Monkey See, Monkey Do - the irony of ironies.... (Feb/05/2008 )

I'll post this here first (sneaky ol' me ) and let's see where it goes...if the discussion becomes more philosophical or more fun, I wouldn't mind having it moved.

What do you think guys? Who's more evolved, less-evolved.."the monks or the ornery cuss"?
Yeah, and who would like to sit in a coconut tree?



cheers,

casandra

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For some reason I doubt that Jane Goodall would agree with the author of this poem. If there is anything that her studies have taught us, its that the social behavior of monkeys is very similar to our own. Now I haven't done any reading on the topic myself so I can't give you specific examples, but I would venture to guess that some of these deviant behaviors have been observed in monkeys, as they have been observed in other species. The cow bird comes to mind - this bird pushes the eggs out of another birds nest and leaves her own for the "adoptive mother" to raise. There are other examples - male mallord ducks rape female ducks. And of course there are the lions - males kill the young when they are taking over another male's pride. Unfortunately, like I said, I don't have an example from our ape friends (I don't have the time do the literature search), but given their extreme social behavior I would guess that some "heinous" act has been observed and documented. The author of the poem is probably ignorant of animal behavior and is perhaps one of those radical animal rights people who hates the fact that he's human.

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too much generalisation there.

I can't imagine any other animal working day and night in hunger and pain just to give their kids a small good meal and send them to school.

Humans are the best when it comes to matters of heart.

(philosophical ? : ok next time I will find something with evidence)

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bonobo's have sex with anything with a pulse (and some things that dont)
chimpanzies are vicious and sadistic creatures that hunt in packs more for the thrill than any specious gain and will quite gladly kill each others children (letting them starve goes without saying)
even the less vicious creatures go against the poem by sharing their children between the group rather than isolating them to a single male/female pairing

its romantic rubbish based on seeing cute animals in a zoo rather than in the wild where they'd happily kill you (no guilt, no remorse)

btw monkeys dont have wives - thats a human construct designed to protect our children

sorry casandra but you lucked out this time - there is no argument to be had

better luck next time

dom

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If monkeys had bigger brains, they'd try to take over the world.

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First off, I think it's a lovely poem.
Second, anthropomorphising is an interesting concept.
There was an argument we looked at in uni when we were studying evolution. Basically it went something along the lines that anthropomorphising the behaviour of lesser creatures (and in my case, anything electronic) we prefer to explain out own behaviour and that of others in terms of our own conscious mind. For example, the neighbours dog doing it's business on my lawn is a deliberate act to induce me into a state of rage.

But this could have had an effect back in the old hunter gatherer days. If a hunter tries to imagine what the prey is seeing, thinking, the hunter could use it to his own advantage. So, perhaps the hunter, with his ability to explain the behaviour of the prey through the hunter's consciouses (anthropomorphising) is able to catch more food, find a better mate, and have more children that will grow up with this ability to anthropomorphise. The hunter without this ability goes hungy, and dies somewhere, without children.
Could this be selection of the fittest?

Not really about monkies (hey hey), but how we have explained their behaviour in relation to our own.

V

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Apparently the sadistic and murderous behaviour of the chimps observed by the Goodalls in that area is possibly a result of intense selective pressure and stress from the lack of food and high population in the area. The behaviour has never been observed in chimps outside of this area despite some quite intensive studies.

Besides which (to be technical about it) chimps aren't monkeys, they are apes, monkeys are new world creatures.

I have never seen monkeys or apes in the wild, but from watching a range of docos on the subject there are plenty of obvious examples of monkeys and apes stealing food from each-other, as well as hitting/dominating etc and passing babies off around groups (they still get cared for, just by a different adult).


Now to get to the real questions....

More/less evolved is a moot point, organisms are all equally evolved, otherwise they wouldn't have survived. for example an amoeba is a highly evolved, very specialised organism, adapted extremely well to its environment, and so is a louse, but the latter is more complex than the former, not necessarily more "highly" evolved.
A better example of this is perhaps in plants... grasses are some of the most recently developed types of plant (= more highly evolved?), they are flowering (has stamens and stigma), but wind pollinated. Pine trees are one of the older types (= less highly evolved?), they are wind pollinated as well but don't technically flower (no stamen or stigma). Current theory is that grasses developed from flowering plants which developed petals etc and slowly lost them. Both it could be argued are very successful, but highness of evolution?

Yeah, I'll sit in a coconut tree, not under, that's just dangerous!

Sorry for the long post

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Yes quite dangerous that sitting directly under a coconut tree (with coconuts). Though coconut trees do not have branches and can grow quite tall. While not exactly a smooth pole, 'sitting on a coconut tree' would probably look like 'clinging onto a coconut tree.' - for dear life

Perhaps sitting some distance away from coconut tree? So one can then enjoy the fruits of a being near coconut tree yet not imperiled by the same plant.

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I thought monkies ate bananas... shouldn't we be sitting in a banana tree?
mmmm banana, i have one for afternoon tea. banana and peanut butter sandwiches is the food of kings.

my mum's reasoning on why we aren't evolved from chimps: "i'm not that hairy, so I can't be a monkey. don't ask silly questions."

V

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Now who’s being ornery? There was no need for a monkey bash (even if figuratively). If those monks could indeed feel insulted or cleverly insult humans using rhyming verse, you might just have proven them right (about being an ornery cu..). Besides, how could those self-righteous punks feel nauseated by the thought that we descended from them? Pfftt…we don’t hunt in packs and go for vicious kills… oh no…not for food, for politics or to impress females in estrus ..nonono.. we do it for fun and sport just like our queen.

And sex with anything with or without a pulse? That too we don’t do largely to maintain peace and control aggression, we do it likewise for fun and sport and some perversions on the side. How could that Dame Jane be so fooled by these cute and seemingly harmless creatures that by championing their rights she’d go through extreme lengths such as to advocate the closures of all primate research facilities across the globe. “If people want their make-up and drugs, they should test them on people who are the end users anyway” (very badly paraphrased I think ). And now she's even for the environment but it's mainly to protect wildlife habitats..hmm...

And these monks didn’t even review their evolutionary biology, we didn’t come from them we just shared a common ancestor so why are they blaming us for that link…they should blame… you know… the common ancestor Australian something…. And don’t talk to me about lucking out bec that’s exactly what’s been happening lately. I thought at first that I’m the only one who found the poem amusing..hah..V thought it was beautiful... I guess I don't have to try better next time . I thought we agreed to no more arguing...(vetticus, he started it) and Bob thanks for the long post .


innocent as always ,

casandra

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