The human star

In cinema, loyalty to reality has no value, as much as the way it is perceived by the viewers

The article was published in Galileo in November 2001 and is reproduced courtesy of the Galileo journal

Science fiction films show us worlds whose laws, laws of nature or laws of society, are different from those we are familiar with, and allow a renewed observation of phenomena and situations that we take for granted. Not long ago, the film "Star of the Monkeys", which is the last in a series of films with similar legality, appeared on the cinema screens in Israel. As in the previous films, an astronaut, a member of Western culture, arrives on a planet where the order of Genesis has been reversed: apes from the human family (gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans) are the intelligent creatures and rulers of the planet, while the native humans are the inferior, the captured, the hunting animals , the captives and slaves of the monkeys. Being intelligent creatures, the monkeys cannot be faithless, so the filmmakers gave them their own religion. It was founded by the prophet of the monkeys, a chimpanzee named Seamus, according to which the monkeys, the pinnacle of the evolutionary process, were created by God in his image and likeness. Unlike us, there are no monkeys in the film trying to reconcile the contradiction between the acknowledgment of the evolutionary hierarchy, and the creation in God's image. Man, according to the beliefs of the monkeys, is nothing but an inferior creature - an animal deprived of all monkey rights. This situation creates, of course, a conflict between the laws of this planet and the morals and rules accepted by us, and mainly places us in front of the conflict between the belief and religion of monkeys, and the truth. At the same time, the film allows us to re-evaluate the various elements of the "human right".

Belief is only one of a number of qualities that we tend to see as "man-allowed". Many other traits, which were considered unique to man, were rejected, one after another, after they were found in various animals, as well as in monkeys. One of the classic examples of this was the claim that only man uses tools, that is, is able to take any object, adapt it to a certain need, and use it. Then Jane Goodall discovered that the chimpanzees in the wild know how to pick and adjust thin branches, insert them into termite nests, and collect the termites with them for food. To our shame, it turns out that even simpler animals, with the brain of a bird, are capable of this: the woodpecker in the Galapagos Islands knows how to fit thin toothpicks into holes in trees in order to extract larvae for food, and recently a similar phenomenon was also observed in black crows. I myself observed, and filmed with a video camera, a gray crow, when crumbling a slice of bread, throws its fritters into the water in a controlled manner, as bait, and fishes with them. Even traits that apparently require a lot of thinking and long-term planning, such as agriculture, which, according to the conventional wisdom, modern man arrived at only about ten thousand years ago, have been found for hundreds of millions of years in ants and termites, which grow aphids and mushrooms for milk and food. Even distinctly human behavior, such as taking slaves, already exists in ants. Hence not all complex behavior must be intelligent. And if animals are able to do all these, is faith the last refuge of the claim that man is allowed?

More than any other film before it in the "Star of the Apes" series, the latest film claims to imitate the authentic behavior of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. Practically speaking, the orangutans, who are less known to the public, are disadvantaged. There is no trace in the film of the ease and slow movements that so characterize them. Of the behavior of the gorillas, almost only the drumming of their chests, and the charge on the battlefield, similar to the charge of a male threatening his enemy, have been preserved. Absent in the film is the typical tranquility of these large animals, whose daily food is huge amounts of leaves. The players mainly focus on imitating the movements and mannerisms of chimpanzees, which are expressed in the mannerisms of hand movements, contacts, and reaching out for reconciliation. This choice is incredibly unnecessary to anyone familiar with this medium: in cinema, fidelity to reality is as valuable as how it is perceived by viewers. And if the viewers know best of all the behavior of the chimpanzees, so be it - the filmmakers present to them the ape's behavior as it is known to them. The distortion of the facts does not necessarily indicate ignorance on the part of the filmmakers. The filmmakers had all the money they needed to get all the accurate and up-to-date information they wanted. But the filmmakers tailor the film to the poor and biased information of the audience, as a conscious and cinematic decision (a term that combines both artistic and business decisions). If the film producers had decided to adapt a different behavior to the chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, one that would match their natural behavior, the zoologists might have been hired, but the average viewer would have been embarrassed and confused.

For all these reasons, it is easy for any beginning zoologist to criticize the multiple inaccuracies of this production, but this criticism is misplaced. The film is designed to tell a story, and in the process it must convince the viewer that the monkey does behave like a human, but he remains a monkey. For this purpose, the filmmakers use the average viewer's knowledge of monkey behavior, however superficial and imprecise it may be. Precisely because of this, the film becomes a tool with which a behavioral researcher can examine how Hollywood filmmakers see the understanding and knowledge of the average viewer, and understand the characteristics they chose as "permissible to humans": these are characteristics that, according to the filmmakers, should have been added to the monkeys in order to turn them into "Human", and which traits, in their opinion, needed to be preserved, exaggerated or developed in order to create "ape" traits? And despite this understanding of the production needs, I cannot help but mention the biggest deviation from the biological truth in the creation of the monkey figures.

We are used to watching nature films, and in them monkeys, especially chimpanzees, in their natural habitat - a forest where you can move from tree to tree, but sparse enough that you can also walk on the ground. In such a habitat, the chimpanzees are easy to move, move between the branches of the trees at great speed, and are even able to run quickly, on all fours, short distances between the trees. On the other hand, walking on two is not only cumbersome and clumsy, but also slow and tiring. After all, one of the most striking differences between man and the other apes is man's upright walking on his two long, strong hind legs. The common ancestor of man and chimpanzee lived about seven million years ago in the trees, and since then our paths have diverged. Already in half that time, about three and a half million years ago, the ancestors of man, who belonged to the species Ausralopithecus afarensis (to which the famous Lucy belongs), walked upright. Since then, the upright walking of the biological line that ultimately created man continued and improved. His hip pelvis continued to adapt to the change in the angle of his legs and back, his legs became longer and stronger, and his feet developed to create a stable foot suitable for walking on two feet. Compared to humans, monkeys' hind legs are short, and they tire easily from walking on two feet. The typical crooked gait of the monkeys, when walking on two legs, indicates the weakness of their hind legs. Here the producers of the film created the biggest sin against the truth. They chose to keep this crooked gait as one of the remaining features to characterize the apes, thus apparently pointing to hind legs that are less developed for walking on two than those of humans. Thus, perhaps, walked one of the ancient ancestors of man. Precisely because of this weakness of their hind legs, the detection ability of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans is noticeably smaller than that of humans (many other apes, on the other hand, have exceptional detection ability). And here, it is precisely this obvious human mot that the film producers decided to turn on its face, and chose to give these monkeys an amazing detection ability, up to four or five times their height. I have no doubt that the filmmakers heard, also in this matter, the opinion of the monkey experts they consulted, but the decision they made was a cinematic decision, not a documentary decision. In the end, they estimated, the average viewer would benefit first from this distortion of the truth, and subsequently their bank account as well. The amazing tracking ability of the monkeys in the film makes him dynamic, and turns on his face the only physical advantage that man has over the monkeys, his strength in his hind legs. In this situation, when the monkey is as intelligent as humans, talks like him, and his physical strength and agility exceed those of humans many times over, the inferiority of humans exacerbates the tension and drama. The only hope left for man, in this situation, is the knowledge and spirit of freedom of the splendor of Western culture - an American, a man and an astronaut - and the conviction that the end of justice is eternal. Hollywood justice.

Is it permissible for man to believe? Faith is a deep inner conviction in the correctness of a fact or explanation, without checking them to confirm. Because of this, it is clear that many beliefs are based on facts or explanations that are not correct. Inevitably, at the heart of every belief lies some kind of Pandora's box - a forbidden territory, physical or theoretical, where lies knowledge that may disprove it, or at least cast doubt on its cornerstone. Religion is a collection of beliefs that joins in a logical and orderly way into one, cohesive and consistent, more or less, and includes within it mitzvot of dos and don'ts, as well as a hierarchy of halachic teachers. Due to the need to maintain positions of power, religion also prepares, when necessary, to protect itself from intrusion into its Pandora's box. The Bible, which is the basis of the three monotheistic religions of Western culture, opens with the story of the creation of the world. Although the story of the creation of the world does not contain the main points of these beliefs, it nevertheless became their Pandora's box. Factually, even among scientists, including biologists and evolutionists, and physicists who study the beginnings of the formation of the world, there are believers. However, inevitably, these men of science separate the main points of their belief in God's existence and commandments, and the story of creation itself, and do not see in Genesis chapter XNUMX the story of creation as simple. Still, the creation story has become a Pandora's box for these religions, mainly because the religious leaders, at different levels of their hierarchy, attack the idea of ​​evolution with fury, and distort the physicists' explanations of the beginning of the creation of the universe. About four hundred years ago, Christianity waged a rallying battle against the idea, revolutionary at the time, that the earth is not the center of the universe, but revolves around the sun. The clergy lost that battle, but not the campaign. In retrospect, they did not learn the lesson and chose, even today, to fight against the accumulation of knowledge, in an arena where the battle is already lost, certainly among the scientists. But they chose not only the arena, but also the target audience they are fighting for - the lay public in the scientific fields. Unfortunately, this public includes a significant portion of the people educated in non-scientific fields. Choosing this broad target audience will not save them another loss, because this audience will not prevent science from progressing, but it will decrease the rate at which the battle will be decided. Because of this, the battle for public opinion, and the full acceptance of the judgment by the religious leaders, will not be decided in our generation. In the long run, the image damage that will be caused to the religion in this struggle may cause it to lose many points in the battle for the overall campaign - the battle for the principles of the religion itself.

Belief in the almighty prophet Simos, in the "Planet of the Apes", also has its own Pandora's box. Her name is CALIMA. Like the Pandora's box of any other organized religion, the area called CALIMA also symbolizes an explicit prohibition - the absolute prohibition to enter it. In CALIMA North, the secret of the existence of the monkey and man, and only a few, the leaders of the monkey tribe, the direct descendants of Seamus, know this, and pass this information from father to son. Surprisingly, and no doubt ironically, it turns out, towards the end of the film, that the name of the forbidden area consists of a combination of the visible part of three words, sand and dust covered them: CAUTION: LIVE ANIMALS, a sign that was used in the past as a warning signal for the presence of animal cages. CALIMA is the secret of the origin of the monkeys.

Of all the components of what is permissible for a person, religion is the most controversial. Different people have different religions, and because of this, each person has acquaintances, at one level of knowledge or another, with some religions that, in his opinion, are fundamentally wrong. Unsurprisingly, therefore, of all those elements that make up what is permissible for humans, and which exist in the monkeys in the film, the religion of the monkeys is the only element that is fundamentally undermined. This fact is not surprising, because this is what the film deals with - the process of discovering the truth, and penetrating into the Pandora's box of monkey belief. It is not surprising, also because the average viewer will not be able to accept, at the end of the film, the persistence of such a wrong religion. Symbolically, after the discovery of the truth and the exposure of the false origins of the monkey religion, its high priest, the angry chimpanzee General Chad, who is a direct descendant of the prophet Seamus, remains imprisoned in the forbidden Pandora's box.

There is no doubt that religion does not exist in the repertoire of any other animal, and it is unique to man, although its definition as "permissible", that is, as a quality that is superior to the qualities that exist in other animals, is disputed. But what about faith? Can animals "believe"? Let's see what people believe: some believe that getting out of bed on the right foot will make their day, or entering the field on the right foot will improve their playing ability. Others will retrace their steps if a black cat crossed their path, and others fear curses placed upon them, or check the state of the stars before any important action they take. Some of us avoid certain foods, because they think they will harm their stomach, and others avoid certain actions on the computer, due to the fear that such actions will cause the computer to crash, and they will lose important data. If we examine all our rules of conduct one by one, we will find that many of them are anchored in reality, and many others are not. The latter can be included under the name "superstitions" - belief in some connection between phenomena, or between actions and phenomena, when this connection does not exist in reality. Superstitions have two origins. One source is the passing of rumours, quite similar to how religion passes from word of mouth, but without the orderly and consistent structure that exists in religion, and without an institutional hierarchy. The second source is the result of self-learning, which occurs after an action or sequence of actions, and usually those that were followed by an unsuccessful, relatively rare, malfunction. We often tend to stop those actions, in order to avoid the unsuccessful event that happened after them, without going back and verifying this connection. This type of superstition also exists in animals. It is part of the natural process called "learning". The training of animals is based, to a large extent, on their ability to learn to avoid punishment, after having performed an action undesirable to the trainer. Absurdly, when an animal learns fast, we tend to say that it is smart, but fast learning is nothing more than a change in behavior after a number of experiences too small to be able to establish a clear connection between the phenomena. And it is possible that the action and the punishment that caused the learning could have been the result of mere coincidence. Seemingly, a wiser behavior would be to increase the sample by further repeating the operation, while monitoring its results, until it is possible to perform a more precise analysis of cause and effect, or at least of the statistical relationship. But when the price of learning (which is the prevention of repeating certain actions in the future) is lower than the price of the punishment (the phenomenon you want to avoid), it is better to learn quickly. For example, eating a new food, as a result of which the individual, human or animal, feels a strong stomachache, will cause a quick "learning", even if the real cause of the stomachache was a bacterial disease unrelated to this food. A visit to an unfamiliar territory, which resulted in a severe attack against the visitor, to the point of endangering life, will result in prohibitions from another visit there, even if the attacker, an enemy or a predator, passed there completely by accident. Therefore, an event with a high price will cause a quick learning of avoiding actions that preceded it, but also a high percentage of "superstitions". On the other hand, an event with a low price will allow the increase of the sample size, and the examination of the relationship between it and phenomena or acts that preceded it, and will increase the accuracy of the choice of behavior. So, although religion is only a human trait, its core, belief, in its basic form, already exists in fairly simple animals.

"The Planet of the Apes" asks the unfair question - if the apes are as intelligent as man, then what will man be allowed over them? And not surprisingly, the answer is - basically, nothing. The monkeys in the film can talk, with the added value associated with this ability - denial, lies and social confabulations. There are evil monkeys in them, and there are people with conscience and social justice. They love, and hurt, and cry (with tears!), know how to use fire, tools of all kinds, and even mannerisms like a strange wig and false teeth. Still, among all the features that the filmmakers chose to give to the monkeys, one of them has a special meaning - the "human" eye structure of the monkeys. The human eye is distinctly different from that of the apes in that it is elongated, revealing the white of the eye, which lacks pigments. The white of the eye is formed from a collection of collagen and elastin fibers, and in monkeys of the human family it is colored warm, with the help of pigments, and is mostly hidden by the round and relatively small eye opening. This has a great significance in the non-verbal communication between individuals. The elongated structure of the human eye, the brightening of the white of the eye, and the increased contrast between it and the iris (iris) and the pupil, give information about the direction of the human gaze in a much more prominent way than that of the monkeys. This type of communication signal is called an amplifier, due to its action - increasing the observer's ability to receive information that he could have received before, although less efficiently (see the article "Haif and death in the mouth of the tongue", by the author, March-April 1999 booklet). With the help of this eye structure, and its combination of colors, man gives more accurate information about his intentions, and from a greater distance than the monkeys do. This has enormous social significance: the greater the gain from hiding information about intentions, the less likely such eyes will develop during evolution. The greater the cooperation between the individuals in the group, the greater the benefit resulting from such a statement of intentions. The fact that man has developed an open, direct and direct gaze indicates a much higher social development than that of the apes, and a high degree of cooperation. The creators of the movie "Planet of the Apes" chose to give the monkeys human eyes. This way it is easier for the viewer to follow their gaze, and it is easier for him to understand them. An interesting choice.

Unlike the first film in the series, where the apes underwent a rapid and impossible evolution in only two thousand years, the last film tried to overcome this difficulty by creating an ambiguity of the time dimension that passed between the founding of the ape colony and the time in which the plot takes place, and by the fact that the founding apes have undergone genetic engineering, and therefore, accelerated evolution. How long does it take to bring a person to their current abilities? What was the order of their development?

The answer to this is quite clear in the features that the paleontological findings can clearly testify to - skulls and skeletons of the human ancestors. On other features, those related to the soft tissues of man, and even on the extent of his hairiness, we have much less evidence, because they do not leave clear signs in the paleontological and archaeological findings. What is clear is that walking on two feet, even if not at the peak of its development, existed in the human line already about three and a half million years ago. We know less about the external structure of the eye, yet it is very interesting a reconstruction made of a species of ancient ape called Australopithecus boisei (some associate it, and two species close to it, to the genus Paranthropus). This species lived between about two million years ago, and up to about a million years ago. During this period, several related species belonging to the human lineage lived simultaneously, the last of which, in the direct lineage that led to modern man, is Homo erectus. A. boisei, and two closely related species that lived during this time, disappeared over time without leaving descendants. The reconstruction of the head of A. boisei, according to a found skull, shows "human" eyes (see drawing), although the forehead and volume of the brain box are "monkey". If this reconstruction is correct, it means that human eyes evolved even earlier, perhaps already in Australopithecus afarensis, which is, apparently, the common ancestor of A. boisei and us. Does this indicate a life of close social sharing already among Lucy's kind? There is no doubt that such cooperation could have brought a lot of benefit in hunting, as well as in protection from predators, in the process of transition from life among the trees, to the less protected savannahs.

In my opinion, the basis for everything that distinguishes man above all else is the symbolic language - a language built from a collection of agreed signs (man's universal grammar, which has a neurophysiological basis, that is, hereditary, is only one of the elements that help increase its efficiency). In contrast to conventional communication in the living world, where the bulk of the information transmitted deals with the abilities and intentions of the sender of the communicative signals, the symbolic language allows the sender of the signal to provide information about elements that are external to him, such as information about predators and prey, about how to build tools, about rivals and enemies, about understanding the world around him the callers, and more. There is no doubt that such a language was a huge tool in man's ability to turn private accumulated knowledge into universal knowledge, which can be passed down from generation to generation. From the moment when man began to communicate symbolically, he could also develop abstract thinking, because then complex concepts can be defined with the help of simple concepts, give them a name, and turn them into a pillar in the understanding of even more abstract and complicated concepts. But the symbolic communication has one clear drawback - it is easy to use it to deceive others. Because of this, the very development of symbolic language also indicates, like the human eyes, a high degree of cooperation, without which symbolic language cannot develop (for a more detailed explanation on this topic, see "Life and Death in the Hand of the Tongue", by the author, March- April 1999).

The ability to speak itself, with the variety of voices it allows us, is also unique to humans (at least among monkeys, since many birds have the ability to imitate and a very wide variety of voices). It is not necessary for the development of symbolic language, although it enhances it, and makes it a very effective tool. A person with chimpanzee vocal abilities would be able to communicate with their environment, perhaps even to a great degree of success, but to a limited extent. When did man develop the ability to speak? Here are the differences of opinion. It is also not clear if and to what extent man knew how to utilize other sounds he created for the needs of symbolic communication, such as the use of whistles. The ability to speak itself is made possible in the modern man with the help of a voice box located at the bottom of the throat. To make room for it, the arching of the floor of the skull in relation to the roof of the mouth was created. The deeper this arc, the lower the place of the swallowing opening in the throat, and thus more diverse sounds are possible. Among the apes of the human family alive today, this phenomenon is unique to humans. As with any feature, lowering the swallowing opening also has a price, and it is known to anyone who has tried to talk and eat at the same time - the risks of suffocation while eating are higher. That is, in order to evolve, man's profit from sharing his information with others (and perhaps, here and there, also the advantage of lying) had to be high enough to compensate for this price. Some argue that only modern man developed this ability, and quite late in his development. Others claim that even the Neanderthal man, who lived at the same time as man from about 200 thousand years ago, had such an ability, so it is a sign that this development is very early, from a common ancestor between us and them, that is, even before the development of the Neanderthal man. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that man's ability to use agreed-upon signs intensified after he could use the great wealth of signs made possible by the ability to speak. Since this is so, it is quite possible that there was a parallel development between man's ability to think symbolically, and his abstract thinking and planning, and speech. If this connection is a necessary connection, and it is possible to determine the time of development of speech in the human line according to the development of the brain, it is possible that the time of development should be brought forward much earlier than the dates we are talking about today. The braincase began to grow rapidly in the human line beginning with Homo habilis, over two million years ago, through H. erectus, until it reached its peak in Neanderthal man and modern man.

Man has managed to teach gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans to speak sign language, which means that they have symbolic, if rudimentary, thinking. The level of its complexity can be learned from the fact that the communication with these monkeys reached not only a simple level of giving instructions and instructions, but to the extent that it was possible to understand the animals and their desires. Even a parrot, of the species often called Jaco, or Amazonas (actually, an African species, Psittacus erithacus), whose first name is Alex, shows a surprising level of intelligence, after being taught to speak (speak, not imitate!). Still, the verbal communication ability of the apes from the human family does not exceed that of a three-year-old child. The fact is that the development of symbolic communication in nature is minimal, and some deny its existence in animals altogether. Our experience with apes from the human family in the laboratory indicates the potential of the apes to use symbolic communication, albeit to a limited extent. Presumably, this limitation also sets limits to their ability to abstract. In man, the development of speech and its use for symbolic communication allowed him to increase his vocabulary and concepts, and lead him to abstract thinking to the extent that he could found religion, philosophy and science. Religion turned a collection of knowledge and beliefs into an organized and consistent line of thinking, and philosophy, followed by science, began to systematically examine and test truths in the worldview. Monkeys with the ability to speak must necessarily develop in them other traits that are permissible for humans, which accompany abstract thinking. Among these should be mentioned the improvement and refinement of features that are still found in monkeys today, although they are relatively simple and "naive", such as the ability to plan and the art of deception and persuasion. Following these principles, religion, philosophy and science must also come. Whether they are "permitted" or not, religion, philosophy and science today are unique to man only. For better or for worse, the Earth is, today, the planet of man.

Bees and the symbolic language

It is customary to point to the bees as an example that a symbolic language, of agreed signs, also exists in animals other than humans. Bees do have the ability to provide information to other bees in the same hive, with the help of dance language, about an external factor, such as a source of nectar and pollen. But the development of this symbolic language is different from that of man, and in the way it exists, it is probably very common in the animal and plant world. This difference can be seen when examining the natural selection units of the bee. The beehive is a collection of many individuals (workers), and one queen. But of all those many individuals, the only one that practically reproduces is the queen. The role of the other individuals in the hive is to protect the queen, and provide her with her reproductive needs - food and cells for the production of queens and males. The beehive is similar in this sense to a multicellular creature. Every multicellular creature, including man, is made up of many cells that form different organs, a digestive system, senses and more. Their entire purpose is to protect, sustain and satisfy the reproductive needs of only a limited number of cells, the reproductive cells that produce eggs and sperm. The whole difference between the beehive and the multicellular organism is that in the beehive we are dealing with individuals that are distinct from each other, and which meet the accepted definition of "individual" or "individual", and in the multicellular organism a collection of smaller organisms, cells, which are almost genetically identical (except for possible mutations during the growth process of the tissues), percentages of each other and depend on each other for their existence. Either way, from an evolutionary point of view they function in a similar way, and their purpose is the same - to protect, maintain and satisfy the reproductive needs of the reproductive line. All their qualities, including the altruistic qualities of the work of the breeding line and satisfying all its needs, are passed from generation to generation through the breeding line itself. Due to their being enslaved, from an evolutionary point of view, to the needs of the reproductive line, an identity of interests was also created between them and the reproductive line. This identity of interests allows for the efficiency of the cells in the multicellular production, or of the workers in the hive, including the efficiency of the communication between the cells or workers, so that the information essential to the maintenance of the reproductive line passes quickly. In such a situation, symbolic communication is the most effective, since, under conditions of sharing and identity of interests, the cost of signals can be minimal, and there is no fear of cheating. The only test required is to test the functioning of the biological systems, and their adaptation to the existence and needs of the breeding line. Because of this, behavioral communication of agreed signs in bees is parallel in its development to chemical communication between body tissues (hormones) or between cells, as well as to chemical communication (pheromones) between the queen and the workers or between the workers in the hive.

Dr. Oren Hasson is involved in science education, teaches the evolution of interpersonal communication at the Hebrew University, Bar-Ilan University and Haifa University, and studied screenwriting at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, Jerusalem.

To Dr. Oren Hasson's website