Great Apes
emjohnson | September 20, 2009
As part of the series of reposts leading up to my review of Frans de Waal's newest book The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society I present the third of three pieces that appeared after Ian Parker's 2007 article "Swingers" appeared in The New Yorker.
In my earlier pieces "Bonobo (Re)Visions" as well as "Bonobos and the Politics of Human Nature" I pointed out how conservative pundits were eager to jump on any criticism of this species because it fit their ideology of nature as "red in tooth and claw" (to use the line from Tennyson). In his response in eSkeptic Frans de Waal…
emjohnson | September 19, 2009Bonobos often adopt a "missionary" posture during copulation (photograph by Frans de Waal).
As part of the series of reposts leading up to my review of Frans de Waal's newest book The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society I present the second of three pieces that appeared after Ian Parker's 2007 article "Swingers" appeared in The New Yorker.
As I wrote earlier in Bonobo (Re)Visions, Ian Parker's "exposé" in The New Yorker was beautifully written but wrong on many levels. Now the straw man who Parker claims to have torn down, primatologist Frans de Waal, answers his…
emjohnson | September 18, 2009
As part of the series of reposts leading up to my review of Frans de Waal's newest book The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society I present the first of three pieces that appeared after Ian Parker's 2007 article "Swingers" appeared in The New Yorker.
As expected, the apologists for unreason who promote Intelligent Design have jumped on the recent article in The New Yorker about bonobos. This inspired me to write at more length about the article since this is a species I've studied closely for the last two years. Denyse O'Leary at Uncommon Descent uses the article to proudly…
emjohnson | August 17, 2009Benjamin Franklin once quipped, "Where there's marriage without love there will be love without marriage." His affairs are well known in American history, however this founding father may have been stating a truth extending to evolutionary history as well.
Christopher Ryan (author of the forthcoming Sex at Dawn) offers some thoughts on the role of novelty in the sex lives of our favorite primate. He suggests that men are drawn to variety in sexual partners while women are drawn to variety in technique:
When researchers decided to look at this issue to develop a Sexual Boredom Scale, they…
emjohnson | August 11, 2009The Daily Show's Jon Oliver investigates the question of whether humans are more closely related to orangutans or chimpanzees. The answer shouldn't surprise you in the slightest (though it will be quite funny).
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Orangutans aren't the only ones who engage in face to face sex. Bonobos do it as one of their many inventive positions. Leaving the genetic evidence aside, behaviorally the likelihood that humans are more closely…
emjohnson | August 10, 2009John Hawks points to a news story showing that orangutans make musical instruments:
When in a tight situation, the orangutans will strip the leaves off a twig and make a crude musical instrument to alter the calls they use to ward off predators -- not exactly a Stradivarius, but it seems to get the job done. . .
. . . Orangutans make this noise when they feel threatened, for example, when they fear a predator -- such as a snake, clouded leopard, tiger or human -- most likely to ward the predator off and not as a distress call.
The researchers call the noises produced "kiss squeeks." It…
emjohnson | August 7, 2009The Evolution of Spite is the Evil Twin of Altruism
Someone walks into a crowded restaurant, looks about the diners calmly, and blows themselves up as well as everyone nearby. Why? This is a scenario that forces us to explain the dark side of human nature. Why do humans have a capacity for such hate that they'll take their own lives in order to destroy others?
A study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on chimpanzee behavior suggests that humans may be alone in this way: a dubious distinction to say the least. In a review published in the Chicago Tribune the researchers…
emjohnson | July 9, 2009Ernest Cline, director of the recent film Fanboys, has this hilarious spoken word piece that pretty sums up my philosophy perfectly. It's put to music by The Penguin Cafe Orchestra and is accompanied by an 80's style film strip which only adds to the fun.
For more of his great work (including spoken word, info on his films and his blog) click here.
*Obligatory note: Humans are not monkeys. We're apes along with chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons. In general, monkeys have tails whereas apes do not. But I agree that the word monkey is much funnier.
[Video below the fold…
emjohnson | July 7, 2009"It seems really very unfair that man should have chosen the gorilla to symbolize everything that is aggressive and violent, when that is one thing that gorillas are not, and that we are."- Sir Richard Attenborough
This quote sets the tone for a new award winning short film (see below) from the non-profit organization Explore. Primates, and great apes in particular, have long fascinated and repulsed us based on their uncanny resemblance. In order to deflect this repulsion they have frequently been portrayed as monstrous, violent and expressing a host of bestial attributes. A case in point…
emjohnson | July 5, 2009Bonobos (Pan paniscus) at Frankfurt Zoo, Germany. Joachim S. Müller / Creative Commons
emjohnson | November 1, 2005Reprinted from Wildlife Conservation Magazine
"Behind Enemy Lines"
November/December 2005
By Eric Michael Johnson
December 2002 -- After four days traveling upriver in a dugout canoe, Belgian primatologist Jef Dupain became the first researcher in five years to return to the war-torn Lomako Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo). As he surveyed the overgrown field station that had once been his home, a boy soldier wielding an AK-47 stepped into view from a concealing tangle of vines. Fortunately the boy was only one of the rebel fighters who had escorted Dupain…