Primatology

Primatology is the study of primates, an order that includes prosimians, monkeys, apes, and humans. Similarities between humans and monkeys were noted already by Aristotle in the fourth century b.c.e., and the Greek physician Galen even dissected a monkey for comparison. In the eighteenth century, Swedish botanist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus created the order of primates to include monkeys, apes, and humans. The similarity between apes and humans was also noted by Charles Darwin, who argued in The Descent of Man (1871) that human beings evolved from an ape-like ancestor.

Even so, relatively little was known about primates until the twentieth century. In 1917, psychologist Wolfgang Kohler published work demonstrating chimpanzees' ability to learn and perform problem solving. In the 1920s, Robert Yerkes established a center for studying primates that was eventually located at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. After World War II, significant fieldwork was spearheaded by paleontologist Louis Leakey, who supported research by Jane Goodall with chimpanzees, Diane Fossey with gorillas, and Biruté Galdikas with orangutans. Of the three, Goodall's work has been the most significant, providing remarkable evidence of tool use, social complexity, coordinated hunting, and meat-eating. Modern primatology is a diverse field, involving biologists, anthropologists, and psychologists. Primate species continue to be discovered, and knowledge of many species is comparatively scant.

The question of human uniqueness

While there are many motivations for studying primates, the similarity between humans and other primates has been a key factor in funding and theorizing. Among primates, the great apes (including chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) are most similar to humans on anatomical, evolutionary, and genetic grounds. Studies of genetic relatedness indicate that humans and chimpanzees have 98.4 percent of their genes in common, making chimpanzees more closely related to human beings than to gorillas or orangutans. Partly because of this, chimpanzees have attracted far more attention by researchers. Bonobos, a species rediscovered in the 1970s, have also attracted considerable interest in recent years because of their intelligence and unique social behaviors. In virtually all cases, however, the question of the similarity of the great apes to humans has explicitly or implicitly informed research agendas and directions.

The most obvious question of philosophical and theological import raised by primatology is the question of human uniqueness. Since Aristotle (384–322 b.c.e.), philosophers and theologians have frequently claimed that human beings are unique by virtue of their cognitive abilities, especially their abilities for reason, language, and self-consciousness. Work with the great apes, however, has consistently shown that the gap is not as absolute as has been traditionally claimed. Claims of uniqueness based on tool use were the first criterion to go, as fieldwork by Goodall demonstrated that chimpanzees fashioned tools out of blades of grass, which they used to extract termites from termite mounds. Later research has also indicated that chimpanzees in Côte d'Ivoire carefully select appropriate rocks to crack different kinds of nuts.

In the 1970s, extensive efforts were made to teach the great apes versions of sign language and symbolic communication. B. T. and R. A. Gardner's early work with a chimp named Washoe and Francine Patterson with a gorilla named Koko provided mixed results and generated intense controversy as to whether or not apes were capable of producing or merely mimicking language. E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh used improved methods in the 1980s and 1990s with chimps and bonobos, and her work is seen by many to have established that these apes are indeed capable of true symbolic communication, even though their abilities seem to stop short of full-fledged language.

Other research has focused on the abilities of apes for self and other representation. Experiments by Gordon Gallup indicated that both chimpanzees and orangutans (but not gorillas) are capable of recognizing their images in a mirror. Observations of chimpanzees and other primates in the wild and in zoo settings indicate the ability to deceive, which implies an awareness of one's actions and the effect that they have on others. Efforts to establish by experiment that apes develop models of the thoughts of others (what is called by researchers a "theory of mind") are more controversial and the question remains unsettled.

While research on cognitive abilities is often understood to challenge traditional claims of human uniqueness, research on the social behavior of primates is frequently understood to reveal the evolutionary roots of human nature, altruism, and morality. Expectations that primate sociality was primarily peaceful were shattered by observations made by Goodall that male chimpanzees formed raiding parties and could engage in brutal attacks. Since then, it has come to be recognized that primate societies in general and ape societies in particular are highly complex and stratified. Chimpanzee dominance hierarchies are maintained by group support and mutual aid, but may be usurped by shifting alliances. While some emphasize the negative aspects of this sociality, described by Andrew Whiten and Richard Byrne as "Machiavellian intelligence," primatologist Frans de Waal has emphasized that positive social behavior and altruism are essential to primate societies and, therefore, to human societies as well. In this regard, bonobos in particular have been noted for peaceful coexistence and conflict resolution. At the same time, feminist primatologists and scholars have been concerned to correct sexist bias in the study of primate behavior. Work by Barbara Smuts with baboons revised understandings of sex and courtship in primates. Historian of science Donna Haraway wrote Primate Visions (1989) in an effort to deconstruct the ideological bias that has been part of the history of primatology.

Implications for theology

Despite a vigorous science-religion dialogue in the 1980s and 1990s, primatology as a field has been almost completely ignored by theologians. A number of works, however, do cover some of the issues that primatology raises, even if only indirectly. Theologians such as Jay McDaniel and Andrew Linzey have addressed issues of animal rights. Broader themes of evolution and their implication for human nature have also been addressed by a number of theologians, including Philip Hefner, Arthur Peacocke, and John Haught. Works by these authors, however, only partially address the questions that primatology raises, and more theological reflection and analysis remains to be done.

See also Altruism; Animal Rights; Anthropology; Evolution; Language; Experience, Religious: Cognitive and Neurophysiological Aspects

Bibliography

byrne, richard, and whiten, andrew, eds. machiavellian intelligence: social expertise and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes, and humans. oxford and new york: oxford university press, 1988.

cheney, dorothy l., and seyfarth, robert m. how monkeys see the world: inside the mind of another species. chicago: university of chicago press, 1990.

darwin, charles. the descent of man (1871). amherst, n.y.: prometheus, 1997.

de waal, frans. good natured: the origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 1996.

haraway, donna. primate visions: gender, race, and nature in the world of modern science. new york: routledge, 1989.

hefner, philip. the human factor: evolution, culture, and religion. minneapolis, minn.: fortress press, 1993.

linzey, andrew. animal theology. champaign: university of illinois press, 1995.

savage-rumbaugh, sue, and lewin, roger. kanzi: the ape at the brink of the human mind. new york: wiley, 1994.

gregory r. peterson