" I dont actually buy into human evolution" ????
THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP! Dude your religious, good for you. But shut your fucking face. Your so wrong.
and culture exists in other animals. In Chimpanzees the skill of cracking nuts with rocks is passed down through generations. Young chimps learn how to do it by watching old chimps do it. Chimps in isolation will not learn it by themselves. This is a blatant fucking example of something called "CULTURAL TRANSMISSION"
In the wild, chimpanzee troops are often distinct from one another,
possessing collections of up to 20 traditions or customary behaviors
that altogether seem to form unique cultures.
Such practices include various forms of tool use, including hammers
and pestles; courtship rituals such as leaf-clipping, where leaves are
clipped noisily with the teeth; social behaviors such as overhead
hand-clasping during mutual grooming; and methods for eradicating
parasites by either stabbing or squashing them.
While observing chimpanzees, evolutionary psychologist Antoine
Spiteri at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland wanted to help
settle the question of whether or not the apes learned such practices
by watching others like humans do, as opposed to simply knowing how to
perform such behaviors innately.
photo by Lewis Haughton
Spiteri and his colleagues investigated six groups of chimpanzees,
each with eight to 11 apes, living in captivity in Bastrop, Texas. The
researchers taught a lone chimpanzee from one group one technique for
obtaining food from a complex gadget, such as stabbing food with a
tool. They next taught one chimp from another group a different
technique for extracting food from the same gadget, such as pushing it
out down a ramp.
[…]
Over time, the researchers found each technique for tool use and
food extraction spread within each group. In essence, these groups
displayed their own unique culture and local traditions.
[…]
“The possibility that some primates may be able to learn from others
has great implications on how we treat them and how we think about
ourselves,” Spiteri told LiveScience. “These results indicate to us
that chimps have a capacity for cultural complexity, which was likely
shared by our common ancestor going back around 5 million years ago.”