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markie
Skeptic Friend
Canada
356 Posts |
 Posted - 10/26/2005 : 22:18:34
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Great study, suggesting altruism in man but not in monkeys.
quote:
Study: Chimps don't care about friends
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- University of California-Los Angeles scientists say helping others is apparently a uniquely human habit -- or, at least, not a habit shared by chimpanzees.
Joan Silk and colleagues conducted a behavioral study and found chimps are not interested in doing a good deed for a neighbor, even if it would cause them no inconvenience or harm.
The researchers presented captive chimpanzees with an apparatus that gave them a choice: a chimpanzee could serve only itself with food, or it could select an alternative option giving both it and another chimp the same food.
The scientists report the chimpanzees were no more likely to choose the second option, even though they could see it would help a friend at no cost to themselves.
The results suggest chimpanzees' actions are not motivated by other-regarding preferences. And the researchers said the lack of such consideration for other chimps was especially surprising since the chimpanzees used in the study had been living together in stable social groups for many years.
The study is detailed in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
Note: Dogs might sacrifice their lives for their masters, but I suppose that would be out of loyalty rather than altruism, strictly speaking.
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2005 : 22:27:46 [Permalink]
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| Chimps are not monkeys. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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markie
Skeptic Friend
Canada
356 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2005 : 23:07:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Kil
Chimps are not monkeys.
Right you are. I've had that lazy habit since childhood, lumping apes and monkeys together. Me bad. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 01:18:16 [Permalink]
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| I can't say I'm too surprised by these results. Lately I've been contemplating how to tell the difference between my own personal desires and what others expect or want me to desire. (I've been thinking about these issues because as a studio art grad student I have critics comes into my personal studio on a weekly basis and comment on unfinished works; this is highly disruptive to the creative process, but I suppose it is supposed to be.) When it comes to moral inclinations and choices, the line between social expectations and personal desires can also grey. Really, being such a social animal, how can be possibly define who and what we are without others? So, given our intelligence - particularly our ability to conceptualize the motivations of others - it makes sense that altruism would evolve in humans. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 06:07:10 [Permalink]
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Maybe the chimps were just indifferent to the cord they pulled since by pulling either they received the same reward. The study suggest that the chimps were aware of the difference, but I wonder. Perhaps if there were not a solid barrier between the chimps, the begging behavior of one may have resulted in a sharing behavior from the other. After all the other chimp was receiving food every time it pulled a cord.
Listening to NPR this morning others have observed younger chimps assisting older, arthritic, chimps climb by simply pushing them up to some perch.
I don't have any idea about where the journal Nature ranks in science pubs, it just seems like the researchers have more work to do. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 07:08:39 [Permalink]
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quote:
moakley:
I don't have any idea about where the journal Nature ranks in science pubs, it just seems like the researchers have more work to do.
The journal "Nature" is the real deal. And your probably right. More research is needed. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 09:35:16 [Permalink]
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Well Benobos have been shown to care about and act on another benobos needs. I listented to a radio show on apes the other day and the expert was talking about benobos vs chimpanzees.
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I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 10:37:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
Really, being such a social animal, how can be possibly define who and what we are without others? So, given our intelligence - particularly our ability to conceptualize the motivations of others - it makes sense that altruism would evolve in humans.
Chimps are also social and intelligent, so why don't these results surprise you?
I wonder how long these chimps have been captive. The researchers say the chimps "had been living together in stable social groups for many years," but perhaps they've been "institutionalized." Perform this same experiment on a group of prison inmates who are in for life and then see if it produces results comparable to free and socially adjusted people.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 10/27/2005 10:38:53 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 11:26:50 [Permalink]
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Nature ranks right above... Every other science journal on the planet, IMO.
Really Ive found its the reporters who pick up the stories who embellish one particular aspect of a study when in fact that was not the purpose of the report in the first place. Headline: Apes starve each other intentionally! etc.
Edit: Note the first line of the blurb you picked up, Im sure the report has no wording to suggest such a blanket statement. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
| Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 10/27/2005 11:27:54 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 11:40:15 [Permalink]
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Doing some reading it seems that,
1) they were captive for 15 years
2) chimps do share in the wild
Perfectly reasonable to assume that altruism is learned from a community and not inherant. These chimps had no reason to develop such tendencies as they were never in need of food, it was always provided.
Do you think feral humans raised in captivity with no-social instruction or starvation concept would do different? Maybe but to compare the altuistic ideals of humans to captive apes is somewhat silly.
However, I dont feel this study is useless, its the Editors dissection of it that is useless and harmful. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2005 : 13:22:07 [Permalink]
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quote:
Great study, suggesting altruism in man but not in monkeys
What proof do you have that humans are altruistic?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2005 : 14:07:27 [Permalink]
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A little off topic, or maybe not, but bats of the genus Desmodus show a great deal of altruism.
These animals live in colonies and have a very high metabolism. They cannot afford to go two nights in succession without feeding. And from a bat's point of view, their feeding method, lapping blood from living amimals, is the most dangerous of all of the bat's. Due to their hosts stamping around rubbing against objects, and trying to swat them with their tails, there is no guarentee that an individual will feed at all. It may well return to the home cave hungry. Once home though, it will beg and far more often than not, another bat will regurgitate some of it's meal for it's starving colony mate, possibly placing itself in a like condition the following night.
A pity so few of us are as generous.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2005 : 22:52:27 [Permalink]
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Cooperation isn't the same as altruism.
Almost all mammals demonstrate some degree of cooperation among members of the same species, for that matter there are plenty of animals out there who cooperate.
I would agree that humans can behave altruistically, but so do most mammals. Ever seen a mother bear protecting a cub? Regardless of the potential danger to themselves, most mother mammals will defend their young to the death.
markie seems to want to redefine the word altruism to mean something other that putting oneself in harms way for the benefit of another of your species.
Friendship is not altruism.
Just because these chimps didn't give a rat's ass about one another does not indicate a lack of altruism.
Get a mother chimp with a youngster, make her feel that you are threatening the safety of the young chimp... see if she doesn't try to take a piece out of you if she cant grab the young one and run.
And what about ants? Some ants will sacrifice themselves just to build a bridge, thus ensuring that there is a path for food to reach the nest. Seems pretty altruistic.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2005 : 05:03:44 [Permalink]
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| I've once seen in a TV show, where a cat mother literally ran into a house in fire to save her three kittens. She managed to successfully rescue all three, one at a time, but was badly burned in the process, as were the kittens. A vet took care of her and she tells the mother, once she was put together with the kittens, first touched all of them (as if to make sure they were alive) and only then relaxed. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2005 : 06:07:54 [Permalink]
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I think it depends upon your definition of "altruism". Birds and mammals are well known for a parent defending it's young almost to the death, but I don't consider that as altruism. Rather, it's a very common, natural instinct of the mother and in some species, notably birds and canines, the father as well. However to show a generosity toward an unrelated adult of the species is something else again, and quite rare. Indeed, it's nonexistant in animals such as opossums, that tend to lead a solitary life.
The species advantage is in that as/if the offspring survives, the genes of the parents will continue on.
My vampire bat example above is one of those rare cases, and it too, has as much to do with the colony's welfare as it does with the individual's. Again, due to their hazardous (for the bat) feeding method, one or several bats might well return unfed. Sharing their meals with the less-fortunate others insures that the colony will prosper by maintaining it's numbers and in turn, the species benefits.
I'm sorry if I'm taking the romance outta this (like hell I am!), but here we have the explanation for dogs coming to the aid of their master/mistress' -- the "Timmy down the well" events we read about in purple prose now and then. To the dog, a dedicated pack animal, the person is a senior member of it's family (pack), and thus it's heroic behavior. Perhaps it has happened, but I've never heard (confirmed) of any dog coming to the aid of a stranger.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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markie
Skeptic Friend
Canada
356 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2005 : 08:48:41 [Permalink]
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Yeah much depends on how you define altruism. I've regarded it as kind, empathetic actions or feelings towards people who may be strangers, and the action results in no apparent material reward or recognition. Filthy's example of bats is good, but it could be similar to the case of 'drinking' buddies buying a bear for a friend who forgot his wallet at home, and more than that is crying about it :o
But I think it's cool the level of socialization among animals, from ant colonizies to primates picking lice (?) off their pals. Frankly I'm surprised by the study findings because I would have thought monkeys would bring food to their friends given the opportunity.
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| Edited by - markie on 11/01/2005 08:51:07 |
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