Captain Future's Log

Aping

Now that human unconsciousness is about to eliminate the great apes from the face of the planet along with at least some other primates, we are starting to learn how much of our so-called human behavior has its crucial roots in our closest relatives among the animal species.

We are especially learning what we could have learned a long time ago if our prejudices concerning what we expected to find hadn't gotten in the way. That was the subtext of the compedium of research edited by Filippo Aureli and Frans B.M. De Waal, published by the University of California Press in 2000 under the title Natural Conflict Resolution.

Scientists continue to learn more. There's some intriguing research described in Robert Sapolsky's new book, Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals (Scribners), which received a mixed review in today's San Francisco Chronicle, by, as it happens, me. I wasn't happy about writing it, but it was my job, and I stand by my impressions (when I read it in August anyway.) Fortunately, here I don't have to evaluate the book but only point out a couple of interesting chapters in it.

In "The Pleasure (and Pain) of 'Maybe,' " Sapolsky tells the story of a lovelorn baboon as the context for the laboratory findings that the brain releases dopamine (the pleasure chemical), not when a reward is achieved but when it is anticipated. Moreover, the pleasure is greater when the chances of reward are neither certain nor remote, but about even. He suggests these findings can be applied to studying addictions, but it's an intriguing possibility to keep in mind in everyday life.

"Stress and Your Shrinking Brain" describes research suggesting that part of the brain of some post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers may actually shrink. (This research is mostly on the human animal.) Specifically it's the hippocampus, which involves memory, and is the area ravaged by Alzheimer's. The damage may be done by chemicals released during high stress. Sapolsky describes the conclusions as preliminary, and the phenomenon may affect only those with a physical predisposition, but the relevance in a time of war and terror and other persistent assaults is acute.

Another new book, which I have not read but which was reviewed by Temple Grandin in the New York Times under the title: "The Inner Ape: Hey, Hey We're the Monkeys," takes a more systematic and specific look at two primate species in comparison to each other, and to human beings.

The book is Our Inner Ape (Riverhead Books) by Frans de Waal, one of the aforementioned editors of the UC book. He writes now about how (in Grandin's words) "Our closest genetic cousins, the apes, are capable of great empathy but also of violent, ruthless killing. Frans de Waal, a prominent primatologist, compares our social behavior with that of two species of apes: chimpanzees and bonobos." The chimps are the violent ones, the bonobos are peaceful and empathetic.

According to Grandin, de Waal's thesis is that humans have elements of both in us, accounting to some extent for our inner conflicts and conflicting behaviors. His review points out some complications and problems, but the book sounds interesting. Grandin ends with an appropriate observation:

De Waal's most hopeful message is that peaceful behavior can be learned, as he showed when he raised juvenile rhesus and stumptail monkeys together. The aggressive rhesus juveniles picked up peaceful ways of resolving conflict from the larger, gentler stumptails. And the lessons took: even after the two species were separated, the rhesus continued to have three times more grooming and other friendly behavior after fights. This important and illuminating book should help our own species take that lesson in civility to heart.

This isn't just a warm and fuzzy way to end a review--it is an important observation to highlight. In a highly social species endowed with consciousness but still creatures of habit, it is very important what behavior is modelled and taught. Civilization is selected. And so, in our complex world made more complicated by our somewhat bizaare species, is survival.

The variety of behaviors in animals argues against rigid determinism, as does consciousness. Many of our received ideas about animals were the result of bad research. Because certain species weren't supposed to be smart, or remember much, or use tools, or learn or even teach, scientists didn't see the evidence that they were wrong in their assumptions.

It's a good sign that Grandin chose to emphasize this ability to learn, because he's a scientist himself, and author of Animals in Translation. When I review books on science, I can only be the representative of the non-scientist reader, and a citizen of the planet. I'm looking for help. We need it. So do the apes.