Acme

What we have here is a failure to read with comprehension as with fivwalds. Go back & read what Stein said explicitly: His machine is the how & there's no need to guess want he wants. To my earlier reply I would only add facetiously that a calendar can target a specific point in time.

I spotted a pretty cool green one last week that I had never seen, but it was gone by the time I got back with the camera. I searched a couple insect sites for you but didn't spot your critter. I may have missed it or maybe you could narrow it to a Genus or such a matter, so if you don't have this site on your radar here is a link. BugGuide.net

Looks like a Shield Beetle, but I can't find a species match. Pentatomoidea @ Wiki

Nonsense and poppycock. There is a distinction between WAG and reasoned speculation. There is nothing to suggest rocks were first struck together to make a tool and everything to suggest the striking was playful curiosity. Hot embers are as easy to come by as wildfires and as easy to investigate as to flee from. Given the nature of forum discourse you would do the readers a favor by throwing us a winky or such a matter. Non sequitar that presumes you know of everything humans have observed chimps doing, let alone the possibility chimps do 'new' things humans have not observed. But again we are not talking about chimps or even primates; the OP is about hominids which is a narrow class of primate. I only introduced the chimp videos to falsify your claim that [paraphrasing] 'all animals flee from fire'. My only mention of other animals was in response to others and I don't recall that I introduced that area of argument. It does not matter what other animals do -whether witnessed or not- in regards to what hominids do and did in relation to fire use. Since we cannot and did not directly witness early hominid behavior of any kind we have just scant archaeological evidence and well-reasoned speculation. I have given many reasons why your speculation is not well-reasoned in the face of alternative speculations. Occam's razor and all that jazz. It wasn't obvious as I already pointed out. When humor is obvious -and good- I'm light as a feather. Fine; even so I again suspect you have never actually attempted such a feat or you would not think it makes a fire. Bbbbuuuttt you claimed hominids would flee from embers! And now you acknowledge they don't necessarily. Pray did I convince you? And I do not write simply to entertain my direct correspondent; I write to entertain, and per se inform, all readers. Presuming you didn't give me those rep ups, I have entertained and informed one or two others to my great satisfaction. Indeed I should then have my own show. I can think of 2 or 3 versions of deadfall traps as I type, none of which require other than what may be found in the forest. [Depending on game and terrain available, I know how to build numerous traps including snares and pits.] Chance may well kill me before I killed a deer, but chaos favors the prepared imagination and I imagine myself prepared to survive by my knowledge and wits. Dead deer in hand I could, beside eating it, make tools from the antlers and bones, glue from the hooves, and tan the hide with its brains or tannin rich woods or nuts found about. I also have a good working knowledge of edible, medicinal, and poisonous plants and I imagine early hominids acquired and shared like knowledge in ways similar to their use of fire, i.e. through curiosity and experiment. Well, my pea brain has got a good workout and I trust you have at least a 2oz smile Ten oz.

Have you looked? A short search of 'monkey playing with fire' returns -beyond a host of games-by-that-name- a germane result. Here's the video. [Note the operative term 'play'] Arguably not hominids, but merely primates. They don't flee even when the keepers toss smoldering chunks toward them. Go figure. Here's a cat playing with a candle flame found searching 'animals playing with fire'. Again, while there may be fleas there is no fleeing and we're even lower on the intelligence spectrum than primates. Cat playing with fire And here we have a Bonobo actually building and using a campfire, a skill it learned by imitation. For a hominid such a campfire is more easily & quickly started with an already burning ember than striking flint or using a fire drill. Monkey see, monkey do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=EMbWDRzqNhc . I don't doubt it, however I can't find a reference to support it yet. Do you have something handy?

In that case, driving myself to work is a job. Correct. job @ The Free Dictionary task @ The Free Dictionary

Re-read that carefully and see that you are contradicting yourself. If 'use [noun]' does not mean 'a means to use' then I'll walk on hot embers. Allow me to profer a reference in support of my assertion. use @ The Free Dictionary Presumably the same reasons they would knock stones together to make sparks; insatiable curiosity. By playing with embers in the effort to satisfy said insatiable curiosity. Nonsense. As I just pointed out, curiosity is more likely to come before useful discovery. Balderdash. Humans exhibit a preeminent and persistent urge to experiment and per say play. God? Surely you jest. Even if you didn't mean to, the statement is a joke. Again you directly contradict yourself. And chimps aren't the only materials users, e.g. birds, ant, etc., but again we are talking about humans here, or hominids if you will. Non sequitars. Humans are as humans do. Evolution drove the changes that make us what we were and are. Sometimes the reason -at least for humans- is nothing more than play and satisfying curiosity. The arguments of cause & effect belong in threads on that topic, no end of which no doubt exist here and unresolved at that. Again with the non sequitar. A human need no more than tooth and nail to get a hide from carrion. Non sequitar. One does not need to kill a large animal before availing themselves of a large dead animal's remains. Say carrion. Not. Please stop with the god crap. It is neither scientifically tenable nor funny. While nudity may be 'sin' in some cultures and times, it is not an universal taboo in either. Me thinks you have never sharpened a wooden stick with a rock else you would know better than to make this assertion. Clearly making fire was done, however nothing you have argued supports the assertion that fire was made by humans/hominids before they used fire. You presume to underestimate my skills in the wild. Again your religio reference is dull. I have addressed quite substantively what would draw humans to small fires. As early humans had only word of mouth it may well be the use of fire was discovered and lost numerous times and in numerous different groups. It seems the best we can know of it is archeological remains wherein the juxtaposition of human and hearth may be reasonably connected as to suggest fire's use by humans.

My point is that carrying fire is a use. I think I adequately covered the inspiration aspect by talking about humans investigating small fires. Granted; we think, therefore we argue. My argument is that my speculation can beat up your speculation. But we do know that natural fires were occurring before humans even entered the picture, so it stands to reason fire was open to investigation before tool use. Yes; but as I just pointed out, wild-fire clearly came first as a subject of animal investigation whether human or otherwise. A bird in the box is worth 2 outside the box. Why would a natural small fire or hot embers engender any less fascination than your sparking rocks?

But transporting and/or creating fire is seeing it as a tool or beneficial thing. Use is as use does. Perhaps, but you give no credible reasons to suggest humans accidently created small fires before they would have encountered naturally occurring small fires. Small fires are a consequence of large fires and small fires can occur from lightning strikes on a small or isolated fuel load. They would want fire after encountering it naturally occurring on a small scale and recognizing the benefits and their ability to control it.

Yes well, your propensity for putting yourself at the brink of expulsion here is well known as is your poor reasoning and bigoted commentary. In the vulgar vernacular, tough shit.

Taboo words are nothing new.

Exactly. That is, humans do many things that other animals do not and per se cannot. Even today we return to our burned homes to pick through the still hot ashes to recover what we may. Allow me to give reference to my earlier allusion to carrying rather than making fire. Fire pot @ Wiki

Sounds like putting a cart before a horse to me. While humans may have fled the worst of a wild fire, they likely well returned to their digs as it died down and there would find small fires & smoldering embers. Finding such small burnings to have smaller hazards than the big burn and finding such benefits as warmth, hardened wood, cracked rock etcetera, they learned to use fire and keep it burning on a small scale.

Hows about some more information? What do you already know? What is the definition? Where did you find information on the subject? Why do you feel the need to jerk peoples' chains? Do you walk to school, or take your lunch?

How do you think grassland fires get started? Does lightning only start a fire if it hits a tree? Does a tree only burn if it's hit by lightning? What evidence have you that grassland fires were annual events in sub-Saharan Africa? I don't question that humans were using fire before they were creating it; it's common even today for 'primitive' people to carry fire in ember pots/baskets as they travel, rather than going to the trouble of starting a new fire. As to the most likely way it all started, any WAG is as good as another.

How about the curvature of space? This could be whether it's considered some constant or well constrained function of change.

Danke. That 'virtually all' is ill-defined aside, many exams are not on paper. For example, the FAA has been giving computer-based pilots' tests for at least a decade. So too nursing exams. (I used to administer these exams, so I speak from personal experience.) As to the general idea of computers doing things pencil & paper could do, there is the matter of time. It would have taken a hundred lifetimes and several forests to make & record the research calculations that my computer has done in a few months. What do you think Fermat or Euler would have given for even a Commodore 64?

Get over it. Nothing is certain but change and at every technological change there have been no end of whiners harking back to the-good-ol'-days and harping on how the new must certainly lead us unerringly to our doom. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. ~ Peter De Vries

Just a PS to the antique machine image reference I gave, which is that I knew what to look for because the process was shown and explicated on PBS program in the last year or so. Alas I can't recall the show name, but it was a part of a series that followed scientific advancements throughout history. Maybe that's enough to jog someone's memory and we can get the name of the show. While the drawings may be a bit vague as to the actual operation, seeing it done makes all quite clear.

Good gravy Peter! You seem to have no trouble saying definite various things that contradict the common understanding. Get over it.

Parts were cut by machine. Here's some old drawings of an antique gear-cutting machine. Gear Cutting Machine

So the season is winding down and good times and good meals were had by all. With what is left and what has been preserved, indications are that the trend will continue for some time. Yesterday's harvest Dill seed Beets boiled fresh Radish pods (delicious!)

Mmmmmm...I failed to understand the explanation as well as failed to understand that it was an explanation. Nevertheless, you can't simply go by what I quote, so...

You simply will have to read the study yourself. As I have said several times, I can only quote a limited amount of material in respect to the author and forum rules and what I do quote is indicative of what I find pertinent to the topic of whacky behavior among political conservatives. If there was a similar level of mild insanity among political liberals then there would be studies examining and affirming that; there isn't, there aren't, and so they don't. I have yet to find any criticism of Altemeyer's methodology, which is of course not to say there is none. While Bob Altemeyer is retired, I'm sure you can write him and ask for clarification of issues you feel aren't addressed in his books. Keep also in mind that Altemeyer's work is just one of 80+ studies covered in the meta-study of the OP, and on the whole all those studies affirm some psychological infirmities among political conservatives. (As if it wasn't obvious. ) Whatever turns your crank Mr. Die.

Presuming the pdf you mean is Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians, details of the methodology are mostly in the footnotes. [The meta-study in the OP is also a pdf file.] Bob has another book that the free pdf The Authoritarians is drawn from and that other book contains far more detail on the statistical analysis. Here's a link to it on Amazon: >> The Authoritarian Specter by Bob Altemeyer While I have been gone from this thread for a couple weeks, I have not forgotten it and I'll return as circumstances allow. Thanks for your interest.