The Ability to Remember Order. An anthropology paper at PLoS One contrasts the ability of humans and bonobos to remember yellow-blue-yellow vs blue-yellow-blue for more than a few seconds. Not exactly that. I am being a touch facetious* here. There has been a long run on how we aren't all that different than the great apes, which was already in evidence when I took Physical Anthropology 201 in 1971**. Bonobos are a particular fave of psychology majors who are eventually therapists, because they have sex with lots of other bonobos rather guiltlessly, and we should emulate them, unlike the retrogressive boyfriend of the the therapist, who felt cuckolded when she slept with someone at the agency.
Yes, yes, I am generalising unfairly. Can't I at least mention that I am thinking of two specific PhD psychologists here? There are fields where some people go into them in order to talk about sex without looking like that was their main intent. BTW, they overlook how much coercive sex takes place among bonobos, far more than not only criminal urban areas worldwide, but even war zones. Those peaceful bonobos...
We're merely mammals, except when we aren't.
It is a parlor game to try and show that everything we think is distinctive and Made In God's Image is illusory, much as the joy some derive proving that white people never originated anything - it was all stolen from elsewhere. But really, it is better to let the obvious be obvious, isn't it? Our brains are quite different from other creatures.
*facetious (or facetiously if you are being technical) is one of the two words in English that has the vowels in alphabetical order, only once each. What is the other one? I won a radio contest and an LP album sometimes in the early 80s answering this one at 10PM once.
**I met my wife on the first day of this class freshman year, though we did not start dating until 2.5 years later. Just about 52 years ago.
4 comments:
No matter how randy the bonobos might get, there are certain perversions that only humans are capable of. Bonobos reproduce in the ordinary way; they don't hook up permanently with a member of their own sex and pretend to be a family. They don't march in parades to celebrate their sexual proclivities. And if you suggested to a bonobo that he ought to have an operation to change his sex, he would bite your face off --and rightly so.
...we should emulate them, unlike the retrogressive boyfriend of the the therapist, who...
That is a very specific example, to be sure.
Were the asterisks meant to point to footnotes?
@ James - yes! thank you. Fixed.
Post a Comment