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You might be old enough to have been taught that Humans are tool-using apes. That's tragically incomplete: lots of apes use tools. Birds use tools. And now, cow

You might be old enough to have been taught that Humans are tool-using apes. That's tragically incomplete: lots of apes use tools. Birds use tools. And now, cows use tools! Cow tools: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0n127y74go https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0n127y74go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tools

drakythe 9mo ago
I was homeschooled in a particular conservative area. Much of what I have been taught was... woefully inadequate, we'll say. Lots of my learning has come in university and afterwards, so what I've picked up is pretty obviously incomplete and leaves me with many unknown unknowns in this area. Today has begun filling in many of those gaps so they get to be known unknowns now!
- hearsathought 9mo ago
  > Lots of my learning has come in university and afterwards That's true for pretty much everybody. Homeschooled or not. You think everyone shocked by this news was all homeschooled?
  - dpc050505 9mo ago
    I'm relearning a lot of stuff I was told visiting natural history museums as a kid reading this thread and the linked articles. I doubt I'm the only person in this forum who had a couple of educated parents who wanted their kids to learn more than what is taught in basic public k-12 curriculum.
  - drakythe 9mo ago
    No, but I do think it more likely they got a more accurate world history class somewhere along the line. I was taught creationism thanks to the conservatism nature of my family and the area I grew up in. It took a long while to know and accept the world (and universe) is as old as it is.
    - WalterBright 9mo ago
      I went through public elementary and high school. The amount of world history taught there is vanishingly small. Just for fun, ask some high schoolers who were the major combatants in WW2.
      - danans 9mo ago
        > The amount of world history taught there is vanishingly small. Just for fun, ask some high schoolers who were the major combatants in WW2. That is an example of poor teaching of historical facts. It's bad (especially in our current times when people have forgotten the perils of fascism), but it's different than what the GP describes, which sounds like the biblical literalist timeline of life on Earth (with creation happening only 6000 years ago). That is not just poor education, but instead direct contradiction of widely understood knowledge that much of our modern world is built on. To use your WW2 example, it's similar to explicitly teaching someone that the Holocaust didn't happen. Or in the scientific realm teaching that the earth is flat.
        WalterBright 9mo ago
        I've also seen "history" taught in high school that the middle class only emerged after FDR. (The middle class thrived in colonial America.) Freshman physics in college blew through 2 years of high school honors physics in a week. What's taught in public schools is pretty thin gruel. That said, I enjoyed school, as all my friends were there and we had a good time.
        danans 9mo ago
        > What's taught in public schools is pretty thin gruel. It's pretty thin gruel at many private schools too. The limiting factor in either case is that most kids are there because they are made to go, not self directed. Money does not buy motivation, but it buys access.
      - drakythe 9mo ago
        20th century history was covered in depth because much of it can be taught with an American Exceptionalism slant easily. I'm more talking about pre-Roman Empire times. Though you just reminded me of a co-worker I had while I was in University. She had attended a private Christian High School and apparently world history was optional there because (we worked at a movie rental place) when Valkyrie released I commented on how I didn't care to watch it because I already knew how it would end. She asked what I meant and how I knew, and I had to explain that since Hitler survived the bombing attempt to shoot himself in his bunker at the end of WW2 (or be shot, or fake it, whatever your chosen explanation/conspiracy) in Europe that Tom Cruise's character pretty obviously had to fail. She had _no idea_. I was pretty baffled. My grandad enlisted in the army in the tail end of WW2. 2 generations back. And she knew nothing about it except that it had happened.
zahlman 9mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronika_(cow) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronika_(cow) might be a better Wikipedia link. Honestly I would have expected a pig or horse to be discovered to use tools, rather than a cow. Cattle are generally... not thought of as particularly intelligent.
- BirAdam 9mo ago
  Well, most cattle aren't given much to stimulate them, and they're bred for meat production and complacency. People aren't exactly looking to make the life of cattle fun or enjoyable.
  - fragmede 9mo ago
    That's the goal of https://www.cowbrushes.com/store https://www.cowbrushes.com/store ! They provide mental stimulation and scritches for cows. Results in extra milk, too.

drakythe 9mo ago

I was homeschooled in a particular conservative area. Much of what I have been taught was... woefully inadequate, we'll say. Lots of my learning has come in university and afterwards, so what I've picked up is pretty obviously incomplete and leaves me with many unknown unknowns in this area. Today has begun filling in many of those gaps so they get to be known unknowns now!

hearsathought 9mo ago
> Lots of my learning has come in university and afterwards That's true for pretty much everybody. Homeschooled or not. You think everyone shocked by this news was all homeschooled?
- dpc050505 9mo ago
  I'm relearning a lot of stuff I was told visiting natural history museums as a kid reading this thread and the linked articles. I doubt I'm the only person in this forum who had a couple of educated parents who wanted their kids to learn more than what is taught in basic public k-12 curriculum.
- drakythe 9mo ago
  No, but I do think it more likely they got a more accurate world history class somewhere along the line. I was taught creationism thanks to the conservatism nature of my family and the area I grew up in. It took a long while to know and accept the world (and universe) is as old as it is.
  - WalterBright 9mo ago
    I went through public elementary and high school. The amount of world history taught there is vanishingly small. Just for fun, ask some high schoolers who were the major combatants in WW2.
    - danans 9mo ago
      > The amount of world history taught there is vanishingly small. Just for fun, ask some high schoolers who were the major combatants in WW2. That is an example of poor teaching of historical facts. It's bad (especially in our current times when people have forgotten the perils of fascism), but it's different than what the GP describes, which sounds like the biblical literalist timeline of life on Earth (with creation happening only 6000 years ago). That is not just poor education, but instead direct contradiction of widely understood knowledge that much of our modern world is built on. To use your WW2 example, it's similar to explicitly teaching someone that the Holocaust didn't happen. Or in the scientific realm teaching that the earth is flat.
      - WalterBright 9mo ago
        I've also seen "history" taught in high school that the middle class only emerged after FDR. (The middle class thrived in colonial America.) Freshman physics in college blew through 2 years of high school honors physics in a week. What's taught in public schools is pretty thin gruel. That said, I enjoyed school, as all my friends were there and we had a good time.
        danans 9mo ago
        > What's taught in public schools is pretty thin gruel. It's pretty thin gruel at many private schools too. The limiting factor in either case is that most kids are there because they are made to go, not self directed. Money does not buy motivation, but it buys access.
    - drakythe 9mo ago
      20th century history was covered in depth because much of it can be taught with an American Exceptionalism slant easily. I'm more talking about pre-Roman Empire times. Though you just reminded me of a co-worker I had while I was in University. She had attended a private Christian High School and apparently world history was optional there because (we worked at a movie rental place) when Valkyrie released I commented on how I didn't care to watch it because I already knew how it would end. She asked what I meant and how I knew, and I had to explain that since Hitler survived the bombing attempt to shoot himself in his bunker at the end of WW2 (or be shot, or fake it, whatever your chosen explanation/conspiracy) in Europe that Tom Cruise's character pretty obviously had to fail. She had _no idea_. I was pretty baffled. My grandad enlisted in the army in the tail end of WW2. 2 generations back. And she knew nothing about it except that it had happened.

zahlman 9mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronika_(cow) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronika_(cow) might be a better Wikipedia link. Honestly I would have expected a pig or horse to be discovered to use tools, rather than a cow. Cattle are generally... not thought of as particularly intelligent.

BirAdam 9mo ago
Well, most cattle aren't given much to stimulate them, and they're bred for meat production and complacency. People aren't exactly looking to make the life of cattle fun or enjoyable.
- fragmede 9mo ago
  That's the goal of https://www.cowbrushes.com/store https://www.cowbrushes.com/store ! They provide mental stimulation and scritches for cows. Results in extra milk, too.