

Diver Snaps First Photo of Fish Using Tools - pwg
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/diver-snaps-first-photo-of-fish-.html?ref=hp

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xtacy
Off topic: the heading is one of those sentences in English that can have
different parse trees[1] and it got me confused for a moment as to why this is
news! It was a late realisation and I had to read the article to understand.

Any thoughts on how such sentences can be written in a better way?

    
    
        (wrong) Diver snaps first photo of fish, using tools
        Diver snaps first photo of (fish using tools)
        Diver snaps first photo of "fish using tools"
        Diver snaps first photo of a fish that uses tools
    

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_flies_like_an_arrow;_fruit...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_flies_like_an_arrow;_fruit_flies_like_a_banana)

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ggchappell
This is a tough one. I think your last option is the best of your list, but
still, it could be the photo that uses the tools.

I thought of "First photo of fish using tools snapped by diver". Then I
realized that could be about tools that were snapped by the diver, and then
used by the fish. Or maybe the photo used the tools.

I think what we really need to do, is add more words to make it clearer:

A fish using tools was snapped by a diver. This is the first such photo ever
taken.

But even then, the correct parsing relies on the fact that "fish" is singular,
while "tools" is plural. If it had been multiple fish, then, really, I'm not
sure how we could say it.

~~~
cydonian_monk
Perhaps we need fewer words to make it clearer. I feel that "First" photo in
the original title is a red herring. And not really something you can prove
with ease. Maybe somebody else has taken just such a photo but never released
it? Or has never realized it was a photo of a fish using a tool?

I suggest: "Tool-using fish photograped by diver."

Or that we find a new language to work in.

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ggchappell
All good points.

Note, however, that, while "tool-using fish" is clear in writing, if you _say_
it, you might mean that the tool uses the fish.

Another effort:

Fish uses tool. Diver photographs the fish.

OR

Diver photographs fish, while fish uses tool.

~~~
jodrellblank
And your efforts might imply that the photographs depict only the fish and not
the tool or the tool use.

Diver photographs tool-use by fish?

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jberryman
> Tool use, once thought to be the distinctive hallmark of human intelligence,
> has been identified in a wide variety of animals in recent decades.

I don't get this. What would prompt a scientist to make such a claim,
especially when something as simple as smashing an animal against a rock
counts as tool use?

I was at the zoo watching a gorilla for 5 minutes and saw it repeatedly throw
a stick into a tree to knock down leaves and eat them. I find it hard to
believe that in the millennia of recorded observations of animals, that no one
observed a single instance of rock-bashing or stick-throwing.

Edit: I can't find much information on wikipedia, but the article on tools
ends with

> Now the unique relationship of humans with tools is considered to be that we
> are the only species that uses tools to make other tools

I guess until we find out we're not?

~~~
pigbucket
>I find it hard to believe that in the millennia of recorded observations of
animals, that no one observed a single instance of rock-bashing or stick-
throwing.

Pliny's Natural History, which every natural philosopher and biologist in the
west up until the 18th century likely read, is full of observations of
interesting and apparently more than instinctual animal behavior, including
the use of stones by ravens to raise water level in a jug (the observation at
the root of the well-known fable by Aesop).

Against the long tradition of seeing humans as in some essential way distinct
from animals (by virtue of tool use, or speech, or reason, or compassion, and
so on) there is a counter-tradition (from Empiricus to Montaigne) of denying
the distinction, and that tradition has collected gobs of anecdotes and
observations of apparent reason, communication and tool use).

~~~
jberryman
That's awesome. Thanks for the background.

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pedalpete
Does the fish have a 'tool'?? Definition of tool 'A device or implement, esp.
one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function'. I'll give the
fish a break because it doesn't have hands. But is a rock a 'device used to
carry out a particular function'?

I'd argue that in this case, the rock isn't a tool. Lots of animals use their
natural environment to their benefit. But I would think the fish would have to
use the rock in an original way for it to be considered a 'tool'.

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sambeau
Since when did banging something against a rock count as tool use? Surely by
that measurement any creature that scratches itself against a post or takes
refuge under a tree is a tool user. Many creatures make nests - is that a
tool?

If a fish was dropping a stone onto a clam I would accept it as a very
primitive form of tool use. Just.

~~~
derleth
I think the most reasonable cutoff of what is tool-use is that tool-use must
be learned, and not just instinctive. I think that excludes nest-making but
includes all of the interesting things ravens do with rocks and sticks.

