Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA00549 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 30 May 2000 13:47:22 +0100 Message-ID: <004801bfca34$9eba8fc0$572484d8@default> From: "Anne Hansen" <tazzie@bolian.upnaway.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <20000530114117.AAA20541@camailp.harvard.edu@[204.96.32.108]> Subject: Re: Primate Rights Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 20:42:53 +0800 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0045_01BFCA77.A2202D80" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> Vincent Campbell made this comment not too long ago --
>
> >the notion of regarding another
> >species as deserving of the same treatment as our own.
>
> >From what I've seen of much of history, there is no difference in the way
> humans treat any species.
>
> - Wade
>
This is taken from The Coalition to End Primate Experimentation web page.
"In the late 1950's researchers came back from a tour in the Soviet Union. While there, they visited the Soviet's primate research facility. These scientists became alarmed that the Soviet Union was ahead of us in the biomedical race. Their trip seems have led to James Watt, director of the National Institutes of Health, testifing before Congress about the need for a similar program in the United States if we were not to be left behind.
At that time, nearly 45 years ago, our understanding of primates was very limited and naive. Philosophers and ethicists of the time believed that the gulf between humans and other animals was wide and clearly defined: Only humans made, modified, and used tools. Only humans possessed language. Only humans possessed culture. Only humans participated in systematic warfare. Only humans could exhibit altruistic behavior. Only humans pondered death and participated in religious ritual. Monkeys and apes, while they might be something like us in appearance and biology were nothing like us inside, in heart and mind.
Today we know that those philosophers and ethicists were completely wrong. "
A statement that is so correct yet seems to have been lost from this discussion!
.
Tool use in primates was first discovered in 1960 by Jane Goodall . Since that time we have learned that chimpanzees use an assortment of tools. Examples of meta-tool use, using a tool to modify or improve another tool, have been documented. Capuchins, a new world species of monkey, are known tools users as well; and macaques, an old world group, readily learn to operate computer joysticks in laboratories.
Almost 30 years ago people began to search for ways to communicate with apes and monkeys. They wondered whether real language use was even possible for non-humans. Today, many chimpanzees have been taught American Sign Language and have been engaging in dialog with humans. From these conversations it is now clear that their perceptions of the world are nearly identical to ours. They combine words to coin new expressions for novel situations and objects which we fully understand. An example of this is a chimpanzee signing, fruit drink when inventing a name for Kool Aid. Chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas have all been found to be adept at learning human language. To date, few humans have come close to learning a non-human primate language. Noam Chompsky once criticized the research in sign language saying that if chimpanzees were capable of a gestural language they would be using one in the wild. He believed that this put the matter to rest, but since then we have learned that chimpanzees do use such a language in the wild.
The discovery that chimpanzees use a gestural language in the wild has contributed to the understanding that culture is passed from generation to generation. Language and tool use are both used in unique ways between different chimpanzee groups. The knowledge of how to use a specific tool and specific gestures is learned and transmitted between generations. Rhesus macaques use at least 18 different words or phrases (calls) in the wild, but when raised in captivity, a culturally deprived setting, they learn only five or six.
It has been known for eons that animals will sometimes fight with each other, but systematic warfare was considered a uniquely human trait. It is now known that chimpanzees sometimes engage in long term aggression with neighboring groups and will systematically murder each member of the "enemy" group. This is accomplished through a band of mostly males silently searching for isolated members of the rival community and killing them. Such campaigns can last months on end with frequently repeated excursions into the rivals' territory.
Altruism has long been a bastion of human uniqueness, but the frequency of adoption of orphaned babies in chimpanzee society is high. Chimpanzees are well known for their willingness to put themselves at risk to aid a friend. Gorillas will defend their group members to the death.
People observing chimpanzees in the wild have been given food by them. And who did not read of the child saved at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago by Binti Jua , the captive lowland gorilla?
During a particularly violent lightning storm, Jane Goodall observed a group of chimpanzees repeatedly run down a hill one at a time brandishing a branch. After running down the hill screaming and waving the branch each chimpanzee would climb back up to repeat the performance. The group continued this ritual until the electrical storm had passed. Had an anthropologist observed the same phenomena while studying a tribe of humans she would have likely believed it to be a religious rite.
When asked what happens to you when you die, a gorilla answered in sign, "Dark. Ground."
Today, in biomedical laboratories around the world, monkeys and apes are treated as if the past years of study mean nothing. The ethical and moral implications of what we now know about the similarities between human and non-human primates are ignored and suppressed by the National Institutes of Health and the primate labs themselves.
Surely by now even with out all the fascinating biological similarities their is enough evidence to provide a special link between humans and primates??
Cheers Anne...
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 30 2000 - 13:48:01 BST