼12 million years ago) leaf-cutting ants. Because no other lower fungus-farming ant is known to cultivate any of the higher-attine fungi, let alone the leaf-cutter fungus, A. megacephala may provide important clues about the biological mechanisms constraining the otherwise seemingly obligate ant-fungus associations that characterize attine ant agriculture.
BUT THEY'RE JUST ANTS! they can't possibly be farmers... they've never painted a picture... never written a novel...
gee, I wonder how much DNA we share with ants... isn't that one of the more amazing predictions of evolution?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 31, 2015 - 09:08am PT
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Ants keep livestock, too.
Termite mounds. Bald faced hornet nests. Spider webs.
There are just 16 neurons in a dragon fly's flight control neural bundle. They are the most maneuverable flying creature in the world - with a 95% aerial kill rate that is unmatched by any other species, a top speed of 40 mph (fastest insect), and the ability to hover motionlessly - no mean feat in itself.
There's more than one way to skin an evolutionary cat.
Punch a hole in the side of a termite mound an I guarantee you they'll defend and repair the colony faster than any human society ever has or ever will.
Let's hope our first alien visitor isn't a hive minded insect species.
We'd be done for.
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 31, 2015 - 09:38am PT
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Paul's got his feathers all in a ruffle..
Nope.
You guys did.
His statements are completely going over the top of yer heads.
You missed the boat and remain on the shores of scientism ......
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 31, 2015 - 09:52am PT
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Ants keep livestock, too.
What a delight to read, still cleaning up the coffee from my keyboard. Yes, true it is! Ants are farmers and how nice for them. It's my understanding that several ants also participated in the design of the Hubble telescope as well as that massive collider in Europe. Occasionally I pick up some ant literature and ant paintings as well... those ants with their fungus and their aphids are really just like us with their little ant cities and little ant cars a shame about those ant churches though.
Talk about your anthropomorphism...
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Mar 31, 2015 - 10:11am PT
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It is through human thought and human reason the universe comes to know itself.
Oiks!
If so, I fear the universe may be looking at dementia in the near future.
Are you quite sure that ants could play no role in this idea of the universe coming to know itself? Perhaps a non-discursive role?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 31, 2015 - 10:15am PT
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Are you quite sure that ants could play no role in this idea of the universe coming to know itself? Perhaps a non-discursive role?
Unfortunately yes, as ants refuse to abandon their absolute faith in the scientific method. Hence the term ant-like.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 31, 2015 - 10:29am PT
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My aphid observation was just that. No editorial comment, just an appreciative observation.
Feel free to make it into your own manifesto as desired, dear reader.
@ Moose - my guess is that DNA based life might represent a form of evolutionary low hanging fruit - one of the lowest energy paths to get from nothing to something squiggly, and so we may find that alien life is similar to forms we're familiar with.
Meta relationships (predator/prey, symbiosis, etc) may also be similar across worlds.
Hell, even love may be relatively universal among critters with bigger brains - it's certainly useful enough from an evolutionary standpoint.
Now, DNA EXACTLY like ours? Maybe not.
Also the most common environments for alien are likely to be subterranean oceans on ice worlds. It's unlikely the life on earth evolved in undersea vents (it seems to have migrated there) - but life on such worlds would have to evolve it that environment - and so it's fundamental molecules may well be different than those found here.
It's interesting to look at the criteria that separate animate and inanimate and speculate other ways alien life could satisfy them.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Mar 31, 2015 - 10:41am PT
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Good one Paul! Now it's my turn to clean up coffee from the keyboard. Anthropomorphism will never be the same word again!
Here's some other insights into the farming ants. The ones Ed writes about have been at it for 2-8 million years and leaf cutting ants have been chomping away for about 12 million. Ed's ants appeared about 39 million years ago and farming ants in general about 55 million years ago. While their feats are certainly amazing, this is not a rapid evolution, particularly when contrasted with Homo sapiens who has achieved all that it has in less than 200,000 years with a lineage that departed the ape mainstream no earlier than 7 million, and perhaps only 5 million years ago.
As for the argument that ants invented agriculture millions of years before humans whose agriculture actually goes back only 10,000 years, somehow being more advanced, there are two counter arguments. The first is that human physiology and intelligence is better suited to hunting and gathering than the repetitive drudgery of agriculture and that agriculture is embedded in a system of exploitation (i.e. fuedal society) that intelligent human minds chafe at. Another way to look at it is that the societies where agriculture has predominated, are a mere eye blink of 10,000 years from the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates to the industrial age, about 5% of H. sapien's time on this planet.
A second argument is that many of H. sapien's current problems can be traced back to agriculture. This would include everything from lactose and gluten intolerance to obesity to our greatest threat, over population. In fact, the industrial and post industrial eras which have taken us beyond agriculture as our chief endeavor, hold the promise of getting us back to a healthier life style with more free time for more people to utilize their large brains, than agriculture ever did.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 31, 2015 - 10:59am PT
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Evolution creates designs and solves problems that we, with our most advanced technology, are only just beginning to understand.
If you doubt this, design an artificial leaf and get back to us.
It just does it by trial and error over time is all. Oh wait, that's what we do, too.
That a cathedral is better than a forest is, of course, a Batman versus Mighty Mouse kind of discussion.
How does a gecko stick to a glass ceiling? How does a redwood get water from its roots to its top? No googling.
Good luck.
Hey, I'm not arguing that pushing colored goop around a piece of plant fiber with some animal hair into a pattern that some people might find pleasing - and others won't, isn't more impressive than a coral reef or anything. After all, we're the only species that can do that.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Mar 31, 2015 - 11:10am PT
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What is the mind of an ant? Do ants meditate? Is an ant capable of empty awareness? Do ants produce art? Are they even conversant with art? Have ants been to Mars? Are there ants on the moon? Are there ants in your pants?
Have you ever had an ant friend? Or do they all look alike to you? How do ants fit into Largo's metaphysical scheme?
Questions and questions, but no answers . . .
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 31, 2015 - 11:15am PT
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A bald faced hornets nest is (functional) art (after all, it's man's call there), and, like our art, it's produced by evolution - just in a different manner.
Speaking of what 'an ant' can or can't do is silly - given that evolution's base unit of reproduction is not one ant, but a colony. What can the colony do?
A lot.
It may seem like an ant colony does things the same way every time - given our time scales.
Expand your time scale a bit and that picture changes pretty radically.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 31, 2015 - 12:07pm PT
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The meaning of life is simple, DNA survival. By trial and error.
The meaning of life is not simple,
it has been made remarkably complex through the development of human consciousness.
That a wasp's nest or a bird's nest or a spider's web is a work of art is doubtful. These are instinctual productions of a similar and practical nature that seem to lack aesthetic inclination except through the "anthropomorphic" interpretations of human beings. One might as well declare a gopher hole mound a work of art. Nature exudes beauty but is not art (artifice).
As Aristotle used to say, "the art of shipbuilding is not in the wood."
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Mar 31, 2015 - 12:12pm PT
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Aristotle was a lousy scientist.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 31, 2015 - 12:15pm PT
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Yeah, he was an idiot... don't you think?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 31, 2015 - 12:43pm PT
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When a bird creates a re-presentation or creates a nest with obvious decorative elements of an aesthetic nature give me a call.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Mar 31, 2015 - 12:47pm PT
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Paul should take over the Jon Daley show:D
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Mar 31, 2015 - 12:50pm PT
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3419115/
Abstract
Male bowerbirds create and decorate a structure called a bower which serves only to attract females for mating, and females visit and choose one among many bower owners before deciding which male to mate with. Is what they do art, and do they have an aesthetic sense? I propose operational definitions of art, judgement, and an aesthetic sense which depend upon communication theory which allow one to get explicit answers to this question. By these definitions Great Bowerbirds are artists, judge art, and therefore have an aesthetic sense.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 31, 2015 - 01:01pm PT
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By these definitions Great Bowerbirds are artists, judge art, and therefore have an aesthetic sense.
Nonsense. This is like saying the feathers of a peacock are a work of art. The bower bird creates through instinct the kind of thing all Bowerbirds create in the same way that a gopher creates holes or a bird does a courtship dance. To say these things are based on aesthetic considerations is to demean the word. All of this is simple anthropomorphism. You bestow on nature qualities and interests like art that are uniquely human.
Call me when you see a bird in the art store picking up supplies.
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