Slashdot Mirror
Study: Chimpanzees Have Evolved To Kill Each Other
sciencehabit writes A major new study of warfare in chimpanzees finds that lethal aggression can be evolutionarily beneficial in that species, rewarding the winners with food, mates, and the opportunity to pass along their genes. The findings run contrary to recent claims that chimps fight only if they are stressed by the impact of nearby human activity—and could help explain the origins of human conflict as well.
Most animals fight for mates. The only reason they don't kill each other is it's tougher for them to be lethal about it. But if a moose could head-butt another moose into oblivion to win a mate, I've no doubt it would do it.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What a load of PC "humans are the only baddies in the world" bollocks.
Chimpanzees have a well documented history of intra-group hierarchical violence, violence against females and extra-group murdering raids. This is nothing new. Anthropologists have known this stuff for decades.
You see this from the anti-hunting and lunatic PETA crowd. "Humans are the only species that kill for pleasure or kill for reasons other than survival". Bill Maher (PETA member) said it several times last season of his Real Time show. Yet everything from orca whales to monkeys to domestic cats kills for reasons other than day-to-day survival.
They kill for fun, for the adrenaline rush, for sport, for territory, and sometimes simply out of instinct or curiosity. Cats leave trophies on their owners' back porches. They'll kill birds and mice and even bats and then leave the dead body for their owner to find. Killer whales just slaughter packs of seals for fun. Often times just killing them and not even eating them. Some animals are so naturally deadly like sharks that they cannot help killing something by simply "test" biting an animal to see if its good food. A shark bites a human but realizes the flesh is poor and there are too many bones, so it backs off for good, yet the human is dead because half his stomach and leg were chewed off entirely by the shark.
Wolves will kill members of other packs that trespass on their pack's hunting range. Within a pack killing is extremely rare. The fighting within a pack is dominance and discipline related, it will almost always stop short of serious injury or death.
But seriously, primate research is worthwhile on it's own. You can't directly prove connections between us and them; but that is not unlike a huge amount of science which relies upon observation, statistics and expert judgement calls. When they act similar that can be a clue or merely a coincidence but it warrants further investigation. It's a technique that allows for faster probing of the problem space. BESIDES, if you think that observing chimps influences their behavior (as the "skeptics" denier fanatics always claim) just imagine trying to study humans! Humans are way more difficult to study without influencing their behavior thereby tainting the study.
The biological connection is obvious; any "insights" they do in the research with a biological connection become useful even if at 1st they seem unjustified. The work can be applied in new ways later on if one proves there is no connection.
As far as pure human nature study by primate research; well, that is based upon theories which may or may not be proven some day in the future. You have the classic old Feud work on "base desires" which think about the primitive instinctive aspects behind the manifestations; his work in this area is the basis for modern propaganda (WW1 and really big after the Nazis used it so well. Today, it controls most consumers.) Following that success, one could approach further from that perspective - making our relation to primates and their more primitive state ideal.
Ultimately, I think most the work in the area ends up with the search for biological parallels between us. Say that HATE is really just a manifestation of FEAR; can you ever prove such a thing? nope. not in a hard science way; it's all subjective. But if you can study primates you might find more concrete proof with them on a biological level. A Turing machine is a lame computer nothing like your CPU but it's useful to prove things (the difference being that you can concretely prove the CPU is equivalent to the Turing machine and you can't with a chimp since they evolved differently even if they are nearly the same DNA.)
As far as evolutionary pressures-- the best theory for human brains was we already made it to the top of the food chain being as primitive as chimps and what made the apes of the plains smart was that they had to war against each other for resources. Just like humans have always done; my tribe and me against you and your tribe. Given how we are the most evolved distance running animals on earth, territorial borders are meaningless. Your group isn't going to give up after running down a lion to exhaustion for 20miles simply because you ended out of your usual turf.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
{Wake me when chimpanzees invent smelting} ... and cast weapons made of metal from molds that they manufactured themselves, just so they can kill more effectively.
Hard to tell what point(s) you're attempting to make here.
So, is killing efficiency your yardstick?
I don't see how efficiency relates. Heck, there are species of marine life who eat the egg-clusters and hatchlings of their competitors, and that's upwards of tens of thousands or more.
Or is it the use of tools to kill?
Chimps and other apes will often pick up a branch to swing at another when they are angry/aggressive. Other examples of tool-use by apes is abundant. Google will supply you with examples.
Seems in that regard the only difference is the level of sophistication of the tools/weapons related to the differing complex intellectual levels of the two species.
No doubt if apes had a similar size brain and intellectual capability as humans, the technical level of their weapons would rise as well.
Many people like to attribute some sort of "perfect moral innocence" to animals while humans are somehow forever separate from animals and that all human effects upon animals are "unnatural" and inherently bad and wrong. They also tend to decry human behaviors that have roots in our animal nature as somehow evil and unnatural.
It's an emotional response motivated by compassion and I appreciate that. However, humans are just as natural on Earth as deer or whales. Everything will always effect everything else, and species will go extinct and new species arise as long as life exists.
Since our self-awareness and intelligence and ability to control our environment allows us to avoid natural systems of regulation, we must consciously choose to find a balance between not causing undue harm to animals and nature while not placing undue limitations on the advancement of humanity towards moving outwards into space.
Earth is not a perpetual-motion machine, and we need to leave the cradle. Humanity cannot afford to hunker down, slow progress, and ration out ever-dwindling resources. That's a recipe for extinction.
Balance is the key.
Balance will not be found at the extremes.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.