Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA07374 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 31 May 2000 12:31:14 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745889@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Primate Rights Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 12:29:21 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Thank Ann, very interesting material.
I've always been both fascinated by Goodall's work (at Gombi isn't it?) and
concerned at the same time. Fascinated because of how lengthy observations
of chimp behaviour has shown some remarkable parallels with human behaviour,
but concerned because she has a major tendency towards anthropomorphism (the
chimps have 'names' etc.).
I've said before on this list that I don't buy other animals having
cultures, though; pre-cultural behaviours, or proto-cultural behaviours
perhaps, but to call these rudimentary behaviours culture I think makes the
term meaningless.
Obviously human culture (and things like religious belief) have to have some
precedent as they are products of natural selection, and it would indeed be
strange if we didn't see behaviours approximating human behaviours in other
animals.
Yet both quantitively and qualitatively our behaviours are distinct. Apes
do not spontaneously in the wild develop grammatical language the way they
do in the lab, and experiments have shown that pigs can use computer
joysticks to perform basic tasks as well. Does that mean there should be
porcine rights as well?
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Anne Hansen
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 1:42 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Primate Rights
>
>
>
> > 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
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> > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
> >
>
>
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