Chimpanzee police

Some people justify the use of animals for our benefit on the grounds that we (humans) have special abilities that animals lack. While I am not convinced that this justifies animal exploitation, it is worth examining the claim itself. Several years ago some defined humans as tool making mammals. Later we discovered that chimpanzees, and even some species of birds also made (primitive) tools, so much for that. Language is also often cited as a distinguishing feature of humans. However we have known for many years that several species of primates can learn to use sign language and develop vocabularies of over one-hundred words. The next step seems to be the richness of human society, culture, religion etc. Of course humans are unique in the use of all these constructs, but recently I came across another article in the Economist that seems to further blur the distinction between humans and our nearest relatives. It seems that chimps have cops!

A study conducted suggests that in a society of chimpanzees, a few individuals will intervene, apparently impartially, in conflicts between others even though this can involve significant costs to the police chimp. As part of the study the policing indivduals were removed, resulting in more fights, less grooming and the formation of exclusive cliques. In other words the society became a more dangerous, unhappy place. It appears that these police chimps (who can be male or female) have the same effect that their human counterparts (are supposed to) have on society.

This is not to suggest that humans are not exceptional in many ways (as are chimps), I simply wish to make the point that many of the differences between human and non-human animals are more differences in degree than in kind. In general I am opposed to highlighting artificially exaggerated differences between “us and them”. Humans have an unfortunate tendency to do this, some think that “whites” are not only different from, but better than “blacks”, men better than women, heterosexuals better than homosexuals, etc. etc. etc... all of this may seem natural to these people, but is nothing more than bigotry.

Stuart Torr