Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…
Some time ago, a friend and I had a drunken discussion about whether or not a “caveman” would have the ability to figure out the mechanics of a cigarette lighter if it was somehow transported back in time. His contention was no, that they would probably have manipulated it in to some sort of amulet(sp?) to be worn. I contended that if the “caveman” we were speaking of were, say post-wheel-invention, than they could certainly figure out the mechanics given the presence of a wheel-like structure on the lighter. He still said no because part of the “wheel” is hidden by the rest of the lighter. I countered, saying that the rest of the wheel was implied and since the human brain has not changed that drastically since the Neanderthal, they could fill in the blank much as we do today with optical images that are incomplete.
Admittedly, this is a stupid debate, but the tactics of the debate produced some pretty hard feelings to the point that I cornered an Anthropology professor here at the university who agreed that it was a stupid discussion, but indulged me enough to explain that my reasonings were more or less correct. Having done this, my friend still contends that he is right, making it a (jokingly) “sore” subject between the two of us. This has been going on for almost two years! HAHAHAHA!
So, I would like to know what you Straight Dopers think about this question, if you feel it is worth debating.
Until very recently we still had a few people in this world who existed at a “caveman” level. I’m sure the cigarette lighter experiment had to have been done at least a couple times in this century. Read up on the Taseday(sp?) in the Philipines or the Yanomano in the Amazon and I’ll bet you can find an answer without the benifit of a time machine.
PapaBear:
I have to say that I am a big fan of yours (we also share the same musical tastes, for what it’s worth)!
I know nothing about the Yanomono, but in an Anth 101 class we saw a documentary about the Tasaday that ended with the assumption that they were more or less a hoax created by their “discoverer.” This was about 4 years ago and sometimes it the question of their validity plagues my mind, but I am too bogged down in matters of physical chemistry at the moment to research it (hell, I have had no concept of what it means to read for one’s own enjoyment for the last two years). But thanks for the direction, and I will certainly follow up on it after I graduate. Viva August!
How embarassing! I guess I didn’t read the newspaper that day. Am I wrong about the Yanomano, too?
I don’t remember where I read it, and obviously there was no proof of the statement, but I once read an anthropologist who said you could have taught a Cro-Magnon to fly an airplane.
We have childproof lighters, which imply that children can use them.
I mean, how dumb do you have to be to not be able to light a cigarette lighter?
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In the course of examining a cigarette lighter, I’m sure one of them would have run his thumb over the ridges on the wheel. When it moved, they might have done it again, causing a spark this time. After initial reactions, they would probably resume playing with it, out of natural curiosity, eventually causing a flame.
If an chimpanzee can use a lighter, I’m sure a cro-Magnon man would have eventually figured it out.
Glad to see that everyone more or less agrees with me here so far. All of the arguments about flying and chimpanzees and childproof lighters were all used by me in the above-mentioned debate but with no concession on the part of my opponent. RATS! Did an internet search “Yanomano” which came up with 8 unhelpful websites. Does anyone know a decent website with information on this tribe?
Whenever I need to search, I search mostly at www.ask.com because that way I don’t get 10 zillion websites with only part of the word I used. It’s very quick and it searches many of the most important search engines & returns the answer every single time for me [well maybe 98 out of 100]. Thus you could also use it and you’d find this URL [as if you didn’t already}
http://carmen.murdoch.edu.au/~zariski/fri/y.html
About them Yanos 
PS: I think that if 8 out of 10 questions on the Straight Dope were asked there first, the answer would show up.
Heath–I’m not sure what you and your friend were argueing about. If you mean “would a caveman have figured how to work a lighter?”, I’d have to say yes. Assuming he didn’t break it, just fooling around with a lighter would cause him to push the wheel and strike a spark.
If you mean “would a caveman have figured out the mechanics of a lighter?”, I’d say know. IIRC, anthropologists believe that cavemen were poor at visualizing abstracts. Without that ability, how could they figure out the workings of lighter parts that were hidden (like the spring that holds the flint). Once they took the lighter apart, it wouldn’t work anymore and they’d be clueless.
Are we talking a bic lighter or a Zippo lighter?
The difference is important.
“Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing yourself is enlightenment.” - Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher
The argument was about if cavemen could work the lighter - figure out how to produce a flame. The lighter in question was a bic lighter, but I’m not sure I understand why it would make a difference if it was a Zippo. Am I taking a sarcastic remark seriously?
PapaBear: You probably mean the Yanomami?
Anyway, you were right. The Yanomami were found in the 1940’s, if I remember correctly. They were basically hunter-gatherers and had very little contacts with the outside world until the 70’s, when a highway was built into their area. After that the fall of the Yanomami has been fast, I’m afraid. Mining, the related violence and land-grabbing has made the preservation of their culture very hard. I’m sure there’s a lot of information about the subject on the Web for those with more time to surf…
Should learn to read these posts more carefully. Perhaps to spell as well, but what is the correct way to spell their name? Yanomano/Yanomami/Yanoama??? Anyway, handy had the time and ability I lacked.
Well…not to get too picky; but I think the question does need a few peramaters to answer effectively. A lot depends on what you mean by caveman. Cro-magnon? Neanderthall? Well I’m going to assume that you just mean ancient homo sapiens sapiens. The human race has not changed much since it emerged (from a physiological standpoint that is). WE know a lot more now; but that doesn’t mean we’re any more intelligent than the earliest humans. Our capacity to learn is much the same today as it always has been. I would say a “caveman” child, even, could figure out how to make a lighter work just like my 5 year old could (if I let her). Of course that doesn’t mean that he/she would. The caveman in question might find another use for the lighter other than making fire. One that you or I would never dream of. That doesn’t make yhem any less clever. Just as an aside: chimpanzees generally mimic human behavior. I wonder if a chimpanzee that had never seen a human work a lighter would figure it out. O.K. Now about figuring out the mechanics of a lighter. Given my premise about intelligence I would say a very clever and intelligent…uhh… caveperson should be able to work out the mechanics of a lighter and maybe even improve upon it. But unless he/she figures out polymer chemistry I doubt they could duplicate it. To make my point from a different angle; Would you be able to figure out the mechanics of a lighter if you had never seen any kind of tech outside of a sharp rock? We can’t even figure out for sure how the Egyptians built the friggin pyramids.
“If you stick your finger in a pie, whatever is in the pie will be on your finger, and whatever is on your finger will be in the pie…unless you wear a rubber glove”----some demented old lady
When you think about it, the technology level of a lighter is about the same as that of a piece of flint and a shell filled with animal fat, both of which the Neanderthals had and knew how to use.
You are all missing the obvious answer.
If you had watched the movie Encino Man. You would have seen the Caveman character use a Bic lighter and become frightened. But he did indeed figure out how to use it.
Sheesh.
Jeffery
Not to get too picky, but Mike King mentioned that it’s been said that a Cro-Magnon could be taught to fly a plane. Maybe this is true, but it skirts the basic premise of the original question. A cave-dude could be taught to fly a plane, sure. But if he came across a plane would he be able to figure out how to fly it? Prolly not. The simpler mechanics of a Bic lighter make it a more intriguing question.
A couple of people have noted that children, if they get their hands on a lighter, could use it and therefore manufacturers of such things make them childproof. But it strikes me that, even with very young children, using a lighter is learned behavior. If a lighter is available to them, it came from an adult, most probably one they’ve observed using said lighter. The caveman question could almost be posed as: “Would a 5 year old child who’s never been exposed to a lighter be able to figger it out?” My answer, after observing normal human child behavior, is more than likely.
I side with Heath on this one. I don’t think a caveman would have trouble figuring out how to make a fire from a Bic lighter (providing it wasn’t a child-proof one).
The Dave-Guy
“since my daughter’s only half-Jewish, can she go in up to her knees?” J.H. Marx
posted 07-04-99 04:26 PM
I agree. And when the gas ran out–then it would have been worn around the next or have become an object of worship. One of the more clever chaps would spin a tale about The Second Lighting.