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The Primate Police

Posted by Zonk on from the won't-you-take-me-to-monkey-town dept.

An anonymous reader writes "LiveScience reports on research indicating that certain monkeys act like cops in a group. When they removed the enforcers, the monkey society fell apart. The rest of the monkeys quickly formed cliques with friends and family and interaction between the groups ceased. More interesting is how the monkeys 'vote' for their law enforcement officials, by baring their teeth to show deference. From the article: 'When an individual receives these voting signals from most of the group, it shows he is well respected--or feared--and he becomes the new sheriff in town.'"

3 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. there's something now by caffeinemessiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

    just more proof that we're related to our simian cousins -- even in our society, certain monkeys decide to become cops.

    --
    An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
  2. I disagree with the conclusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    After RTFA, it seems pretty clear that the "researchers" failed to establish proper control guidelines and jumped to the nearest conclusion that supported their hypothesis.

    Based on the skimpy article, I submit an alternate hypothesis: that the submissive monkeys became fearful when [unseen?] overlords came in and "removed" their elected officials. This caused them to form small protection groups. The article also does not document how long this behavior continued.

    Consider the following experiment: Start a small farming town somewhere in the middle of the US. One night, "remove" all of the town's elected officials. Observe that the citizens form small groups and hide in their homes. I don't see how this differs much from the "research" they did on these monkeys.

  3. Proof of instinct for government? by MikeRT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, I guess this proves that there may not be a "state of nature" in the old philosophical sense. We naturally organize ourselves. Katrina was one of my examples, when people naturally formed hierarchical groups for survival and promotion of order. The question now is, do we recognize that there is a compelling argument now to question the extent and nature of government, since if evolution be true, it is organized more out of a primal fear than an enlightened attitude toward social interaction?

    It certainly does help prove a point on why governments have often be so brutal toward their own people.