Orangutans Helping Discover Our Evolution

DiZASTiX writes "An article at MSNBC says, Orangutans share distinct "tricks of the trade" for feeding, nesting and communicating. Scientists say these behaviors represent humanlike culture. The discovery offers tantalizing new clues about our own evolution. By documenting these behaviors scientists are finding more and more information on our past. We may be more related to monkeys than we think."

Comments

Typewriters

[wanderb]

If only all those chimps rewriting shakespeare on their typewriters would teach the trick to the orangutans...

Orangutans are apes

[Ridcully]

Ook?

No, I'm sure Michael did not mean to imply orangutans are monk-

Eek!

are not apes.

Ook.

how can we be more related than shared ancestors?

[DrSkwid]

We may be more related to monkeys than we think.

If only monkeys had the same hive mind as we have.

You might want to eat an orang-utan but I'll gladly sit at the table and break bread with him/her.

Enabling Cultural Evolution

[airuck]

The Science article makes the case that observed orangutan behavior is more closely correlated with geographic location and opportunities for direct transfer of skills than to habitat (independent innovation). The authors then speculate that the common ancestor of all the great apes could have had this ability, and therefore, the beginnings of hominid culture could extend back 14 million years.

I find it interesting to speculate that something in our neural circuitry enabled early primates to learn from each other. I wonder if anyone within the human brain project is considering this area of research.

Re:Enabling Cultural Evolution

[mensch626]

An increasingly large body of research is showing that birds, in particular the larger parrots and members of the family corvidae (crows, ravens, and kin),are capable of learning by observing, problem-solving, and teaching each other. Either there is a flaw in the definition of culture, or there is a considerable degree of arrogance in our belief that only primates have intelligence (or, slightly off-topic, humans have souls). Not all groups of people believe this, BTW. Many native, non-industrial human cultures believed that animals were intelligent and possessed souls. We like to call those peoples "uncivilized."

Your missing the point

[Cy Guy]

The fact that they have these types of social interactions is not new, what is new is that distinct geographically isolated populations have different ways of accomplishing the same thing.

NPR ran a nice piece on this today, and used the example of a fruit which one population eats by getting it open with a stick (a picture is included in the MSNBC article). A neighboring population seperated by a river, either eats the fruit by bashing it on rocks (much more inneficient) or by ignoring it as too hard to bother with. i.e. one population has learned to use a tool for specific task and has passed that information on the other Orangs in the community. Its the passing on of this knowledge, and the fact that it couldn't be passed to the neighboring population that makes this 'culture'.

From a SlashDot perspective, one could speculate that on the one side of the river, the solution for eating the fruit has been open sourced. But on the other side of the river, the solution was either never discovered, or if it was found, was closed source and died with its dicoverer(s).

Other examples given are a Kiss-Squeek gesture & sound, and "snag riding" a demonstration of male virility of breaking off trees and holding on to them while they fall, jumping off before they hit the ground (Orang candidates for the Darwin Awards perhaps?).

call me stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really get this evolution..
if we were apes, why do we still have apes?

Re:call me stupid

[lirkbald]

Okay, stupid.

My maternal grandfather was one Mr. Smith. My mother married Mr. Jones, so I'm a Jones. But my uncle had kids, and they are still Smiths. So I decended from a Smith, I'm a Jones, but there are still Smiths around.

This is an exact analogy for what you're complaining about. Starting from some ancestral ape, some of its decendants evolved into humans, while others remained apes.

Now go away, stupid.

man, that's a low standard

[josephgrossberg]

My cats learn from watching each other all the time (primarily how to get into all sorts of mischief). That doesn't mean they have culture!

Re:man, that's a low standard

[budalite]

Well, then you have un-cultured cats, as we always suspected. :) I wonder at the tendency of science to quantumize everything. Why does a species have to intelligent or not, be cultured or not, have consciousness or not? I suspect it's more analog, from none to a little to some more to a lot. Unless they are cats. Then all bets are off.

Re:man, that's a low standard

[hal9000]

It's not only learning that the orangutans have shown here. They also displayed long term memory, the ability to recognize the advantages of their actions (e.g. tools used for opening a fruit husk, arbitrary male displays that attract females). Many creatures do this sort of thing, but it's generally believed to be hard-wired. That behavior varies geographically in orangutans clearly shows that this is evolution on the memetic, software level -- a phenomenon that humans have long believed was our own.

What the orangutans also show is a desire to provide their fellows with these memes (i.e. to teach). That these memes exist, not in terms of individual orangutans, but in terms of *groups* of orangutans, in which individuals come and go, is what makes this a display of culture. In essence, orangutans have meme pools.

Re:man, that's a low standard

[josephgrossberg]

It's funny, because I just finished Chris Lavers' Why Elephants Have Big Ears: Patterns of Life on Earth and I was wondering about a differe dichotomy. Paleontologists are obsessed with the question of whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold-blooded. I couldn't help but think to myself, "Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not in some middle ground, where they regulate their temperature to a limited extent?"

Must everything be about Open Source?

[bill_mcgonigle]

From a SlashDot perspective...

You're right about the topical matter, but I just wanted to point out that it's OK to talk about science by itself, without trying to find an analogy to benefit the free software movement. Slashdot is supposed to be about nerdy stuff, not just Open Source software, however fun and nerdy that is.

Back on topic, the NPR story refers to apes as our 'ancestors', which of course they aren't, so be careful, and remember that convergent evolution is a common pattern in nature, so the anthropological benefit of this research still has some proving to do.

Of course, ignore my .sig for this particular comment. :)

Re:Must everything be about Open Source?

[Cy Guy]

the NPR story refers to apes as our 'ancestors', which of course they aren't,

I think you are misinterpretting the article. The quote you refer to "the finding appears to whittle away a little more of the divide between humans and their ape ancestors." the way I interpret it is referring to the common ancestors of both the Great Apes and Modern Humans.

In the case of orangs, they mention that they split off from our common ancestors 14 Million years (which I think was earlier than Gorillas and much earlier than Chimpanzees and Bonobos - elsewhere I've seen 8, 6, & 5.5 Million years ago as the approximation of these splits). By finding that all living descendants of these common ancestors share a common characteristic, they are inferring that the common ancestor(s) also shared the characteristic (in this case - culture). Of course there is no way of knowing whether this is true or whether each of the living species developed it independently at some point in their evolution since the split.

Culture dominant

[airuck]

Precisely, it has now been demonstrated in all great apes that culture can dominate over independent innovation (not that it always dominates). Something in our evolutionary line facilitated the jump from individual innovation to group learning (culture), something that preceded language and human brain structure.

How is this news?

[LordNimon]

Anyone living in Texas gets to see cultured orangutans every day. How do you think we got our current President?

Evolution, the magic wand

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution is now found to be capable of creating just about anything. We might say that evolution is a closed metaphysical system. It not only supplies its own creation story but also supplies its own source of morality. ... Furthermore, having rejected divine creation and its Creator, evolution even becomes its own authority. This story is true for those who believe it, but it cannot be demonstrated by strictly scientific argument, for it requires metaphysical premises.

-- Cornelius Hunter, Darwin's God (Brazos Press, 2001), p. 155.

Sounds like a blast

[GuyMannDude]

The experts shared observations and spent hours reviewing videotape of orang behavior.

Man, and I thought my job sucked the big one...

GMD

Apes vs. monkeys

[GuyMannDude]

I think it was the submitter who made the goof rather than Michael. Monkeys have tails and apes do not. And there are only four ape species in the world: chimps, orangs, gorillas and bonobos.

GMD

Re:Apes vs. monkeys

[Ridcully]

My bad about michael. Not enough coffee this morning. :)

I think there are a few tailless Old World Monkeys (like the Barbary Macaques, for example.) All the New World Monkeys have tails, though.

There are also two other "lesser apes", the gibbon and the siamang, I believe.

Re:Apes vs. monkeys

[GuyMannDude]

There are also two other "lesser apes", the gibbon and the siamang, I believe.

Interesting. I guess it's my turn to be corrected. I guess I was confused between "apes" and "great apes".

GMD

Re:Apes vs. monkeys

[hal9000]

See .sig.

Furry people

[Anonymous Coward]

Van Schaik is quick to note that his team is not arguing that orangs are "furry people."

So true. This is an example of "furry people".

Well...

[booch]

I'll be a monkey's uncle then.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Apes are monkeys (wsa: Re:Apes vs. monkeys)

[cbv]

The general term would be monkeys, which includes apes (Simidae), baboons (Cynocephalus), and lemurs (Lemuridae).

Re:Apes are monkeys (wsa: Re:Apes vs. monkeys)

[Ridcully]

You may want to take a look at:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question660.htm

Unless classifications have changed radically in the last few years.

Re:ORANGUTANS

[Anonymous Coward]

He heard it on the show "Morning Revision" on NPR, the religious station for humanists. It's more tragedy than comedy.

haha

[sstory]

You're already a sort of Monkey's Nephew :-)

Oh god I just realized with horror that further down this discussion I'm going to see creationist comments. Damn. You go for weeks with nothing but average-to-smart people, and then the aggressive morons pop up out of the blue. Such is life.

Re:haha

[sstory]

mibad. that was supposed to be a reply to this guy's post, not a new reply: Well... (Score:1) by booch (4157) on Friday January 03, @13:13 (#5007578) (http://craigbuchek.com/) I'll be a monkey's uncle then. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)