![]() ![]() Indeed, chimpanzees understand the concept of fairness very well.ĭr. de Waal and his colleagues conducted many similar variations on this experiment. Very quickly, the chimp controlling the treats would choose the tokens that brought treats to both of them. If he chose the other color, both would get treats. If he chose one color, he would get a treat, but the adjacent chimp would get none. One chimp would get to choose from two different tokens. de Waal’s many experiments that bring out the sense of fairness in chimps, he had two chimps in adjacent cages. Male chimps being harassed by other males in the group will flee to the arms of the oldest female for comfort and support.īy James Hopkirk, on Flickr Inquisitive bonobo It is the older females that maintain the group emotionally. Upon the death of an elderly female of the group, the mourning becomes universal for the whole group. They appear to sense what is “right” and “wrong”.Ĭhimps and bonobos appear to mourn for their dead kin, including mothers who lose their babies. In ape communities, members are often observed trying to calm the group down following an altercation. She subsequently used the bottle to feed her own offspring as well. de Waal trained a female chimp to use a baby bottle to feed an orphan, replacing her own inadequate milk supply. Indeed, some of the sharing shown by individual chimps and bonobos in captive experiments puts our own behavior to shame.īonobos and chimpanzees will adopt and rear orphans as their own offspring. His new book outlines an amazing series of experiments as well as observations in the field of wild apes to point out just how important fair play is for these primates. ![]() Our ape ancestors, he believes, were in fact highly moral in many ways, and he sees that morality echoed in our close cousins in the primate kingdom. ![]() He believes our ethics and morals are in fact based on evolutionary processes that promote cooperation and the moral high ground. He sees no reason to disparage those who believe.īut he does take issue in his new book, The Bonobo and the Atheist, with the oft-repeated notion that our sense of morals and sin are the products of human constructed religion. De Waal is frankly appalled by some of these claims – he feels, while he himself is not a believer, that religion is an important social institution bringing many benefits to the human race. There are several books out by noted scientists that cast aspersions on beliefs in religion and God. He finds his evidence in some remarkable studies of the bonobo (known also as the “pigmy chimpanzee”) and the chimpanzee, our closest evolutionary relatives. He does, however, want to change some misconceptions about our human ethical and moral values values he feels are very much a part of our evolutionary heritage. Frans de Waal doesn’t want to change your religion. It’s not yet clear whether the two episodes of gene flow happened at low levels over a long time or in discrete pulses.Dr. The genetic evidence shows that a little less than 1 per cent of the chimpanzee genome came from bonobos, from one contact between 200,000 and 550,000 years ago and another, more recent one less than 200,000 years ago. “We thought it was a mistake, but we kept seeing it,” says Hvilsom. They were mapping genetic markers that could be used to determine where illegally traded chimps came from so they could be returned to their homes in the wild.īut when they compared the chimp genomes to those of bonobos, they found clear signs of bonobo genes. Hvilsom and her colleagues weren’t actually looking for genetic evidence of ancient interspecies erotica. But it turns out that it must have been breached more than once – although it’s not clear how that happened. Scientists assumed the river was an impenetrable barrier, says Christina Hvilsom from Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark, one of the researchers who worked on the genetic project. ![]()
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