From "Chimpanzees Are Really Into Crystals/In an attempt to understand our own fascination with the shiny minerals, researchers gave some to chimps" (NYT).
So... is this good science? Seems to me the human interest in crystals has long been considered pseudoscience, but you could scientifically study what draws humans into pseudoscience. But is this study, using chimpanzees, scientific? It seems to me that it's mainly combining the pseudoscientific interest in crystals with the hoped-for fun of hanging around with chimpanzees.
I tried to get Grok to make me an image of a chimpanzee holding a crystal and gazing at it "like old-timey prospectors." But after many tries and no progress — the chimp was almost expressionless and the eyes weren't even looking at the crystal — I lost hope.
Grok: "Want one more refinement round? Just say the word."
Me: "No, just tell me why some humans are goofy about crystals."
పోస్ట్లు
70 కామెంట్లు:
---- They seemed to also be experiencing 'something beyond curiosity,' Dr. García-Ruiz said
Quantum bzzzt. Has the experimenter altered the experiment by his observation of what he wants to see?
"It seems to me that it's mainly combining the pseudoscientific interest in crystals with the hoped-for fun of hanging around with chimpanzees."
Nicely put. A large sentence with a good rhythm that flows well and is easily understood.
Hey chimps just avoid the Cristals with an "i". Thank me later.
Crystals represent perfection. As our understanding of them developed (quite recently), we have learned that this perfection extends to the molecular, even atomic level. I can think of nowhere else in nature that this phenomenon occurs, in a compact, durable, and transportable way. Isn't it funny how the primate mind understands it, and places unique value upon it? Crystals are the refined product of nature's normally - chaotic state.
He believes that crystals, as 'the only Euclidean object in nature,' may have helped humans invent geometry and unlock abstract thought."
Setting aside the experiment, which I think does nothing to prove this hypothesis; you can test the hypothesis via study of history rather than experimenting with apes. Egyptians were using geometric principles in 3000 BC. Euclid developed his axioms that was the foundation for Euclidean geometry in 300BC. The science of studying the geometry of crystals history begins in the 16th Century. So no, crystal didn't help humans invent geometry. QED.
Seems like a regurgitation of Stanley Kubrick's idea for the opening scene of 2001
"No, just tell me why some humans are goofy about crystals."
Let me go ask my wife. The house is lousy with them.
I see something here similar to a musician trying to come up with a hit song, but in "science". You look for a hook that's catchy to people, a crystal if you will. If it gets people's attention, and draws them in, they will give it added substance and meaning, and presto, you have a hit whether musical or "scientific".
Crystals are pretty, so I'm told. We mount the rare ones into jewelry.
It seems to me that it's mainly combining the pseudoscientific interest in crystals with the hoped-for fun of hanging around with chimpanzees.
Sure, hanging around with chimpanzees is all fun and games until one of them bites off your genitals.
Just before I sat down and saw this post, I spent 30 minutes cleaning up a large chunk of light blue glass that I keep in the waterfall in my backyard pond. Coincidence, or psychic energy flowing across the mountains between us? Powerful stuff.
It’s all well and good now, until they break out teh incense and patchouli oil !
The Pilgrimage to Mecca involves going to touch the sacred black stone as part of the obligation. That's what that swirling mass in the videos is doing in Mecca.
Let me make this crystal clear: Chimps aren't people. The proper study of man is man. Would someone study a Lab to figure out wolf behavior, or explain Eagles with examples from Parrots?
“ combining the pseudoscientific interest in crystals with the hoped-for fun of hanging around with chimpanzees” would be a great masthead motto. Maybe a tad bit long? CC, JSM
ODE TO CRYSTALLIZATION
The atom is a crystal
of a sort; the lattices
its interlockings form
lend a planarity most pleasing
to the abysses and cliffs, much magnified,
of (for example) salt and tourmaline.
Arise, order,
out of necessity!
Mock, you crystals,
with all appearance of chiselled design,
our hope of a Grand Artificer.
The graceful, layered frost-ferns the midnight elves
left on the Shillington windowpanes
for my morning astonishment were misinformation,
as is
the glittering explosion of tinted quartz
discovered in earth like a nugget of thought,
buried evidence
crying out for release to the workman's pick,
tangled hexagonal hair of an angel interred
where it fell, our earth still molten, in the Fall.
When, on those anvils at the center of stars,
and those even more furious anvils
of the exploding supernovae,
the heavy elements were beaten together
to the atomic number of 94
and the crystalline metals with their easily lost
valence electrons arose,
their malleability and conductivity
made Assyrian goldsmithing possible,
and most of New York City.
Stendhal thought that love
should be likened to a bare branch crystallized
by a winter in the depths of the salt mines of Hallein:
"The tiniest twigs, no bigger
than a tomtit's claw, are spangled with an infinite
number of shimmering, glistening crystals."
Our mathematics and hope of Heaven
alike look to crystals;
their arising, the mounting
of molecules one upon the other, suggests
that inner freezing whereby inchoate
innocence compresses a phrase of art.
Music rises in its fixed lattices
and its cries of aspiration chill our veins
with snowflakes of blood;
the mind grapples up an inflexible relation
and the stiff spheres chime ---
themselves, the ancients thought, all crystal.
In this seethe of hot muck there is something else:
the ribs of an old dory emerge from the sand,
the words set their bevelled bite on the page,
the loved one's pale iris flares in silent assent,
the electrons leap, leaving positive ions
as the fish scales of moonlight show us water's perfect dance.
Steno's Law, crystallography's first:
the form of crystal admits no angle but its own.
John Updike
Crystals do vibrate with energy too when squeezed. That's the whole basis for piezoelectric circuitry. There's a lot of ancient "superstitions" that are simply modern science "ain't got there yets."
I used to think Chimps were cute because I was stuffed full of Pro-Chimp propaganda by USA TV as a kid. However, the more I learnt about them, the less i like them. I now prefer the Gorrilla. The Mostly peaceful gentle giants of the monkey world. However, our guide told us never smile at them, that's a sign of agression.
Crystals aren't real.
Glass isn't a crystal, it's amorphous. Mineralogy 101.
Swift's Yahoos.
Sidenote - as we left the park in Kenya, the chimps dropped rocks on our land rovers. They aren't nice.
Can you say conchoidal fracture?
But leaded glass is called crystal.
If they feed the chimps magic mushrooms, maybe they'll be inspired to make a crystal radio set and start tapping out CQ CQ CQ
“Sidenote - as we left the park in Kenya, the chimps dropped rocks on our land rovers. They aren't nice”
Even the chimps know real men abhor the Rover in favor of a Jeep. #lucaselectrics
Roger Fouts tells me at one point about Washoe's habit, when she was younger and less dangerous, of sitting in a tree in the mornings looking at Playboy magazine. Apparently chimps have such tastes, though I don't know who encourages them; Lucy, in Maurice Temerlin's account, used Playgirl to masturbate with. I find this to be the most impressive evidence of all the complex intelligence of chimps, requiring as it does quite a capacity for responding to approximations and representations.
Vicki Hearne, Adam's Task, p 35
You can call it crystal, but it's still an amorphous solid. You do understand that Yankee Doodle's cap, even with a feather stuck in it, isn't actually macaroni.
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...
"The Pilgrimage to Mecca involves going to touch the sacred black stone as part of the obligation. That's what that swirling mass in the videos is doing in Mecca."
There you go, essentially saying Muslims are Chimps. Islamaphobic!
Article is behind a paywall, but the little film clip was interesting. The chimp’s actions remind me of a human child receiving a new toy and turning it in his hands as he tries to figure out how to play with it.
“Sorting into piles” seems interesting. Does the article describe on what basis the piles were constructed? Color? Size? How many piles versus how many chimps?
My assumption is that the chimpanzees are thoroughly.bored with their lab environment and the crystals were something new that they could play with and alleviate their boredom. Of course the chimps would value them
run a current through a quartz crystal, tune it a bit and it will vibrate at a consist frequency. Great for telling time. Maybe the chimps are noodling about timekeeping so they won’t be late for bananas again…
The Primate Myth: Why the Latest Science Is Leading Us to a New Theory of Human Nature
Jonathan Leaf
Crystals leading to geometric designs is simply monkey see monkey do.
rehajm said...
"Maybe the chimps are noodling about timekeeping so they won’t be late for bananas again…"
nah, they don't care. They run on CP time. Chimps & Primates.
Yeah, I never got the crystal thing. But then, I'm not a chimp. However, I do note that wherever I go around America, I do see a crystal shop in a downtown area or in a shopping mall. And there are often a lot of chimps in those stores. I wondered about that.
So it's definitely a thing. I have friends who buy and believe crystals have mystical powers. That's how those stores stay in business. Sell the 'mystical powers' edge. I don't believe my friends are chimps, but we don't really know the inner-most part of our friends, do we?
I should have used that 'mystical powers' thing in my old sales days. No telling who would have gone for it and inadvertently uncovered the chimp inside of them.
Thanks, Tom: the non myth is Humans are hardwired socialist for tribal stability and success as opposed to the aggressive violent Chimp. Cooperation. Achilles high trust society? Maybe. A tribe that needs the meat equivalent of a couple medium sized antelopes every day ultimately requires violence, so we still got some Bakersfield Chimp in us to thrive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_Davis_chimpanzee_attack
That Chimps like crystals probably has more to do with "ooh, shiny!" than anything else.
It's possible the study is science and scientific, but given the state of the modern academy, it's equally possible it's total crap
The chimps would probably go crazy throwing into the air all the bones in the Italian car park.
My last ex-wife believed in the power of crystals. And after I moved out, she burned sage in the house to cleanse our home of my negative energy and evil.
Althouse is correct. This crystal monkey business is bad science. The word geometry comes from the Greek work for land surveying. Euclid's work involves discussions about two-dimensional constructions, or surfaces if you like, which are analogs of most surveying problems. He never mentions crystals. However, Euclid wasn't the first by more than a millennium. There are Old Kingdom tomb painting that show Egyptian surveyors working with plumb bobs, measuring lines, and A-frame levels. The problem of re-establishing boundaries after the Nile's annual floods stimulated abstract thinking far more than glitters rocks.
To appreciate the mathematical regularity of Platonic solids that occur in nature one needs magnification. As excavated pebbles, most of them are very rough and irregular.
glittery rocks (f'ing spellcheck)
My assumption is that the chimpanzees are thoroughly.bored with their lab environment and the crystals were something new that they could play with and alleviate their boredom.
That was my initial assumption as well. Makes you wonder if the had a control were they put in amorphous blocks instead of crystals.
"They run on CP time. Chimps & Primates."
So that' what CP time means...huh.
We have too many people seeking university degrees, and too few seeking to acquire the marketable skills that bind civilization together. So what are these misguided overachievers doing, beside immersing themselves in grievance studies? Anthropology. They want to play with monkeys can get paid for.
I haven't read the article. Perhaps someone could tell me. Were these chimps given actual mineral crystals to play with, or just molded glass? (Most New-Agers can't tell the difference.)
My monkey don't scratch
My monkey don't bite
My monkey don't swing no tree
My monkey don't hit
My monkey don't drool
My monkey be swing with me
My monkey don't freak
My monkey don't trip
My monkey don't wear no cape
But you can tell what my monkey wanna eat
'Cause it turn into a big ol' ape
Yeah...
"They seemed to also be experiencing 'something beyond curiosity,' Dr. García-Ruiz said. Watching them added heft to one of his more speculative theories: He believes that crystals, as 'the only Euclidean object in nature,' may have helped humans invent geometry and unlock abstract thought."
That tells you something about Dr. Garcia-Ruiz and where he's coming from, but nothing about any chimpanzee. Same as with all the anthropomorphic projections onto octopuses that was featured here a while ago. Nothing scientific about any of it, but like a lot of non-scientific speculation, it may still have something to it.
Dr zaius dr zaius
I love legitimate theatre.
“He believes that crystals, as 'the only Euclidean object in nature,'“
This is so wrong. Euclidean Geometry is a human abstraction of some order seen in nature. It is a model. No physical object is pure to that abstract set of postulates. A baseball is not a sphere and a halite crystal is not a cube. A rubics cube looks as much like a Euclidean Cube as a piece of salt does, but I’m not going to get all goddam poetic about it.
Sometimes, the shortcut to getting an AI to generate the precise image you want is to show it a photo that comes close, along with your text prompt. I got a great photo of a chimp gazing intently at a crystal, by giving the AI (it was Gemini) a photo of a boy doing it first.
https://gemini.google.com/share/8cace7063f81
I took a grandchild to Cave of the Mounds in Mt. Horeb a few weeks ago. There were crystals galore in the gift shop, including in buckets you could run your hands through. Just like I could lose track of time looking at the ocean, or at the fire in my fireplace, I noticed that fiddling around with these crystals was a surprisingly pleasant and appealing experience.
"Glass isn't a crystal, it's amorphous. Mineralogy 101."
I assume that telling us that means you just found out what everybody else already knew and are really impressed with yourself. Very good. Have a cookie.
Planet of the Apes: The Musical - The Simpsons : r/television https://share.google/9cuelV8emspp6xO3F
"No, just tell me why some humans are goofy about crystals.”
Joe Bar responded…
“Let me go ask my wife. The house is lousy with them.”
Wives or crystals?
Just wait until chimps discover that dilithium crystals are a key component in regulating matter/antimatter reactions.
Musk is on to something. We need to get to Mars before the chimps beat us there.
"So... is this good science?"
It got funded, didn't it?
Beats working for a living.
Somebody needs to ask Rep Al Green how many chimps he’s rented.
I was gassing up at the CONOCO in Wagon Mound, NM. Two kids walk out of the store. She’s in black, bare midriff, several piercings, red and purple hair. He’s green haired, in torn jeans and a smock. He has large hole earrings. She says, “We got enough for two gallons, that should be enough to get us there.” Him: “Man, you kept feeding her quarters” …”It was all I had.”
I ask, “Need some gas?” The guy looks at his partner, then back at me, and quietly says, “We do, we really do.” I say, “OK, I’ll give you some.” He brightens and says, “We have weed! We can give you some!” “...No thanks, I’m not a weed kind of guy.” The girl: “We have art, and crystals.”
I thought it would be pretty cool to get a piece of art in trade. I ask what she has. Out comes “License plate art” – newer plates with paint thrown on them. “Nope, they aren’t talking to me,” The she pulls out a pyramid ‘crystal’. “That’s it,” I say!
It’s a clear polymer crystal with small rocks, electric wire and a few small odds and ends. She tells me the crystal will protect me on my journey and shield me from electromagnetic interference.
All in all, a fair trade – they got a tank of gas, and I got a functional piece of art and If I ever get a pacemaker, I’m all set.
Howard said...
You can call it crystal, but it's still an amorphous solid. You do understand that Yankee Doodle's cap, even with a feather stuck in it, isn't actually macaroni.
3/5/26, 9:55 AM
"Macaroni" was a pejorative term for a foppish dandy. No one was calling either the hat or the feather a noodle.
"Crystals leading to geometric designs is simply monkey see monkey do."
So, much like all learning.
Just don't give your chimp Xanax or play with his favorite toys. Remember what Trevor the chimp did. The 911 call is almost too horrifying to listen to.
Sorry, it was Travis the chimp. If he was English he'd have been named Trevor.
“Euclid's work involves discussions about two-dimensional constructions, or surfaces if you like, which are analogs of most surveying problems.”
Obviously you’ve only read the first six books of The Elements. In the subsequent books he goes on to an impressively thorough discussion of solid geometry, including the so-called Platonic Solids. Euclid didn’t care about measuring dirt, he was after Absolute Truth.
Who gave this person a doctorate? This an indictment of that system, which should be discredited in all the meanings of that word.
A woman and a chimp. #NoJudgment #NoLabels
#LoveWins then she transitioned with a new hole opened by her partner with therapeutic malevolence.
It may just be that chimps in captivity need more toys.
Chimp: bored now.
Imagine the splendor and peace of living in conditions where you must not fight for domination, though they screw electrodes in you head, and graduate students watch you masturbate. Look, a shiny object!
There is no real research on primates done in captivity.
You know. Whenever I see behavior like this in chimps, or apes or bonobos I think of Democrats.
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