Using tools

I think we all remember being taught rubbish about how only Humans use tools. The religious nut-cases hate films like these, when you see a supposedly unique Human skill clearly being demonstrated by another species.

Anyway, once, at the beach, I watched the seagulls take their shelled prey high into the sky, and drop them onto the concrete of the promenade. The hard shell would smash, and the gull was free to gobble up the soft flesh.

But the point of the story is this. Some species of blackbird was hanging around with the gulls. They didn't fight. The blackbird, watching the shell busting trick of the gull, tried to emulate. However, the blackbird, more worried about the people walking on the promenade, would drop the shell onto the sand, where it would land with no damage.

Over and over and over the blackbird would make the same mistake. It had decided that it wanted its food on the sand, and the fact that the sand could never break the shell didn't matter.

Many many animals use tools. All animals 'think'. All animals 'feel'. Most mammals clearly 'dream'. Most animals use 'language'. How is Man unique?

Not in the ways children are usually taught. Man is unique in two ways (and probably only two). Man understands the so-called 'scientific method' (a massive improvement on 'trial and error'), and Man systematically accumulates knowledge, so the next generation is smarter than the last.

Everything else Man does flows from these two things. But emotions, compassion, kindness, and all that other stuff religious folk would suggest is important is found in higher animals as well. This should make you think.