[HN Gopher] All the hominins made tools
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All the hominins made tools
Author : anticorporate
Score : 84 points
Date : 2023-12-03 16:49 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (johnhawks.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (johnhawks.net)
| gumby wrote:
| I'm not sure what point is being made here. The article says that
| we evolved from pre-hominid primate species that used tools
| (there are non-hominid toolmaking species as well), which I don't
| think anybody disputes, and doesn't appear to be claiming that
| _that_ is novel either.
|
| Is the claim that no hominid is known the have _given up_ tool
| making? That 's a hard claim to make (no evidence of absence and
| so on), and anyway seems like a circular definitional argument
| (an "only true scotsman" if you will).
|
| The central chart is interesting, but to my (note: non-
| paleontologist!) eye hardly "striking". Feels like the opposite
| would be more interesting, though again, hard to be persuasive.
|
| Am I missing something important here? Again, I'm no expert.
| adr1an wrote:
| Didn't read the article, I was hoping it was a gallery with a
| time line. Anyway, look for New Caledonian Crows, they make
| tools (bended hooks). It's the only non primate species that
| does. Supposedly, to make a tool you have a super accurate
| model representation in your head on what you want to achieve
| while elaborating such tool. That is awesome.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >All the hominins made tools
|
| I've seen a few fail no matter how hard they try.
|
| Sometimes even at the initial conceptualization, so not all
| hominids are as smart as they think.
| solardev wrote:
| Edit: Sorry, parent post said "create" tools, not "use". That
| is less common, and depends on what you consider "creation".
|
| ------
|
| I love crows, but it is not true they're the only non
| primates able to use tools.
|
| Many animals do! Otters, octopuses, other birds, some fish,
| etc.:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_non-
| humans?wprov=s...
|
| That belief is an outdated one from people who were too
| anthropocentric and didn't spend enough time with animals.
| svnt wrote:
| You're not missing much, maybe just an implicit and aging
| position in the field. People have made the argument (in the
| long line of "this is what makes humans unique" arguments) that
| our consistent use of technology is what separates us from
| other animals.
|
| In order to do so they've tried to argue that other early
| primates or hominins apparently outside the human lineage did
| not. It has been clear for some time to most reasonable
| observers that this is not the case.
|
| This is just more data that tool use and tool-making are more
| broadly distributed than the anthropocentrically-fixated would
| like to admit.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The subheading says:
|
| _A study of associations between stone tool evidence and
| fossil hominin remains shows that a wide range of species made
| stone artifacts._
|
| Perhaps in the context of the field, the hypothesis is more
| clear. Also, does "study" refer to a particular published study
| that the author is reviewing, or to this blog post?
| Dudester230602 wrote:
| Developers I have met rarely if ever make tools... Maybe they are
| more like cache-making rodents?
| lpapez wrote:
| Unless you are truly pushing the envelope of tooling
| development, I consider learning to use an existing tool well
| far more important than inventing a new one. The developer
| tooling has become so complex that it takes a truly exceptional
| individual to build a tool on their own, and the vast majority
| of tools are built by teams of people.
|
| That is why you rarely meet developers who build their own
| tools, it's a often futile effort usually better spent
| elsewhere.
|
| In fact I would go on to say that in my personal view people
| who do roll their own tooling usually do so due either to
| ignorance of existing tools or as a fun little side-project.
|
| Woe be to those who push their opinionated tools onto their
| teammates...
| Swizec wrote:
| Every abstraction is a tool that we build for ourselves. If
| you're not building those, wtf are you even doing?
|
| Please assume the lowest possible bar for "abstraction" in my
| argument. A function that calls 2 other functions is an
| abstraction.
| OJFord wrote:
| If someone shows you how to take a stick and a stone and make
| a hammer, and you imitate, you're certainly not 'pushing the
| envelope of tooling development', but you're still making a
| tool.
|
| As the most prevalent & familiar here modern example, I'd
| suggest writing to .bashrc & using ssh-keygen are 'making
| tools' in the relevant sense.
| trashtester wrote:
| Attaching a the stone to a stick makes a very advanced
| hammer. While we've been using hammers without sticks for
| over 2 million years, hammers with sticks only came around
| 30k years ago.
| CoffeeOnWrite wrote:
| You define tooling too narrowly. That custom script that the
| team uses to cut a release branch and notify people with
| contributions on the branch that it's being deployed? That's
| a tool, that itself uses off the shelf tools/products (eg.
| perhaps Python, GitHub, Slack). And it could possibly be a
| very helpful tool that saves manual effort and improves
| results, for a fairly low cost.
|
| Sure you can spend too much time and effort building tools,
| rather than focus on meeting the most important business
| objectives, and we've all met developers that do that. But
| you can certainly build too few tools, as well.
| eternityforest wrote:
| Somewhere there's probably something that already does that
| though, and it probably also does 5 other things currently
| done by a custom script.
| CoffeeOnWrite wrote:
| Is this really how you'd respond to a coworker that wrote
| such a script? Maybe they researched and found actually
| all the options out there have whatever drawbacks that
| they don't fit the bill. Maybe they didn't bother to
| research because it only took them 10 minutes to script
| that manual process we perform multiple times a week, and
| they were curious to see if they could improve that.
|
| The good off the shelf tools make it easy to build on
| them with custom tools to fit your purpose.
|
| I really don't mind if people lean a bit one way or the
| other in their inclination to build tools. But I do
| expect people to be supportive of attempts to build nice
| tooling, and show a curiosity toward the trade offs, and
| willingness to try an experiment.
|
| Don't be afraid of building a tool folks. If nobody else
| displays and interest in it, or it doesn't turn out
| really save time, or it costs too much to maintain.. you
| can ditch it! You are a professional with good critical
| judgment whose ability to improve the productivity of
| your group and provide repeatable "executable
| documentation" will carry you far in your career. Have
| fun.
|
| Aside: this might be the easiest position I've ever
| argued on HN :)
| simonh wrote:
| Software isn't a tool?
| bediger4000 wrote:
| How much of this is due to the prevalence of Creationism in the
| US? That is, due to large numbers of creationists, you've got to
| put out clear, complete, documented answers to everything, in
| tiny steps and in simple language.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| What is most striking to me about this article is the level of
| fallacy in reasoning that's exhibited throughout this entire
| scientific debate:
|
| - Well they had small brains, so there's no way they were the
| toolmakers
|
| - We found lots of remains of Australopithecus here, and usually
| there are very few remains of the toolmaking species, so
| obviously, Australopithecus is not the toolmaker
|
| It seems remarkable how much of the whole scientific edifice
| described in the article is pure conjecture with little in the
| way of "actual discoverable/provable truth". I can see how this
| field must be so fascinating and keep someone's fascination going
| for a lifetime.
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