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March 9

Scientists Thought Only Humans Learn Complex Behaviors from Others. They Were Wrong

I'm reading an article from Scientific American titled Scientists Thought Only Humans Learn Complex Behaviors from Others. They Were Wrong about chimps and bumblebees learning behaviors from others. It says, "New studies in bees and chimps challenge the long-held assumption that only humans can learn from innovative peers". I thought it was already established that whales have culture (i.e. learned behavior).[1] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:46, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the assumptions that humans are the only species that can do X, Y or Z are zombie memes, which keep resurfacing long after they should have been put to rest. (On the other hand, reports that also species U can do X tend to oversimplify the issues and exaggerate the achievements). I can report, though, as a definitive fact, that Homo sapiens is the only species to wonder what makes it unique. --Lambiam 12:34, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The headline writers at Nature were more constrained:

Bees and chimpanzees learn from others what they cannot learn alone

It has been argued that human culture rests on a unique ability to learn from others more than we could possibly learn alone in a lifetime. Two studies show that we share this ability with bumblebees and chimpanzees.^[2]

The first of the two studies reported on^[3] writes, in its abstract,

Increasing evidence suggests that animal culture can, like human culture, be cumulative: characterized by sequential innovations that build on previous ones.

The qualification "increasing" already contradicts the bold SciAm pronouncement about what scientists "thought". What the team conducting the study showed was, as they state, a new finding for invertebrates, to wit that bumblebees socially learn behaviours so complex that they lie beyond the capacity of any individual to independently discover during their lifetime. Personally, I'm more inclined to describe this as having shown the capability of collectively finding solutions to complex problems whose complexity poses intractable problems to mere individuals – which obviously involves learning from each other, but not for example intergenerational transmission. The second study reported on^[4] only established that chimpanzees can acquire a skill by social learning that they cannot independently master. One group was trained to master a task, and then an untrained group could learn from the trained chimpanzees, or from others who had learned the skill by observing already skilled individuals. This is IMO hardly unexpected and does not merit the breathlessness of the headlines. --Lambiam 13:14, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My response to statements such as that in the title here is "Which scientists?" HiLo48 (talk) 22:36, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The scientists that are baffled. --Lambiam 06:12, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]