For Animal Biology Course Book on Primates

¶ … human? This might seem to be a simple question, but that is probably because we have not thought very deeply about the issue. For decades physical anthropologists and other scholars have investigated this question. Their early efforts tended to take the form of trying to find one single trait that defined humans as different from all other species - whether it was our opposing thumb or the way in which we use language or in our recognition of our own mortality or even in the fact that we murder others of our own species.

Related to this search for the "missing trait" was the search for a "missing link" - a species that would link Homo sapiens to the species that had come before us historically on the evolutionary train. The thinking behind both of these searches was very much the same: Scientists could not believe that we (that is, we humans) existed on a continuum with other primates. There must be, the conventional thinking went, something that set us aside from all of these other animals. Some missing, linking species that showed the first signs of whatever bright intelligence it is that sets humans off as being on a different order of development than all other primates, not to mention all other species.

But within the last few decades such a search for what it is that makes us different from all other species has become less and less of a concern for scholars. Certain, humans are considered by biologists and anthropologists to be unique - but so are all other species. Much of the recent research in physical anthropology, paleontology and primatology has helped to fill in the gaps in knowledge about how humans are in fact connected to other primates rather than in how we are set apart from all other species.

Shirley Strum's book on her research on baboons is an example of this more recent kind of research, work that has as its focus an attempt to understand human development and human behavior from a broader perspective, one that places it within the larger realm of primate studies. She offers definitive proof - of such proof be still needed by anyone - that human behavior can better be understand not as something unique in the animal kingdom but rather as sharing significant points of similarity with the behavior of those animals that are most closely related to us.

The baboon, or the Papio hamadryas to give it its scientific name, is a large monkey that is a member of the family Cercopithecidae. Its natural habitat spans both Arabia and Africa in those regions south of the Sahara desert. Their size almost overlaps that of humans, with males (who are about twice the size of females) ranging up to almost 90 pounds and extending 45 inches in length, not counting their tails.

Fairly omnivorous in their diet, they eat a variety of plants as well as small mammals and birds. They live together in social groups in which both males and females are members of ranked hierarchies and have a fairly well-developed system of calls or language.

The chart on the next page illustrates how close their relationship is to humans:

http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/r/taxonomy.html

Baboons have traditionally classified as five separate species within the Papio genus, although there has been recent disagreement over the divisions into P. anubis, P. ursinus, P. comatus, P. papio and P. hamadryas.

In writing this account of her fieldwork in the world of the Papio anubis, Strum has a number of important points to make about the social behavior of her subjects. The most important of these is actually one that can be applied to any field of science or research: It is important not to accept the accounts of those who have gone before you as the gospel truth. Strum went into the field knowing what other researchers "knew" about baboon behavior; however, she did not let these other accounts influence her to too large a degree, which is important. When she discovered discrepancies between what she had learned from the research of others and her own observations, she could have assumed that those observations were somehow at fault or she could have assumed that the troop that she was studying was anomalous in key ways.

However, she made neither of these assumptions, choosing instead to rethink all of the conventional wisdom about the ways in which social behavior works among baboons and especially the ways in which the hierarchies that both sexes participate in work.

While her growing understanding of baboon behavior - and the possible windows that it allows into understanding human behavior - are fascinating (and will be discussed in greater detail below), at least as important in her book is her discussion of how difficult it was to get her research published and acknowledged as valid by her peers.

Her work, and her incisive analysis of the publishing process, demonstrate what must in many cases prove a significant weakness in the world of scientific research. Her own work challenged the accepted wisdom in her field. This accepted wisdom was based on the research done by those scholars who now occupy senior positions in the small world of primatology, including serving as editors and reviewers of scientific journals. And since they did not want their own research challenged, they made it as difficult as they could for her to air her views.

This is certainly contradictory to the way in which - ideally - science should be done. Science should be the impassioned but disinterested search for truth, with scientists assuming that each new generation of scholars will refine the work of the previous generation thereby adding to the ever-growing pool or ever-more accurate knowledge about the world. Instead, the egos and personalities of the scientists themselves become a part of the picture, thereby ensuring that power and hierarchy matter almost as much as the truth - and sometimes perhaps even more so. Ironically, Strum's description of her own struggles as a scientist provide at least as fascinating a description of the gendered hierarchies of primates as do her descriptions of the baboons she worked with.

The posturings of other primatologists are especially interesting when placed in context with Strum's own findings about baboons, which is that - contrary to expectations - aggressive, high-ranking, dominant males are not as successive in their mating strategies as less aggressive (but lower ranking) males. Why this should be a surprise is itself surprising and (one cannot help but surmising) stems in no small measure from the fact that the world of academic primatology is itself full of aggressive high-ranking males who believe that their own personal strategies are the most attractive to females.