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Originally Posted by Ara T.
Most startling discovery in that class was how violent chimps are, we always see em on TV clowning around, but they'll form their little war bands and hunt down chimps that arent supposed to be in their territory, not to mention hunt and kill colobus monkeys for the fun of it-and the protein.
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He talked about the brutality of Chimps but was arguing that emphasizing the brutal side of humans by rooting our behavior in our connections with Chimps, needs to be balanced by also rooting our behavior in the 'hippie' Bonobos. He suggested that we have some genetic material on common with Bonobos that give us our more social and less violent side.
He did an interesting experiment on the awareness of 'fairness' in Capuchin monkeys. They like cucumbers but prefer grapes. Put two monkeys next to each other and require a task that is rewarded by cucumber and they both will eat it. If you reward one with a grape and the other with a cucumber, the monkey will reject the cucumber, because they are aware they are being 'cheated' because the other monkey is getting the grape. Very interesting stuff.