by Karen B. Strier
I have been studying the same group of monkeys, known as northern muriquis, in a small forest in southeastern Brazil for nearly 28 years. When I began my research they were called Brachyteles arachnoides. Subsequently, and within the lifetimes of many of the individuals in my original study group, they were
Continue reading The Challenge of Comparisons in Primatology
by: Terrence W. Deacon
Introduction
Since Darwin’s time, the human language capacity has been a perennially cited paragon of extreme complexity that defies the explanatory powers of natural selection. And it is not just critics of Darwinism who have argued that this most distinctive human capacity is problematic. Alfred Russel Wallace—the co-discoverer of natural selection theory and
Continue reading On the Human: Rethinking the natural selection of human language
by: Suzanne Preston Blier
Egbé eja leja ?wè tò, egbé eye leye ?wò lé
Fish swim in a school of their own kind;
Birds fly in a flock of their own kind.
Yoruba Proverb
We mention nature and forget ourselves in it.
Friedrich Nietzsche
So engrained is the trope of the animal in the West that animal truisms are seared into
Continue reading Animalia: the Natural World, Art, and Theory
by Stuart A. Marks
Independent Scholar
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
Tennessee Williams
To understand portions of one’s own culture demands a lifetime; to become familiar with another’s depends upon a host of enthusiastic interpreters, attentive listening, experiencing a multitude of unfamiliar activities, a receptive heart, and good fortune. Throughout my
Continue reading Wild Animals and a Different Human Face
by Sir Patrick Bateson
The use of hounds in hunting excites great passions. Hunting deer is particularly hated by those who are opposed to it and ardently loved by those who support it. If you wept as a child at the death of Bambi’s mother, you know what it is like to be hunted.
Continue reading Hunting and Science
by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
I am an anthropologist and primate sociobiologist who seeks to understand, step by Darwinian step, how apes could have evolved to imagine and care about what the lives of others might be like. I believe that such questing for inter-subjective engagement laid the foundations for significant later developments such as language and
Continue reading How Humans Became Such Other-Regarding Apes