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Going Ape
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| Contributor | Liz |
| Last Edited | Liz Feb 09, 2006 11:56am |
| Category | General |
| News Date | Feb 09, 2006 11:00am |
| Description | When it comes to hedonists of the ape world, primatologist Frans de Waal says the winner is a primate, the bonobo.
Having a sexual encounter every 90 minutes or so throughout the day might seem a bit busy, but he says that's about average for bonobos, sometimes called pygmy chimpanzees.
Humans, de Waal says, should pay more attention to the way a few thousand surviving wild bonobos live out their lives in matriarchal bands deep in Africa's humid Congo rainforests. But not so much because of their sexuality, but their ability to reject violence and maintain peace.
Bonobos and chimpanzees are humans' closest relatives, each sharing more than 98 percent of the same genes as humans. But science has spent much more time studying chimps because they share our propensity for violent, murderous territorial ambition.
"Bonobos are the make love, not war apes," de Waal said on a recent visit to Chicago promoting his new book, "Our Inner Ape" (Riverhead, $24.95).
"When we do good things," he continued, "act with generosity and compassion towards others, we like to credit our own `humaneness,' as though only humans can act that way."
In fact, as his book points out, emotional responses such as generosity, compassion and forgiveness play out constantly in the daily lives of wild and captive chimps and bonobos, as do jealousy and reprisal, just as they do in human lives.
Comparing humans genetically to bonobos and chimps, de Waal said, is like comparing dogs to foxes, they are so close. The other two great ape species, gorillas and orangutans, aren't far behind, so studying how they live offers clues to the most primal human behaviors.
"We [humans] are apes. Darwin didn't go far enough," said de Waal, shrugging off the religious creationist movement currently trying to question the theory of evolution.
"We are smart apes. We are bipedal apes. But we are apes."
But de Waal argues that how bonobos maintain peace in their communities isn't as important as |
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