In the Forum
Karen Strier
Karen Strier is in the Forum with a provocative essay on species formation among primates. This is a topic she has been considering while studying a group of muriqui monkeys along Brazil’s southeastern coast for nearly three decades. As sugarcane and coffee producers moved into muriqui territory, the non-territorial, non-aggressive animals faced extinction, a history Strier documents in her book, Faces in the Forest: the Endangered Muriqui Monkeys of Brazil. They also split to become two species.
What makes us call a species a species, she asks — and to determine it differs from any other? Is it biological makeup, joint reproductive ability, actual behavior, or all three? How much does species identification owe to the human politics and psychology of nature conservation? How do we take account of a population’s customs and habits, especially as they vary over time and distance? And since our own behavior varies too, where might our own species fit into our understanding of “primates”? Strier proposes we transform our way of studying the behavior patterns of species and how these change. Strier is Hilldale Professor of Anthropology and Irven DeVore Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also the author of Primate Behavioral Ecology, a popular textbook described as “an engaging, cutting-edge exposition” and soon to be out in its fourth edition.
Please join our discussion.
Previous Contributors
Bateson, Sir Patrick. Hunting and Science
Batson, Dan. Empathic Concern and Altruism in Humans
Blier, Suzanne Preston. Animalia: The Natural World, Art, and Theory
Carroll, Joe. The Adaptive Function of Literature and the Other Arts
Deacon, Terrence. On the Human: Rethinking the Natural Selection of Human Language
Doris, John. Do You Know What You’re Doing?
Gillespie, Michael Allen. Science and the Humanities
Hacking, Ian. Commercial Genome Reading
Hayles, Katherine N. Distributing/Disturbing the Chinese Room
Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer. How Humans Became Such Other-Regarding Apes
Lenoir, Tim. Contemplating Singularity
Lycan, William. Qualitative Experience in Machines
Marks, Stuart A. Wild Animals and a Different Human Face
McCarty, Willard. Who Am I Computing?
Rabinow, Paul. Biopower, Dignity, Synthetic Anthropos
Rosati, Connie S. Narrative and Personal Good
Rosenberg, Alex. The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide to Reality
Stoneking, Mark. Does Culture Prevent or Drive Human Evolution?
Strier, Karen B. The Challenge Of Comparisons In Primatology
Tallis, Raymond. Does Evolution Explain Our Behavior?
Tabbi, Joseph. On Reading 300 Works Of Electronic Literature
Turner, Mark. The Scope of Human Thought
Forum Calendar
Scroll ahead to see which week you’ll be able to engage your favorite Contributor. It’s a distinguished list, including:
Karen Strier
Harriet Ritvo
Brian Leiter
Robert Pippin
Patricia Churchland
Elliott Sober
Margaret Boden
Frans de Waal
Recent events
The Human Spark is a PBS series exploring our evolutionary history. An examination of commonalities between us and other animals, it also emphasizes the ways in which we differ from other species. The episodes are playing on Wednesday evenings this winter on local channels around the country. Alan Alda is host and the first episode is called “So Human, So Chimp.”
Check your local listings.
In the News
In the News is a monthly round-up of recent developments in the study of humans, animals, and machines. We provide links to two references for each story, first, to the scholarly record in the professional literature and, second, to a popular media account illustrating how the research is being presented to the public. Compiled by Stephen Zachary. Read more.
