The sciencemag.com article “Anti-Alzheimer’s Gene may have Led to the Rise of Grandparents” by Kelli Whitlock Burton talks about the how the protective variant of the CD33 gene may explain why humans have grandmothers that help with child rearing. The article explains the “grandmother hypothesis” that says humans live such long and healthy lives even after they are no longer able to reproduce because they help with child rearing. The CD33 gene plays a big role in Alzheimer’s disease and scientists Ajit Varki and Pascal Gagneux discovered that there are two variants of it: a protective allele and a damaging one.…
Bruce Bowers article, “Fossils hint at India’s crucial role in primate evolution” published in September of 2016, gives the theory of how certain bones excavated from a coal mine in India resemble the first primates from as early as 65 million years ago (). This article states how these bones approximately reveal how a common ancestor would look like and act. Researchers believe that since having the qualities of both superfamilies, Adapoidea and Omomyoidea they left behind a large quantity of different skeletal traits. With the idea that the evolution of primates and their relatives occurred on an isolated island of idea then spread, that gives them the time to evolve and have the specific bone structure and abilities that key them into being…
Before Jane Goodall’s discovery scientists believed that non-human primates lived simple life. It turns out that they are highly intelligent, emotional creatures that live in complex societies. This new discovery lead people to feel compassion and concern for the animals. Leakey’s once said “new we must redefine tool, redefine man, or consider chimpanzees as humans”. We now see that we are not alone with being advanced that there are other non-human primates that also are advancing.…
The event related to animal rights that motivate Ed Yong to write this article is the Great Ape Project. The Great Ape Project was established in 1993 and requests a basic set of moral and legal rights for great apes. The questions that were raised by Yong about this issue are why can’t all nonhuman animals that feel pain have rights. Another question Yong has is what would be the credible reason not to…
A mother can impact lives greatly. Could you imagine growing up without a mother? You can either be very lucky with a mother that cares for you or be deprived of that sense of love from a mother figure. It is inhumane to destroy any kind of maternal bond because mothers are not people to depend on, but are people to make depending not required.…
Animals should have the right to decide if they want to collaborate in experiments. In Ed Young’s article, “Of Primates and Personhood”, he explains that, “the Great Ape Project demands a basic set of moral and legal rights for apes”. This quote informs us that apes should be more than just property. Some may argue that experimentation is beneficial to humans because it helps us decide what kinds of products are safe for human use. However, the experimentation on apes sometimes leads to their death.…
The first premise of his argument was that all human and non-human animals possess equal inherent value because they are all individuals experiencing life. His second premise is that possessing inherent value demands that these individuals have rights that should not be violated by others. The final premise of his argument is that any individual with rights must be treated equally and with respect. In this paper, I objected to his third premise by arguing that we humans should not interact with animals at all because we are not able to distinguish their perception of equality and…
One of the more sentimental portions of this essay deals with a personal interaction with a chimpanzee. Goodall explains her trip to Tanzania when she befriends an chimpanzee named David. She shares how she felt a close connection with him. She offered a nut to David but David refused by a very gentle, very similar to a human, squeeze of her hand to let her know he wasn't interested in the nut. Goodall reasons that chimpanzees are "physiologically close to humans"(157). In other words, chimpanzees think much like humans and express feelings much like humans. It is cruel to expose these animals to conditions in which no human would want to be, unless…
Since humans and other primates share a variety of characteristics, other primates provide important observations about early humans. Homologies between hominids and other primates enhance to behavior because the physiological and cognitive formations that manage to control human demeanor are likely related to those of other primates than to members of other taxonomic groups. The reality of this broad collection of homologous traits, the commodity of the average evolutionary history of the primates, means that nonhuman primates give beneficial examples for understanding the evolutionary ancestry of hominid morphology and for resolving the basis of human nature.…
1) The subfields of anthropology seem quite diverse in their specific subjects and methods. Why, then, are they all considered parts of the single discipline of anthropology? What ties them together? Anthropology is divided up into four sub-fields of study (Park, 2014). The four sub-fields are biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology (Park, 2014).…
Mainly, this documentary uses the primate’s behavior as a comparison to our own. The purpose of this is to better understand not only the evolution of the human body, but also the evolution of human behavior. The film explains that our behavior was affected by the environmental pressures of our past. Because primates share a common ancestor with us, observing them in the wild can help us better understand why and how we evolved certain traits. The film stresses how important it is that we must observe apes in a natural setting. The narrator explains, “If we are interested in evolution of human behavior, and in the evolution of behavior in general, you really need to see that in a natural setting where evolution pressures are at work today and where you might be able to imagine the kind of evolutionary pressure that would’ve worked in the past.” The intention of this film is to instruct the viewer on the evolutionary connection between the ape and us. Understand primate behavior can lead to clues of our own evolutionary descent.…
Primates are one of the most interesting mammals on earth, not only because of their complex social structures, but because they hold so many similar characteristics to humans. Primates are often cited as our closest living relatives and on two separate occasions I observed four separate species of primates at the San Diego Zoo that can justify their use of their physical characteristics and behaviors that may be similar as well as different to the other primates and ours.…
Many of the behaviors observed in primates are known to have evolutionary causes. Infanticide is one that has been questioned whether to be caused by an evolutionary purpose or pathological behaviors. Infanticide has been observed in the wild amongst primates as a situation where new males join a new group and begin to kill off infants that continue to be dependent on their mothers for food. This is thought to be either caused by stressful environments or a reproductive tactic. There has been enough evidence observed to prove that infanticide is executed for reproductive benefits for males entering a new group of many females with children of their own.…
To compare the distinctive features of primate parenting, we first need to know what they are. Primate parenting features including, feeding their offspring, along with teaching them vital skills in order for them to obtain their own food. An example of this would be the variety of tool using, or culture, used by several primates (using rocks to crack open nuts, or using a branch to get ants and consume them) not only demonstrate the learning ability of these creatures, but also the importance that parenting has when dealing with the development of the offspring. Apart from the learning behaviors that are thought to the offspring, other distinctive parenting features come into play, for example primates usually give birth to more than one offspring…
‘Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?’, they described experiments to assess whether the primate most closely related to…