Studies are rekindling the debate about the difference between humans and animals. Some believe that the moral implications of the findings should not be ignored
Tamara Traubman, Haaretz
The makos in the Amazon recognize four types of barking in their hunting dogs
African jaco parrots speak English and have a sense of humor. Capuchin monkeys have a developed business sense, which helped them quickly learn how to trade with humans for food. After years every dog owner was ready to swear that he has psychic conversations with his dog, and the dog understands him, German researchers found scientific confirmation for this. Different animals - from monkeys to birds - use tools and even create them themselves. Moreover, in different parts of the world, they use different methods of obtaining food, which indicates that they have a culture and are not just a product dictated by their biology.
More and more researchers are adopting the view that animals have culture, social learning and self-awareness. After for many decades scientists tended to deny the existence of consciousness in animals, in recent years more and more researchers are finding support for its existence, and some even start talking about a "soul".
Chimpanzees obey learned cultural norms
Yesterday, a study was published - which received extensive coverage in the press, including in "Haaretz" - conducted by two of the leading researchers in the field, Dr. Andrew Witten, from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and Dr. Frans de Waal from Emory University in the USA. In observations of chimpanzees that the team existed, it turned out that chimpanzees (like humans) obey cultural norms that are learned and maintained socially - perhaps evidence of this Chimpanzees do have a culture.
According to Tamar Fredman, a researcher at the monkey park in Ben Shemen Forest, "At first they said that the use of tools is what separates man from animals, but then it turned out that animals also have this. Then they said that the stone of separation is the ability to make tools, after that they said that what makes man unique is Cultural transmission, and now we see that even apes have different cultures." According to her, the evidence shows that in apes there is a cultural transmission, traditions (for example, in forms for processing food), and social conventions that are passed on in a cultural way, as opposed to genetic inheritance.
According to Fredman, the new findings, and the trend that developed following them, have implications that are not only theoretical, but also on the degree of morality and legality of experiments on animals, and apes in particular, and the need to grant rights, such as the right to life, the right to freedom and the right to freedom from torture.
Fredman is writing a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Dr. Witten from Scotland. Her research deals with capuchin monkeys, and social and cultural learning among them. She is currently testing what the capuchins are able to learn from each other, and if they can learn better ways to obtain food. She taught a monkey an effective way more to open the food container, which allows him to get more food. The monkey was transferred to a community that does not know the method, and now he shows the other capuchins the refinement he learned. Fredman checks whether the group will understand that the method is better and adopt it or if they will stick to the method accepted by them today.
A repertoire of more than a thousand words
Nadav Levy is a zoologist who has guided ecological safari trips in Africa for many years. He collected many stories about animals and what he calls "unexplained abilities". One of his favorites is the story about the African Jako parrots, Alex Van'Kisi. "It turned out that these parrots have a repertoire of more than a thousand words. They can count and say complete sentences in English, which indicates creativity. N'Kisi saw a woman walking in a purple dress, and asked the woman he lived, a painter named Amy Morgana, 'What do you think of The purple dress?' He seems to guess that she is thinking of the woman in the purple dress. Another time, he saw a man talking on the phone, and asked 'What is ya (invented word) doing with the phone?' Amy explained to him that it was a form of human communication and he asked her, 'Can I give you a hug?' - as if he understood that this is also a form of communication."
Levy co-authored the book "Ethics, Emotions and Animals" with his father, philosopher Prof. (Emeritus) Ze'ev Levy. According to him, the range of animals is much broader than we think. The many anecdotes he presents include a polar bear that bonded with a dog after waking from hibernation (and was supposed to devour the dog, not bond with it); a leopard that bonded with a cow; a lioness that adopted ram cubs – five times in two years. Every now and then the lioness would send the cub to its mother, who would nurse it, and then take it back.
Sometimes, even humans manage to understand what the animals are trying to tell them, Levy says. According to him, the mako people in the Amazon recognize four types of barking in their hunting dogs. Each bark marks another mammal, and instructs people where to run in pursuit of the animal - or in running away from it. The barks refer to a peccary, a small pig-like creature; Aboti, a small rodent; tapir; Jaguar.
Other scientists are still skeptical
chimpanzee. Mostly trial and error (Photo: Reuters) among primatologists and some zoologists, says Fredman, the new assumptions are received with great joy. However, other scientists are still skeptical. They make it difficult and ask, is it imitation or learning of the kind found in humans? For example, Fredman says, if a chimpanzee finds a stone next to a half-broken nut, it may take the hint and use the stone to break the rest of the nut. "In this case," says Fredman, "there is mostly trial and error." If, on the other hand, the chimpanzee sees another chimpanzee breaking a nut, and repeats the actions, this will be treated as a more complex ability, since it involves understanding the causality of the action, and imagining in the mind the action the chimpanzee saw and repeating it himself.
Advertisement Monkeys are often compared to children or treated as a type of human that has not evolved, instead of recognizing them as a separate branch of evolution, writes the American primatologist, Craig Stanford, in his book "Significant Others". "This is what we are able to do," says Fredman, "maybe we are not smart enough to see them. It helps us somehow to place them, but I believe that there are many things that we are not yet smart enough to know how to see, because animals do not have the verbal aspect You can talk to him."
"Man", wrote Douglas Adams in his book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "always assumed that he was more intelligent than the dolphins, and that was because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on. While all the dolphins did was laugh at each other in the water and enjoy life. The dolphins, on the other hand, believed that they were much more intelligent than man - for exactly the same reasons."
Chimpanzees have a cultural tradition
Monday, August 22, 2005, by: Walla System!
chimpanzee. In West Africa, nuts are cracked using a different method than the one used in the east of the continent. Researchers who trained monkeys to obtain food in a certain way claim that the super mammals have a tendency to adhere to social customs, similar to humans.
Researchers claim that they have succeeded in proving that chimpanzees, like humans, have a tendency to adhere to existing social customs. The researchers trained chimpanzees in captivity to use tools in different ways, and scientifically proved that the monkeys develop different traditions through imitation. This claim has already come up in the past, following observations of monkeys living in the wild, but so far it has never been directly proven.
The research was carried out by teams of researchers from the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom, and the National Research Institute for Large Mammals, at Emory University in Atlanta, USA. Following the findings, published in the magazine "Nature", the researchers claim that human culture has ancient origins.
Advertisement The researchers presented two groups of chimpanzees with a problem: how to retrieve food stuck behind a barrier, within a system of canals. At the same time, the researchers secretly taught one monkey from each group how to solve the problem. Erica the Kopa learned how to use the stick to raise the barrier up, causing the food to fall out. Another pooch, Georgia, learned how to push the barrier so the food ball rolled out.
Each monkey then joined its group, and the researchers monitored the monkeys' behavior. The researchers discovered that the chimpanzees gathered around the two "learned" companies and soon imitated their behavior. After two months, both groups were still using their two unique methods of obtaining food, thus creating two different cultural traditions.
The culture has very ancient roots
The common ancestor was a conformist (photo illustration) "This is the first time a scientist has scientifically created two different traditions, in any supermammal," Professor Andrew Whitten, of the University of St Andrews, told the BBC. "Furthermore, this is the first time anyone has done this using tools, on any animal."
The study adds weight to many decades of research among supermammals, which estimated that these mammals have cultural traditions that do not exist in any other animal, except for humans. For example, chimpanzees in West Africa use stones and pieces of wood to crack nuts, but this method has never been observed among monkeys living in the east of the continent.
The authors of the study believe that the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, who lived 4-6 million years ago, had a need for conformity, a trait that characterizes human culture. "If both species have elements of culture, it is likely that their ancestor also had such elements," said Dr. Victoria Horner who participated in the study, "so the origins of culture are very ancient."
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