New study shows Chimpanzees exhibit cooperative and rudimentary altruistic behavior. Read the article at New Scientist.

So I'm guessing it's now an insult to monkeys, to refer to Dubya as one?

Chimps aren't monkeys, they're primates. :| Sorry, it's a pet peeve.

There was a similar study done a year or so ago and described in Scientific American, where monkeys (not the more advanced apes) were given the same kind of situation (could only pull a tray to get a treat when two did simultaneously), but were separated in two separate cages. In some cases, the treat was put so that only one could reach it, and would have to choose between keeping the whole treat for themselves and sharing. When they chose the former, the others were less likely to help them in the future. It really makes you wonder how much of our thinking is purely instinctual. Sorry for the lack of a link, but Sciam is a bitch online.

More and more evidence is showing, IMO, that our "basic" moral attitudes are instinctual in nature, and that our current moral theories are a combination of these basic moral attitudes and culture. It is studies like these that I feel will finally prove to the theist that God is wholly unneeded for the existence of moral systems (but who am I kidding, they'll find something to object to).

Your initial post got me to checking on how the Comparative Cognition Project at OSU was going.

I haven't been in touch with them for over a year and found some bad news:

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/chmpclos.htm


Dr. Boysen was researching chimp cognitive functions:


http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/boysendisc.htm

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/chimps.htm

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/chimpfer1.htm


I actually helped them out a little; finding things they needed.

Even got to go into a cage with one of the little ones, Harper, who was only
a couple of years old and he was as strong as a young man. And smart,
Dr. Boysen was telling how he watched her use the key to the door of
the holding area and figured out what it was and how to use it. They
had to keep an eye on their keys after that.

And if I sound bummed....

That's really too bad, but it must cost a fortune to run a chimp research facility. Well, at least they're going to a good home. The refuge in Texas is supposed to be pretty good (though getting a bit crowded perhaps).

This refuge in Texas... Wouldn't be the same place Dubba calls home, would it?

ProveIt! Get your ass back in the chatroom!

Damn it! I'm trying... Freakin Comcast thinks I'm made of money... $60 a month for internet alone???? Are you kidding me? I'm weighing my options right now. Eat vrs Internet at home... I'm a piggy. I'm hoping to have made a decision by early next week.

As long as they keep together as a group, they should be okay.

Of course, I'll miss Bob. We had a lot in common: lazy, like to play with computers and eat lettuce.

they do like chimps in texas, apparantly

Really makes you wonder what thoughts are primitive to the point of being shared with reptiles. Just because we may have a name for love and greed and fear doesn't mean that crocodiles don't have exactly the same things. Then what do we do with so-called higher thought?

I don't think we could ever break people of the idea that they are somehow better than animals. "But my dog doesn't know what love is" they might say, "he only has lust". It doesn't matter that we can demonstrate convincingly that the human emotion of love is chemically and logically the same in both of us. It's hard enough to convince people they don't have some sort of immaterial soul that exists outside their body, as ridiculous as the idea is.

The word "higher" is an insult to chimps and a misunderstanding of evolution.