What Can We Learn from Chimpanzees?

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What Can We Learn from Chimpanzees?
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The Descent of Man

• In his On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
  did not speculate on the origins of humans.
• In a his subsequent book, The Descent of Man, he
  postulated, based on the current distribution of
  primates, that humans originated on the African
  continent.

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Primate Relationship
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Ethology

• Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen began the study
  of animal behavior in the field.
• Pecking order in hens in 1922
• Like Darwins theory of Natural Selection, they
  focused on aggression and evolution through
  competition

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Jane Goodall at Gombe

• The paleonologist, Louis Leakey sent Jane Goodall
  to study chimps as a possible way of
  understanding Homo habilis like those found with
  stone tools along the lake shore at Olduvai Gorge.

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Tool Use

• Jane Goodall was the first to observe tool use in
  another species besides humans.
• She has been quoted saying,If chimps had guns
  and knives and knew how to handle them, they
  would use them as humans do.

1. Termite Movie 2. Sponge Movie 3. Tool Kit
Movies
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Fossil Stone Tools

• Julio Mercader of the University of Calgary
  reported, in Feb 2007 PNAS, evidence of
  chimpanzee nut cracking tool use from 4,300 years
  ago.

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Hunting with Spears

• Iowa State University professor Jill Pruetz made
  public on Feb 22, 2007 here observations of a
  chimpanzee fashioning limb that it used to spear
  and kill a bush baby.
• Watch the video just after the incident observed.

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Language

• In the 1970s, a lowland gorilla named Koko began
  to be taught American Sign Language in response
  to spoken English by Dr. Penny Patterson.
• Koko currently has a working vocabulary of over
  1000 signs, understands 2000 English words, and
  commonly signs phrases 3-6 words long.
• She has an IQ ranging between 70-95.

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Japanese Primatology

• Kinji Imanishi focused on kinship and cooperative
  relationships (in opposition to aggression).
• Defined culture as the non-genetic transmission
  of habits.

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Culture

• Culture is a way of life shared by the members
  of one group but not necessarily with the members
  of other groups of the same species. It covers
  knowledge, habits, and skills, including
  tendencies and preferences, derived from exposure
  to and learning from others. Whenever systematic
  variation in these characteristics between groups
  cannot be attributed to genetic or ecological
  factors, it is probably cultural. The way
  individuals learn from each other is secondary,
  but that they learn from each other is a
  requirement. Thus, the culture label does not
  apply to knowledge, habits, or skills that
  individuals readily acquire on their own.
  Frans de Waal

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Chimps in Atlanta

• Frans de Waal has embraced the anthropomorphism
  with chimps and has demonstrated typical human
  behaviors requiring some form of conscious
  reasoning political maneuverings associated with
  power and sex, as well as more recent
  demonstrations of reciprocity.

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Hypothesis Testing Error
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Types of Error

• Researchers can be in error two distinct ways.
  They can
• Dismiss a valid hypothesis, aType I Error
  (support the Alternative when the Null is true)
• Embrace an invalid hypothesis, a Type II Error
  (support the Null when the Alternative is true)

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Anthropomorphism Type II Error

• Anthropomorphism supports projecting human
  thoughts and feelings onto animals (embracing the
  Null Hypothesis)
• Null Hypothesis Animals have human-like
  conscious intentions when they behave like
  humans.
• Alternative Hypothesis Animals dont have a
  human-like psychology.
• To reduce the chance of committing the
  Anthropomorphic Type II Error, the behavioral
  sciences have created a institutional bias
  against interpreting any animal behavior from a
  human perspective.

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Anthropodenial Type I Error

• Anthropodenial rejects projecting human thoughts
  and feelings onto animals (Dismiss the Null
  Hypothesis)
• The behavior sciences dont have a symmetrical
  bias against anthropodenial, and thus it exposes
  itself to making Type I Errors.

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The Problem with Chimps

• The fear of anthropomorphism, or anthropodenial,
  fails to take into account the shared
  evolutionary history of chimpanzees and humans,
  increasing the likeliness that researchers reject
  the null hypothesis when it is, in reality, true.
• Shouldnt our psychology be as conserved as our
  anatomy and physiology?

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• Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked
  social instincts would inevitably acquire a
  moral sense or conscience, as soon as its
  intellectual powers had become as well developed,
  or nearly as well developed, as in man.
  Charles Darwin

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Humanities Uniqueness

• Mans special place in the universe has been one
  of abandoned claims and moving goalposts.
• From tool use, to language, to culture, man
  continues to runs face-to-face with the fact that
  we share a evolutionary history with other life
  and mostly with our nearest cousin the
  chimpanzee.

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Genetic and Genomics

• In September 2005 the sequencing of the chimp
  genome was announced.

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Myosin Gene Example

• Scientists have discovered a myosin mutation
  restricted to the jaw muscle that appears to
  coincide with the beginning of the rapid
  expansion of the hominin cranium.

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Bibliography

• http//magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0304/featu
  re4/index.html?fswww7.nationalgeographic.com
• http//www.nature.com/nature/focus/chimpgenome/ind
  ex.html
• http//www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7055/in
  dex.html
• http//www.nature.com/news/specials/chimpgenome/in
  dex.html
• http//www.koko.org/
• http//news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/07
  0222-chimp-video.html
• http//news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/07
  0213-chimps-tools.html
• http//news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/10
  06_041006_chimps.html

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Movies

• http//www.arkive.org/species/GES/mammals/Pan_trog
  lodytes/
• http//www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/crawfordvideo.ht
  ml

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Further Reading

• Jane Goodall (1971) In the Shadow of Man
• Frans de Waal (1982) Chimpanzee Politics Power
  and Sex among Apes
• Frans de Waal (2001) The Ape and the Sushi
  Master
• Frans de Waal (2006) Our Inner Ape

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Hand Communication

• Holding out a Hand the most common gesture but
  meaning depends on context and can be for
  begging, bodily contact, or support.

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Facial Communication

• Grin wide baring of teeth expresses fight and
  distress.

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Vocal Communication

• Scream
• Bark
• Grunt
• Whimper
• Hoot

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Bodily Displays

• Bluff Display when adult males sway their upper
  body, hoot, show erect hair, and culminating in a
  circling or charging some member of the group.

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Reconciliations

• Chimpanzees are a social species.
  Reconciliations are used in maintaining group
  cohesiveness amongst the competitiveness of
  acquiring food and mates.

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• Must have a good memory of social interactions
• Intelligent manipulators (interesting word) of
  not only tools but of social instruments.