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I’ve posted a couple of links lately to stories about humans, chimps, and violence. The New York Times recently ran a brief interview with two primatologists who study bonobos, the hippy cousin of chimps and humans. The title of the article is “Why Bonobos Don’t Kill Each Other,” and while that question isn’t really answered, [...]
If you read the New Yorker piece about bonobos a few weeks ago, you might be interested in this response from Frans de Waal. While de Waal agrees that bonobos aren’t the angelic primates imagined by some segments of the public, they truly are distinctly less violent and more cooperative than their (and our) cousins, [...]
This week’s New Yorker features an article on bonobos that’s available online. It describes a trip into the Congolese forest to observe bonobos in the wild, and also presents some of the story of how humans have studied and interpreted bonobo behavior. (After reading about the trip, I’m really glad I don’t do primate research [...]
This morning I heard a story on NPR about chimp and bonobo communication. Frans de Waal and others at Emory have studied the gestures that chimps and bonobos make, as well as their facial expressions and vocalizations, and have determined that the gestures are used more flexibly than the other two types of communication. Gestures [...]
Next week’s NOVA is about bonobos, those gentle, highly sexed primate cousins of ours. There’s a companion web site, with what looks like some nifty links. I suppose you also have to check your local listings to see when this is going to be on in your area.
Jared Diamond described humans as “the third chimpanzee” in his book with that title, written 20-some years ago. Frans de Waal, an eminent primatologist and writer, has recently written an excellent book that interweaves stories of humans and the other two chimps, bonobos and chimpanzees. Our Inner Ape has chapters on power, sex, violence, and [...]
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