The focus of this week’s material was primates and human’s most recent ancestors. I found this material very interesting because it isn’t a major focus of any of the previous courses I’ve taken. I enjoyed learning about primates because I didn’t know many details about them. I find it unfortunate that I haven’t learned but about them until now. To me, this seems like a good topic to learn about in middle school or high school as a basis of human evolution. Also, I don’t think it is necessary or helpful to not have learned about it until college.

I found it so interesting how adaptations that were favored by primates are so prevalent and seemingly natural to us today. For example, vision. It was essential for primates to have color vision because they needed to be able to identify trees they were climbing through and be able to identify the colors of the food, fruits, and leaves they were eating. I have never previously considered how our vision has evolved and what the vision of primates was like. In addition, we as humans commonly have good depth perception. This was important for primates to have because they are constantly jumping and swinging through trees in the forest canopy. As you could imagine, doing so would be nearly impossible if you had no sense of depth.

Another new and interesting topic to me was the dilution effect. Simply put, the dilution effect is how you are more at risk of danger when you are not a part of a group. This is something that has been studied with primates, but it is very common in our culture today, although we don’t call it the dilution effect. An example from our culture, which is maybe more common among women, is how we are constantly told to “stay with the group.” This often applies to when you are out with friends, more commonly at night, or walking alone at night, or going somewhere where there are crowds. I know I’ve heard this a million times from my parents! When you are alone, you are easily targeted and could go missing without someone else knowing or being suspicious of it. As for primates, they can be eaten by a predator or attacked by a group.

Although I have never heard of Harlow’s monkey experiment, I have been introduced to the nature vs. nurture debate. I like learning about this experiment because it enforces the hypothesis that nurture is much more important than nature. Most behaviors are not inherent and must be learned. I was slightly surprised that the monkey was not nurturing or motherly to her child because I thought that carrying the baby might trigger those feelings. I think that human mothers have developed the instinct to protect and care for their children over time and have it much more developed than the monkeys in the study.

Overall, I found this week’s material very interesting and enjoyable to learn about. I believe we can better understand ourselves and our biology through studying primates.