Books by Subject
Books by Subject
Chimpanzee Behavior
Editorial
Reviews
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To watch apes dressed in human clothing and mimicking human
manners--an old standby in films and television shows--can make some human
viewers uncomfortable, writes the noted primatologist Frans de Waal. Somehow, by
doing so, the apes are crossing some line in the sand, a line that speaks to
issues of culture, which humans alone are presumed to have. But culture, in de
Waal's estimation, does not mean using an oyster fork properly or attending
smart gallery openings. Instead, it "means that knowledge and habits are
acquired from others--often, but not always, the older generation." Culture
implies communication and social organization, and in this, he notes, humans by
no means have a monopoly. A sushi chef learns by acquiring knowledge and habits
from more accomplished masters, but so do chimpanzees learn to wash bananas in
jungle streams, and so do birds learn to break open mollusks on the rocks below
them.
Closely examining anthropocentric theories of culture, de Waal counterposes the notion of anthropodenial, "the a priori rejection of shared characteristics between humans and animals when in fact they may exist." He takes issue with "selfish gene" theories of behavior, arguing spiritedly that there are better models for explaining why animals--and humans--do what they do. And, against Aristotle, he argues that humans are not the only political animals, if by politics we mean a social process "determining who gets what, when, and how." What animals and humans clearly share, he concludes, are societies in which stability is an impossibility--an observation that may disappoint utopians, but one that helps explain some of the world's peculiarities.
Perhaps no human alive knows more about the great apes than does Frans de Waal. With this book, he ably shows that he knows a great deal about humans, too. Students of biology, culture, and communication will find much food for thought in his pages. --Gregory McNamee
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Editorial ReviewsBut in 1986 Goodall gave up fieldwork for a higher, more pressing calling: rescuing chimpanzees from inhumane conditions in captivity and preserving the species from extinction. Jane Goodall: 40 Years at Gombe is a pictorial tribute to her life, her studies of the chimpanzees, and her unflagging efforts to motivate human beings on their behalf.
"Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every
individual makes a difference." Goodall began her research by giving the
chimpanzees names, by observing them as nonhuman individuals. Her activism is
directed toward the human individuals: scientists who use apes in research,
Africans who live near wild apes, children in Africa and in the industrialized
world who can learn to value other creatures for themselves. Goodall says of
this last project that "I think Roots & Shoots is probably the reason I
came into the world. Yet I couldn't have done it without all those years with
the chimpanzees and an understanding that led to a blurring of the line between
'man' and 'beasts.'" --Mary Ellen Curtin
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For three decades, primatologist Roger Fouts
has been involved in language studies of the chimpanzee, the animal most closely
related to human beings. Among his subjects was the renowned Washoe, who was
"endowed with a powerful need to learn and communicate," and who
developed an extraordinary vocabulary in American sign language. Another
chimpanzee, Fouts writes, "never made a grammatical error," which
turned a whole school of linguistic theory upside down. While reporting these
successes, Fouts also notes that chimpanzees are regularly abused in laboratory
settings and that in the wild their number has fallen from 5,000,000 to fewer
than 175,000 in the last century.
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Chimpanzee Material Culture : Implications for Human Evolution