I found this weeks material very interesting, especially since I was previously able to take an ISS course on evolution and human origin. I do not recall learning about the six branches of primates, but if so it was very brief. Out of those six categories classified as superfamilies listed in the article I found a lot of great information on Hominoidea. This group mainly grabbed my attention because it included humans and apes and have fossil relatives. It was also interesting to read about how these superfamilies can be broken down into grades and that is separated by a primates adaptation.
Overall, I enjoyed reading about primates and exploring the similarities as well as differences as we have evolved. We share so many things with physical and behavioral traits with primates from hands down to the sensitivity of our fingertips. I was very interested in how the lecture touched on vision and the aspects of vision. Back then color vision was useful for things like identifying the differences between trees to understand direction and now we utilize those same tools today. It may not be for climbing through trees, but it definitely helps with the visuals we see on the day to day. The connection of learned behavior was also interesting to me especially with the study on the baby chimp and how it was raised by mother cloth and wired milk for nourishment. I agree that in order to be successful and be able to adapt you have to have the parental aspect of this otherwise you will lose it once you are actually placed into your habitat or niche.
The article “What is War Good For, Ask a Chimp” was very interesting to read also. This group of chimps that attacked the individual chimp and showed a “warfare” among the group. We can also relate this to human primates. We are just as violent and are very much so capable of committing acts of violence. It was not surprising to read because we are all animals and capable of doing all sorts of things. I am however curious to know what are the repercussions of this type of act for a non human primates. Is this why rules were created for humans when it comes to violence?
I believe that knowing our background and information on non human primates is very essential because the useful things that make us human came from somewhere. We didn’t just magically appear to be able to walk or utilize tools and have social skills. These things stemmed from non human primates and it is important that we educate those on the matter. I did not learn about these things until now or briefly while I was in college as a freshman. When I was in school they did not touch on these things much. Possibly because I went to a religious school. I say this to say there needs to be more understanding of the categories of primates and actually acknowledging that we are apart of that group as well.
Bringing up repercussions for violent actions is an interesting angle that I didn’t think of when reading this article. Humans have developed complex societies and cultures that value stability and order. Humans use rules, laws, and judicial systems to “control” our animalistic instincts of violence, so to speak. I wonder if non-human primate societies have a form of unspoken rules that help them to prevent violence. We saw in the film and the lecture that the Bonobos are a peaceful, egalitarian species. In many cases, they use sex to bond and defuse aggression. Their behavior isn’t necessarily a set of laws, but it’s a behavioral adaptation that reduces violence among their species. What would contradict the claim that reducing violence benefits survival is the statistics from that same article that shows a rise in infant survival for the victorious, vicious chimpanzee groups.
Hello, Briana! I found your take on the articles very interesting. You reminded me that I also was not ever taught the specific branches of primates. It’s slightly shocking that even after taking other classes relating to evolution, these subjects were not thoroughly discussed. I also found your paragraph about the chimpanzee war very interesting. You raised a question about the repercussions following violence in the non-human primate society. First instinct is to say that there aren’t consequences, considering the violence is performed out of competition for dominance. However, if humans and primates are similar in so many other ways, do they have a set of (obviously) unspoken rules regarding violence? I wonder if murder or violence is “against the rules.”
Hi Briana! I liked how you outlined the usefulness of the studies on non-human primates. I also believe that it is crucial to study them in order to understand our own behavior. For example during world war, people committed very violent and heinous acts. The article on chimps explains the violence committed by chimpanzees and spider monkeys and explains a lot about our behavior. Humans and non-human primates are capable of succumbing to violence based on either the DNA or circumstances. I also wonder about the repercussions of violence for non-human primates. I was taken aback by the concept of infanticide. Then I found that humans also commit infanticide. We made rules to prevent these acts from happening but there aren’t any rules for non-human primates. They gain power and become the alpha, and then they kill the other infants. It is part of their system.
Hey! you raised an interesting question regarding “What is War Good For? Ask a Chimp.” You asked what are the repercussions for violence, in animals, and where these repercussion what lead to the creation of rules? I’m not really sure. If I was to image the situation, singular people would have set up a personal rule, one that may have not even been explicit; something like “if someone is violent to me then I will not give them my food, I won’t even engage with them.” It would definitely make sense that maybe at some point such a way of responding to violence could have been talked about, and maybe a group of humans implemented some rule at some point. so it seems feasible!
Hello Briana!
I also enjoyed learning more about evolution and types of primates. I had not previously learned about the different types also. I mentioned in my blog post about how surprised I was with their vision. For some reason I just thought that animals mostly saw in black and white.
I liked how you talked about violence as well. I think it is important to consider where some of our violent tendencies have come from as humans. I also liked how you mentioned that humans have repercussions for these things but animals may not! This made me think a lot about our justice system and how it like came to be. It would be interesting to study this in an experiment or observation in animals who have killed others of their own kind.
Thank you for sharing!
Hi Briana. I also took an ISS class that included learning about primates and evolution, but it didn’t go this in depth, either. I wonder if it was the same class! You bring up the point of humans having repercussions when it comes to war when monkeys probably don’t, and I suppose that is one example of how we have continued to evolve from them, and how our brains are more complex. I also grew up in a religious family and didn’t learn about evolution until I was taught in school. The more that I continue to learn about it the more fascinated I become. It’s really neat to think about how our ancestors looked and functioned and how evolution brought us to where we are now.