Aren’t all the critters with opposable thumbs either omnivores or fruit-eaters? (The theory being that thumbs help with plucking fruit.)
Could intelligence have evolved without those thumbs (and the concomitant ability to make tools)?
See link. Find contrary evidence.
Gorillas do use tools. And elephants are certainly capable of using simple tools, although I’ve never seen a report of a wild elephant using a tool. But human hands didn’t evolve so we could use tools, our hands are an ancestral character that we share with other primates, and those primates use their hands for climbing, grooming and food gathering, not tool use.
So even though current elephants don’t use their trunks to use tools, we could say that proboscians, like primates, have manipulative organs that could be used for tool use.
I also don’t think we need to quibble over whether species are exclusive carnivores or herbivores. Wolves are certainly carnivorous to qualify as carnivores, even if they eat some plants. And ruminants might occasionally eat bugs and such, but the overwhelming majority of their diet is plant material. Any animal with specialized adaptations that allow it to eat grass is herbivorous enough for me.
Science 2/11/05
Maybe I should have phrased that differently.
Which one didn’t go extinct?
Guns, Germs and Steel was an interesting book, but I have to wonder if you’ve been reading Larry Niven as well, thinking of the Kzinti and Puppeteers.
Apparently the Inuit traditionally ate 98% meat and fish, per Uncle Cecil .and they developed some interesting tools with the limited resources they had, but I’m not sure that’s the kind of “technological society” you’re looking for.
I would say that it is possible, but it would be unlikely and would rely on the absence of an omnivorous species of a similar advanced state.
As cited in Sevastopol’s link, the relatively strict meat eating diet of the neanderthal was an element in their downfall. A couple of bad years can really put a hurt on a fledgling society.
I think this is mostly what I was going for. If an animal already has sharp claws and teeth, what could it gain from constructing primitave tools? Any tools would only be a waste of energy, not something likely to be learned.
I completely admit that it’s pure speculation, but it goes back to what was said above. Tools seem to be used to do things that we can’t with just our bodies, like getting termites, or hurling rocks. A pointy stick or sharp rock doesn’t seem useful to most dedicated carnivores, but it would be useful to omnivores who could discover it. If those omnivores then found themselves in an environment where meat made up almost all of their diet, they would already have the tools to adapt.
I see your point here. Thanks.
Niven’s grasp on evolutionary biolology was always pretty shaky. The Pak, for instance, and the “filling of vital ecological niches” on the Ringworld are rather question begging, as are the hyperspecialized Moties in the Mote novels.
The Inuit aren’t a very good example here, as they didn’t develop intelligence and discover tool-use on their own, but were rather an offshoot population which was forced into a protein-rich diet by the particulars of their environment.
This is an interesting discussion, but I’d like to point out that all of our reasoning on this topic is based upon a sample of one; we might assume that carnivores are more intelligent than herbivores, and omnivores more adaptable and more likely to develop “overall” intelligence because that’s the way it worked for us, but we don’t know that to be a universal truth. It is instructive to look at non-primate animals as a guide to what non-human intelligence might develop.
For instance, the elephant is quite intelligent, demonstrates social rituals and burial customs, and has at least a limited manipulative capability. Elephants are, of course, complete herbivores.
Another example is the octopus. Many species of octopus, including the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) and the Northwest or Giant octopus (Octopus dofleini) both demonstrate complex analytical and problem solving skills, as well as extensive communication ability. The octopus is, for the most part, a strict carnivore.
Back on land, the non-primate animal that most closely fits the habits and rearing behavior of primates are the ursines (bears). The American black bear, in particular, demonstates curiosity, complex mechanical intuition, and what manipulative ability it can muster with mouth and claws. The bear, like chimps and oragnutans, is an omnivore/scavenger with opportunistic hunting tendencies.
Although the conclusion that meat distribution (and eventually animal husbandry) probably lead to some of the advanced communication and social skills developed by H. sapies and predecessors, it’s not a given that this is the only path to intelligence. I think what is required is that the species in question be somewhere in an ecological niche as being both predator (or scavenger) and prey, and being adaptable to many environments but not especially well-adapted to any particular location or food source. Having to move around, stay alert, keep on your toes, keeps you sharp…just like Al Pacino in Heat. 
Stranger
No, the question was just fine. The fallacy was the assumption that human beings will necessarily:
a) - not become extinct, or
b) - last longer than neaderthals.
In any case, I don’t see the point of the question. The OP asked; could a carnivore develop a technological society. The evidence is that neanderthal man did. What’s to ask?
Neandertals were almost exclusively carnivorous and had tools but there is more to having technology than having a few tools. True technology involves having society for it is the societal organism that really develops technology, not individual intelligences. Tribal hunting bands are not a society.
Neandertal intelligence was notable for its narrowness. They were unlikely to do things in different ways than before. It was flexible tool use that was the hallmark of sapiens and the greater use of the societal organism (including learning from others and from past generations and building on it).
And it has been agriculture that has driven the development of the societal organism to technological heights.
And let’s not forget the raccoons, which are my pick to take over our niche after we primates are gone. Curious, clever, omnivorous, and posessing a remarkable manual dexterity, they seem poised to take the leap should the opportunity present itself.
Who says they haven’t already.
Sometimes is better just to sit back and let your lessers do all the work.
Stranger
Consider the sea otter: carnivorous, social, and uses tools. However, they are unlikely to develop a technological society because they spend almost all of their time looking for food and eating.
The most important thing to a developing technological society is leisure time.
Certainly either one could if you didn’t use modern human omnivorous society as your bellwether for technological advancement and are willing to look at the idea that their technology would form in a completely different way. For instance, living in a metropolis does not mean technological. Carnivores could be nomadic predators that use traps and all number of other things, and maybe even control their breeding cycles so that they don’t breed so much as to ruin their habitat and necessitate an equilibrium of control over their immediate environment.
Erek
You’ve been talking to your cat lately haven’t you?