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Gorillas have developed humanlike social structure, controversial study suggests
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- swebs 7y ago>Kim Hill, an evolutionary anthropologist at Arizona State University in Tempe, rejects such parallels to humans. “[T]he extreme social brain hypothesis doesn’t claim other primates don’t form hierarchically increasing groupings,” Hill wrote in an email to Science. I don't see how that makes the study itself controversial. He was simply answering an unseen, possibly leading question from the person writing this story.
- mockingbirdy 7y ago> rejects such parallels to humans The author clearly misunderstands the statement she directly quotes. It's grotesque. Here's a SMBC Comic that illustrates the conversation that will follow with that scientist: https://smbc-comics.com/comic/2009-08-30 https://smbc-comics.com/comic/2009-08-30
- yqx 7y agoThat's because that's only half of Hill's argument. If you read on you'll see the main point is about the size of the largest groupings, which in humans appears larger than what has been found in Gorilla's to date. > “[T]he extreme social brain hypothesis doesn’t claim other primates don’t form hierarchically increasing groupings,” Hill wrote in an email to Science. “It focuses on the size of the largest human groupings.” Humans recognize and remember details about more than 1000 individuals, he notes, whereas the “highest level groups in the gorillas are not even as big as large chimp communities.”
- kobiton 7y agoA article is very good
- dgzl 7y agoEvery once in a while I'll ask people this question: assuming evolution is true, which species do you think will evolve next?
- tgvaughan 7y agoLiving populations never stop evolving.
- swebs 7y agoProbably some type of bacterium since they have the shortest generation age (~30 minutes) and there's likely to always be a pocket of them somewhere in an environment that forces them to adapt.
- nabla9 7y agoEvolution is not going towards some future goal and humans are not more evolved than other species.
- ChrisGranger 7y agoAll species are evolving at the same time, so this question doesn't make sense as written. I assume you mean to ask which species will be the next to attain humanlike self-awareness. I find it an interesting thought experiment. [Weasel words ahead!] I think our behavior (damaging the ecosystem, causing habitat loss and so forth) might be putting evolutionary pressure on other species in a way that could lead to an increase in intelligence and self-awareness. But I also fear that we're doing it too much, too quickly, and that extinction is easily as likely.
- rjf72 7y agoI think this sounds reasonable until you really consider Earth's history. We've gone through far more radical changes in environment - not only in terms of temperature shifts from ice ages to worldwide saunas but also in terms of geographic change as what was presumably one land mass gradually divided into many, land bridges between the newformed continents disappearing, even things such as the oxidation of our planet which resulted in the extinction of nearly all life. Yet, through it all - only one species managed to evolve anything like our cognitive and developmental ability. Quite peculiar in many ways.
- debatem1 7y agoI'm not sure what to take from this. It would be surprising if animals' internal lives were simpler than we thought, right? So further study should generally suggest that it is more complex than previously known, but not as complex as human social behavior, which seems pretty obvious. Does this say anything else?
- jamesrcole 7y agoOne thing we've learned in is that surprisingly simple rules and behaviour can produce complex results. We learnt that our intuitions about the necessarily complexity are often quite poor. We see something complex and tend to think it requires that what produces it is of a similar level of complexity. Even if further research couldn't show things were simpler, that's no evidence for believing they'll be more complex.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- xkcd-sucks 7y agoI don't necessarily disbelieve that human social behavior is more complicated than gorilla behavior; but should we compare gorilla social behavior to e.g. 21st century American social behavior, or "uncontacted tribe" social behavior? And, if there is a difference in the relative (perceived!) complexity of social behavior between "modern" and "undeveloped" humans -- Does that imply undeveloped humans are to modern humans what gorillas are to humans? The notion isn't necessarily incorrect, but historically it's been interpreted in service of the ugliest human social behaviors
- danans 7y ago> but should we compare gorilla social behavior to e.g. 21st century American social behavior, or "uncontacted tribe" social behavior? The differences between the social behavior of these types of human societies only look big in a vacuum. For example, all human societies use complex verbal language. No other ape society we know of uses anything like it. There is still a huge gulf between human and other apes' individual and social behavior. > if there is a difference in the relative (perceived!) complexity of social behavior between "modern" and "undeveloped" humans The fact that over a few short centuries, many "undeveloped" humans have become "21st century humans" suggests that those groups aren't fundamentally different in their inherent ability to operate within a given social context, whether it is described as "simple" or "complex". A key human trait is social adaptability, especially earlier in life. > Does that imply undeveloped humans are to modern humans what gorillas are to humans Absolutely not, for all the aforementioned reasons. What would motivate one to believe such an analogy?
- izietto 7y agoI'm not aware of gorillas bombing other gorillas
- muterad_murilax 7y agoGORILLAS.BAS
- izietto 7y agoYou're right! My fault
- pygy_ 7y agoChimp gangs go on (chimp) murderous rampages, though.
- swebs 7y agoThough chimpanzees have been known to wage war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
- jillesvangurp 7y agoWhy is this controversial? If you buy into evolution (which one would assume is the case with an evolutionary anthropologist), then most of what we do and are did not appear out of the blue and probably existed or exists in some form or another in species that are close to us; including all sorts of aspects of our social behavior. So, not knowing this you would expect to find stuff like this with species like gorilla's rather than being surprised by it.
- sametmax 7y agoExactly, give it a few millennia, and some specie probably will end up like us in their own way. We had to have bases for our current behaviors, and it's only logical we find it in other species. I don't understand how people can imagine animals don't have feelings, thoughts, logic or a sense of existing. There is little in us that is so unique. It's like life on other planets, or additional dimensions we can't see. Yes we can't prove it now, but it would be disproving it that would really catch me by surprise given what we know now. The universe kinda like repeating patterns and continuity.
- ajuc 7y ago> Exactly, give it a few millennia, and some specie probably will end up like us in their own way. I'm all for evolution, and I think animals have feelings and emotions and are smarter than they are often considered. But "they will end up like us" is highly unlikely as we know of no other such development in last few billion years.
- ceejayoz 7y agoSure we do. Neanderthals look to have been far more sophisticated than previously thought, for example.
- zeven7 7y agoNeanderthals not only developed along the same evolutionary path as us... they're full blown homo sapiens. There's a high likelihood you have Neanderthal DNA yourself. That's not an example of something else being able to develop like us independently in 5,000 years. If all humans were wiped out today, _maybe_ over _100,000 years to 1,000,000 years_ the great apes would be able to evolve into creatures as intelligent as modern humans. But if all apes were wiped out today, it wouldn't be surprising if Earth never saw another species go to the moon. Don't forget lots of species thrived for hundred of millions of years without leaving any trace approaching even simple tool making.
- OptionX 7y agoI wonder why despite bonobos being closer to us genetically than gorillas, gorillas seem to be the more human like. Maybe its just a a false-bias of mine since these type of news seem to always be about gorillas.
- nicoburns 7y agoGenes code for different things. Bonobo's look more like humans. I have always thought that Orang Utans were the most human-like of the Apes behaviourally, probably followed by Gorillas.
- laretluval 7y agoThere are more gorillas out there and they are easier to access and study
- fjfaase 7y agoI guess that the people considering this controversial, must consider the book "Mama's Last Hug" by Frans de Waal highly controversial.
- macieklaskus 7y agoI don't understand why the article does not link to the paper it discusses. Here is the paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.0681 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.068...
- swebs 7y agoThey do in the second paragraph
- macieklaskus 7y agoTrue, my bad.
- seanhandley 7y agoSurely that should be "Humans have developed gorilla-like social structure."
- k__ 7y agoI find it entertaining to learn about things that distinguish humans from other mammals, other primates, or birds. Humans can throw good. Humans can run long. Humans can pen themselves up in masses without killing each other.
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- lonelappde 7y agoHumans can run long, but birds can fly far and fish can swim far, so human running doesn't look especially special.
- buzzerbetrayed 7y agoExcept we can out run nearly every animal on earth at distance. I’d consider the species of bird that can fly the farthest special. Why not humans?
- hollerith 7y agoHumans are good at killing what they're chasing at the end of the run.