http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2007/08/03/bonobo-promiscuity-another-myth-bites-the-dust/
Bonobo Promiscuity? Another Myth Bites the Dust
Posted Aug 3rd 2007 6:58AM by Dinesh D'SouzaFiled under: Science, Cultural Left, Bizarre, Sex
For the past few decades the African apes called bonobos have been the favorite animal of the social liberals. The reason is that bonobos are regarded as peace-loving, love-making animals. At the Bonobo Conservation Institute they describe bonobos as "hippie" chimps who "make love, not war." Supposedly bonobos are bisexual apes who engage in incessant and indiscriminate sexual activity as an alternative to power struggles and male wars of domination. I'm surprised the Democratic Party hasn't changed its symbol from the donkey to the bonobo.
Well, maybe the liberals should put their bonobsession on hold for a while...
The July 30 issue of the New Yorker has a fascinating article on the work of the German anthropologist Gottfried Hohmann, who is considered the world's leading authority on bonobos in the wild. The key term here is "in the wild." Most of the research on bonobos to date has been done by the Dutch anthropologist Frans de Waal. Studying bonobos in cages, de Waal discovered that bonobos seem to have sex a lot: oral sex, anal sex, all kinds of sex. In de Waal's famous portrait, the bonobo emerges as a creature much more interested in sex than in work or power or anything else. In other words, de Waal's bonobos bore a startling similarity to the Dutch.
Hohmann's work shows that de Waal got it mostly wrong. Yes, bonobos act a bit weird in captivity, but what would you do if you were stuck in a cage? What else is there to do except look for unoccupied orifices? Just as people in prisons engage in all kinds of strange behavior, so too bonobos that are locked up behave in unnatural ways. "Unnatural" here means anti-Darwinian. Hohman's suspicions about de Waal's work were aroused by his recognition that the peace-loving promiscuous bonobo would not make sense under Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin posits a struggle for existence and throughout nature this means a struggle for survival, reproduction and power. So how could bonobos be different?
Turns out they aren't. Observe bonobos in the wild for long periods of time, and they don't act much different from other kinds of apes. De Waal's famous contrast between the bonobo and the chimpanzee turns out to be largely illusory. Bonobos too have power struggles. There is patriarchy among bonobos, just as with other apes. "It was so easy for Frans to charm everyone," Hohmann says. "He had the big stories. We don't have the big stories." What Hohmann is leaving out here is the human tendency to distort evidence to suit our prejudices. Libertines and other social liberals loved Margaret Mead's now-discredited accounts of promiscuity in Samoa because they made the Samoans into libertines. Once the Samoans were shown not to conform to the liberal expectation, bonobos were fashioned into the new Samoans.
Now the liberals have to look for another mascot. Who will it be: the Andalusian ant? The New Zealand platypus? Perhaps these fellows should stick with the donkey.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 3)
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1. Looks to me like you spend too much time worrying about Liberal sex lives and need to get one of your own. Might loosen you up a tad.
kevin at 8:16AM on Aug 3rd 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Great apes love a game of charadesBy Roger Highfield, Science Editor
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/02/sciapes102.xml
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 02/08/2007
How to ape orang-utan
Great apes and humans have long been known to share certain character traits and now it seems they share the same tactics for playing parlour games - charades in particular.
Orangutans repeat gestures until they are fully understood
Orangutans use the same strategy that generations of partygoers follow when playing the popular game by using actions repeatedly and more frantically until they get their message across.
The findings, by researchers at the University of St Andrews and published in today's edition of Current Biology, give a remarkable glimpse of the origins of language millions of years ago and point to greater cognitive ability in orangutans.
Prof Richard Byrne of the University of St Andrews, who led the study, said: "We were surprised that the orangutans' responses so clearly signalled their assessment of the audience's comprehension.
''Looking at the tapes of the animals' responses, you can easily work out whether the orangutan thinks it has been fully, partially, or not understood, without seeing what went before.
"This means that, in effect, they are passing information back to the audience about how well they are doing in understanding them, hence our 'charades' analogy.''
The researchers presented orangutans with tempting food, such as bananas, and a not-so-tempting food item, such as a leek or celery, that had to be reached with human help.
But there was a catch. Rather than play along all the time, the researcher deliberately misunderstood the orangutan's requests, providing them with only half of the treat in some cases and, in others, handing over the less pleasant food.
In response, the apes persisted, changing their gestures to get their point across - focusing on gestures already used and repeating them frequently.
How to ape orang-utan
Note, the meaning of these gestures tends to vary from group to group, though these are common meanings:
Pucker lips as in raspberry sound (Ugh)
Point with one or two fingers extended (Give me that)
Rock/Swing entire body/ Bang the cage, or an object/ Throw an object/ Clap hands. (Hey, look at me!)
Shake hands (Quicker/hurry!)
Yawn (Do we have to do any more experiments?)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/02/sciapes102.xml
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 02/08/2007
How to ape orang-utan
Great apes and humans have long been known to share certain character traits and now it seems they share the same tactics for playing parlour games - charades in particular.
Orangutans repeat gestures until they are fully understood
Orangutans use the same strategy that generations of partygoers follow when playing the popular game by using actions repeatedly and more frantically until they get their message across.
The findings, by researchers at the University of St Andrews and published in today's edition of Current Biology, give a remarkable glimpse of the origins of language millions of years ago and point to greater cognitive ability in orangutans.
Prof Richard Byrne of the University of St Andrews, who led the study, said: "We were surprised that the orangutans' responses so clearly signalled their assessment of the audience's comprehension.
''Looking at the tapes of the animals' responses, you can easily work out whether the orangutan thinks it has been fully, partially, or not understood, without seeing what went before.
"This means that, in effect, they are passing information back to the audience about how well they are doing in understanding them, hence our 'charades' analogy.''
The researchers presented orangutans with tempting food, such as bananas, and a not-so-tempting food item, such as a leek or celery, that had to be reached with human help.
But there was a catch. Rather than play along all the time, the researcher deliberately misunderstood the orangutan's requests, providing them with only half of the treat in some cases and, in others, handing over the less pleasant food.
In response, the apes persisted, changing their gestures to get their point across - focusing on gestures already used and repeating them frequently.
How to ape orang-utan
Note, the meaning of these gestures tends to vary from group to group, though these are common meanings:
Pucker lips as in raspberry sound (Ugh)
Point with one or two fingers extended (Give me that)
Rock/Swing entire body/ Bang the cage, or an object/ Throw an object/ Clap hands. (Hey, look at me!)
Shake hands (Quicker/hurry!)
Yawn (Do we have to do any more experiments?)
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