 | |
| Author | Richard Wrangham Dale Peterson |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Publication date | 1996 |
| Pages | 350 pp. |
| OCLC | 34798075 |
Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence is a 1996 book by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson examining the evolutionary factors leading to human male violence. [1] [2] [3]
Demonic Males begins by explaining that humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans are a group of genetically related great apes, that humans are genetically closer to chimps than chimps are to gorillas, and that chimps and bonobos are most closely genetically related. After speculating about what enabled humans' ancestors to leave the rainforest (the use of roots as sources of water and food), Demonic Males next provides a catalog of the types of violence practiced by male chimpanzees (intragroup hierarchical violence, violence against females, and extragroup murdering raids). The high incidence of rape by non-alpha male orangutans and infanticide by male gorillas are also cited as examples of our mutual genetic heritage.
The authors present chimp society as extremely patriarchal, in that no adult male chimpanzee is subordinate to any female of any rank. They present evidence that most dominant human civilizations have always been likewise behaviorally patriarchal, and that male humans share male chimpanzees' innate propensity for dominance, gratuitous violence, war, rape, and murder. They claim that the brain's prefrontal cortex is also a factor, as humans have been shown experimentally to make decisions based both on logic and prefrontal cortex-mediated emotion.
To contrast chimp societies, in the chapter "The Peaceful Ape", the authors contrast chimpanzee behaviors with those of the bonobo, presenting logical biological reasons for the more pacific (although also aggressive and antagonistic) behaviors of the latter. Reasons given for this include a bonobo female social organization that does not tolerate male aggression, the evolutionary forces of the invisibility of bonobo ovulation (in chimps, ovulation has both olfactory and genital swelling manifestations — this diversity in female reproductive cycles then leads to ferocious male competition for mating), and overall social organization, whereby male bonobos do not form alliances as male chimps do, though this has been contested. [4]
Bonobos are dominated by a matriarchal system, and are unique for their female-biased dispersal relationships that encourage resolution and peace-making tactics among the group, and discourage violence and war. Anthropological parallels can be made to human subcultures such as the Hippies, expressed in the motto that Hippies and Bonobos make love, not war. Anthropologists using post modern perspective try to explain how Bonobo social structure rejects aggression and focuses on the power of cooperation, and how this benefits the overall survival of the group. [5]
The authors consider male violence to be evolutionarily undesirable and morally reprehensible (explicitly detailing the Hutu-Tutsi cross-genocides in Africa's Great Ape habitats, and citing Charlotte Perkins Gilman's female utopian novel Herland [1915]), and argue that the advent of modern weapons such as nerve gas and atomic bombs threatens our collective future. Like Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2012), which makes the case that violence has been decreasing in human society over time, Demonic Males makes the case that human males are genetically predisposed to violence, but that the human species also has the intellectual capacity to override this flaw if society recognizes that it is in human survival's interest to do so.
In a political interpretation of Demonic Males, biologist Philip Regal says that the book is partly an attack on the deconstructivist feminist theory that male violence is a purely social construct. Regal also considers the book to be "a broadside against the old utopian dreams of Atlantis, Eden, Elysium, a Golden Age, Romantic paintings, and the late Margaret Mead", which imagined human beings as naturally peaceful. [3]
The New York Times called it "enjoyable and easy to read", and said it "belongs to the emerging genre of serious scientific books that have something to say about questions of interest to many people, not just to specialists". [2]
Ardipithecus is a genus of an extinct hominine that lived during the Late Miocene and Early Pliocene epochs in the Afar Depression, Ethiopia. Originally described as one of the earliest ancestors of humans after they diverged from the chimpanzees, the relation of this genus to human ancestors and whether it is a hominin is now a matter of debate. Two fossil species are described in the literature: A. ramidus, which lived about 4.4 million years ago during the early Pliocene, and A. kadabba, dated to approximately 5.6 million years ago. Initial behavioral analysis indicated that Ardipithecus could be very similar to chimpanzees, however more recent analysis based on canine size and lack of canine sexual dimorphism indicates that Ardipithecus was characterised by reduced aggression, and that they more closely resemble bonobos.
The chimpanzee, also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close relative the bonobo was more commonly known as the pygmy chimpanzee, this species was often called the common chimpanzee or the robust chimpanzee. The chimpanzee and the bonobo are the only species in the genus Pan. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is humans' closest living relative. The chimpanzee is covered in coarse black hair, but has a bare face, fingers, toes, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet. It is larger and more robust than the bonobo, weighing 40–70 kg (88–154 lb) for males and 27–50 kg (60–110 lb) for females and standing 150 cm.
Homininae, also called "African hominids" or "African apes", is a subfamily of Hominidae. It includes two tribes, with their extant as well as extinct species: 1) the tribe Hominini ―and 2) the tribe Gorillini (gorillas). Alternatively, the genus Pan is sometimes considered to belong to its own third tribe, Panini. Homininae comprises all hominids that arose after orangutans split from the line of great apes. The Homininae cladogram has three main branches, which lead to gorillas, and to humans and chimpanzees via the tribe Hominini and subtribes Hominina and Panina. There are two living species of Panina and two living species of gorillas, but only one extant human species. Traces of extinct Homo species, including Homo floresiensis have been found with dates as recent as 40,000 years ago. Organisms in this subfamily are described as hominine or hominines.
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians. Primates arose 85–55 million years ago first from small terrestrial mammals, which adapted to living in the trees of tropical forests: many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging environment, including large brains, visual acuity, color vision, a shoulder girdle allowing a large degree of movement in the shoulder joint, and dexterous hands. Primates range in size from Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, which weighs 30 g (1 oz), to the eastern gorilla, weighing over 200 kg (440 lb). There are 376–524 species of living primates, depending on which classification is used. New primate species continue to be discovered: over 25 species were described in the 2000s, 36 in the 2010s, and three in the 2020s.
The bonobo, also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan. While bonobos are, today, recognized as a distinct species in their own right, they were initially thought to be a subspecies of Pan troglodytes, due to the physical similarities between the two species. Taxonomically, the members of the chimpanzee/bonobo subtribe Panina—composed entirely by the genus Pan—are collectively termed panins.
The genus Pan consists of two extant species: the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Taxonomically, these two ape species are collectively termed panins. The two species were formerly collectively called "chimpanzees" or "chimps"; if bonobos were recognized as a separate group at all, they were referred to as "pygmy chimpanzees". Together with humans, gorillas, and orangutans they are part of the family Hominidae. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, chimpanzees and bonobos are currently both found in the Congo jungle, while only the chimpanzee is also found further north in West Africa. Both species are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and in 2017 the Convention on Migratory Species selected the chimpanzee for special protection.
Primatology is the scientific study of primates. It is a diverse discipline at the boundary between mammalogy and anthropology, and researchers can be found in academic departments of anatomy, anthropology, biology, medicine, psychology, veterinary sciences and zoology, as well as in animal sanctuaries, biomedical research facilities, museums and zoos. Primatologists study both living and extinct primates in their natural habitats and in laboratories by conducting field studies and experiments in order to understand aspects of their evolution and behavior.
Great ape personhood is a movement to extend personhood and some legal protections to the non-human members of the great ape family: bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.
Apes are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, which together with its sister group Cercopithecidae form the catarrhine clade, cladistically making them monkeys. Apes do not have tails due to a mutation of the TBXT gene. In traditional and non-scientific use, the term ape can include tailless primates taxonomically considered Cercopithecidae, and is thus not equivalent to the scientific taxon Hominoidea. There are two extant branches of the superfamily Hominoidea: the gibbons, or lesser apes; and the hominids, or great apes.
Twycross Zoo is a medium to large zoo near Norton Juxta Twycross, Leicestershire. The zoo has the largest collection of monkeys and apes in the Western World, and in 2006 re-launched itself as "Twycross Zoo – The World Primate Centre".
Research into great ape language has involved teaching chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans to communicate with humans and each other using sign language, physical tokens, lexigrams, and imitative human speech. Some primatologists argue that the use of these communication methods indicate primate "language" ability, though this depends on one's definition of language.
Von Economo neurons, also called spindle neurons, are a specific class of mammalian cortical neurons characterized by a large spindle-shaped soma gradually tapering into a single apical axon in one direction, with only a single dendrite facing opposite. Other cortical neurons tend to have many dendrites, and the bipolar-shaped morphology of von Economo neurons is unique here.
The killer ape theory or killer ape hypothesis is the theory that war and interpersonal aggression was the driving force behind human evolution. It was originated by Raymond Dart in the 1950s; it was developed further in African Genesis by Robert Ardrey in 1961.
Richard Walter Wrangham is an English anthropologist and primatologist; he is Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. His research and writing have involved ape behavior, human evolution, violence, and cooking.
The Hominidae, whose members are known as the great apes or hominids, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo ; Gorilla ; Pan ; and Homo, of which only modern humans remain.
Laughter in animals other than humans describes animal behavior which resembles human laughter.
Non-reproductive sexual behavior consists of sexual activities animals participate in that do not lead to the reproduction of the species. Although procreation continues to be the primary explanation for sexual behavior in animals, recent observations on animal behavior have given alternative reasons for the engagement in sexual activities by animals. Animals have been observed to engage in sex for social interaction bonding, exchange for significant materials, affection, mentorship pairings, sexual enjoyment, or as demonstration of social rank. Observed non-procreative sexual activities include non-copulatory mounting, oral sex, genital stimulation, anal stimulation, interspecies mating, and acts of affection, although it is doubted that they have done this since the beginning of their existence. There have also been observations of sex with cub participants, same-sex sexual interaction, as well as sex with dead animals.
Continuous breeders are animal species that can breed or mate throughout the year. This includes humans and apes, who can have a child at any time of year. In continuous breeders, females are sexually receptive during estrus, at which time ovarian follicles are maturing and ovulation can occur. Evidence of ovulation, the phase during which conception is most probable, is advertised to males among many non-human primates via swelling and redness of the genitalia.
Infanticide in non-human primates occurs when an individual kills its own or another individual's dependent young. Five hypotheses have been proposed to explain infanticide in non-human primates: exploitation, resource competition, parental manipulation, sexual selection, and social pathology.