Apes..
mdm thevi told me something very interesting today,while travelling to work. she mentioned that she watched astro discovery channel and there was this documentary about human-like apes in utophia. unable to contain my excitement since this kind of curiousity invoking magnificient beings never fail to fascinate me,i set out to make my own investigation (although im dead tired)and i didnt find out anything about these creatures.i do hope any of the reader's here would be able to help me on this. would really love to find out more on these beings.yeah i know all apes are humanlike but the ones she said walks on two legs and communicate in a very humanlike manner but just without words..oh boy..i wish i saw the documentary..too bad i dun have astro at home:(
however i did come across a page that has close close resemblance to some questions that had been playing in my mind for quite some time. practically it is about the violence that had been happening all around the world. last sunday there were some vivid photographs abt the torture in iraqi prisons. it was really disgusting and i dont know why..when i see people being tortured and people torturing one another,it deeply affects my mind and i keep thinking about it..well..lets get back to the article..here's what i found out..
Of the five major primate groups in our family tree, four are rife with violent behavior and/or the sort of chauvinist social hierarchies we’ve seen in human beings over the course of history. Orangatans rape; chimpanzees raid and murder and kill infants, and force unwilling female chimps into sexual activity. Gorillas have a harem organization; baboons kill each other, fight over females and also force females into sexual activity. In fact, there are precious few of the things we might traditionally define as "sin" or "evil" that is not already prevalent somewhere in the primate world.
So which primate is the exception? Only recently have scientists begun to study a primate once incorrectly classified as a chimpanzee, now called a "bonobo." bonobo society is perhaps the first to be found where males and females are equal, and male violence is contained by females banding together to protect each other from the larger males.
"…The females don’t often have to assert their power," the book tells us about these gentle Congo River apes. "Occasionally a male may lose his temper, attacking a female badly enough to tear her ear, for example. But such cases, as Kano’s research makes clear, are very unusual. Males rarely attack females (half as often as they attack each other), and when they do, they are liable to be driven off by a gang of females."
And liberated these chicks are. Unlike other ape or even non-primate species, female bonobos can get laid any time, any place. They will copulate freely in front of the other males—something that would greatly distress a troop of chimps or gorillas, and cause the alpha male and his subordinates to drive the copulating male off. The male bonobos, on the other hand, look on casually, sometimes quietly waiting their turn with the available female.
bonobo ladies are not above indulging in a little lesbian sex. According to the local natives, who call it "hoka-hoka", bonobo females will engage in a sort of sexual activity that resembles missionary sex but which involves rubbing the genitals together and resulting in what looks very much like orgasm for both.
It’s scandalous stuff, all right. But it makes you wonder if humans can’t evolve past their own violent, female-possessive tendencies, since male bonobos are bigger and stronger than the females and could dominate them like all their other primate cousins if only the chicks didn’t band together and keep them in their place.
humans are closer to chimpanzees than any other animal species (we share 99.6% of their DNA material), and we are *their* closest relatives as well. And chimps certainly act a lot like humans—or maybe we should say that humans act a lot like chimps. Chimpanzees appear to murder interlopers or even their own for no other apparent reason than for the sheer "fun" of it. They kill infant babies (as do gorillas, although probably for different reasons) just like humans are known to do, they threaten uncompliant females into sexual submission just like some human men do, and they raid other chimp colonies for food and to conquer and kill the foreign chimps, just like our armies do.
So human men may be violent because of their evolutionary origins, and not because of any "original sin"; but the good news is that, like the bonobos, we can rise above it. We are not slaves to our nature like our jungle cousins, and therein lies the difference.
so i guess there is hope after all..the animal instinct inside of us..it can be tamed..phew!
however i did come across a page that has close close resemblance to some questions that had been playing in my mind for quite some time. practically it is about the violence that had been happening all around the world. last sunday there were some vivid photographs abt the torture in iraqi prisons. it was really disgusting and i dont know why..when i see people being tortured and people torturing one another,it deeply affects my mind and i keep thinking about it..well..lets get back to the article..here's what i found out..
Of the five major primate groups in our family tree, four are rife with violent behavior and/or the sort of chauvinist social hierarchies we’ve seen in human beings over the course of history. Orangatans rape; chimpanzees raid and murder and kill infants, and force unwilling female chimps into sexual activity. Gorillas have a harem organization; baboons kill each other, fight over females and also force females into sexual activity. In fact, there are precious few of the things we might traditionally define as "sin" or "evil" that is not already prevalent somewhere in the primate world.
So which primate is the exception? Only recently have scientists begun to study a primate once incorrectly classified as a chimpanzee, now called a "bonobo." bonobo society is perhaps the first to be found where males and females are equal, and male violence is contained by females banding together to protect each other from the larger males.
"…The females don’t often have to assert their power," the book tells us about these gentle Congo River apes. "Occasionally a male may lose his temper, attacking a female badly enough to tear her ear, for example. But such cases, as Kano’s research makes clear, are very unusual. Males rarely attack females (half as often as they attack each other), and when they do, they are liable to be driven off by a gang of females."
And liberated these chicks are. Unlike other ape or even non-primate species, female bonobos can get laid any time, any place. They will copulate freely in front of the other males—something that would greatly distress a troop of chimps or gorillas, and cause the alpha male and his subordinates to drive the copulating male off. The male bonobos, on the other hand, look on casually, sometimes quietly waiting their turn with the available female.
bonobo ladies are not above indulging in a little lesbian sex. According to the local natives, who call it "hoka-hoka", bonobo females will engage in a sort of sexual activity that resembles missionary sex but which involves rubbing the genitals together and resulting in what looks very much like orgasm for both.
It’s scandalous stuff, all right. But it makes you wonder if humans can’t evolve past their own violent, female-possessive tendencies, since male bonobos are bigger and stronger than the females and could dominate them like all their other primate cousins if only the chicks didn’t band together and keep them in their place.
humans are closer to chimpanzees than any other animal species (we share 99.6% of their DNA material), and we are *their* closest relatives as well. And chimps certainly act a lot like humans—or maybe we should say that humans act a lot like chimps. Chimpanzees appear to murder interlopers or even their own for no other apparent reason than for the sheer "fun" of it. They kill infant babies (as do gorillas, although probably for different reasons) just like humans are known to do, they threaten uncompliant females into sexual submission just like some human men do, and they raid other chimp colonies for food and to conquer and kill the foreign chimps, just like our armies do.
So human men may be violent because of their evolutionary origins, and not because of any "original sin"; but the good news is that, like the bonobos, we can rise above it. We are not slaves to our nature like our jungle cousins, and therein lies the difference.
so i guess there is hope after all..the animal instinct inside of us..it can be tamed..phew!
posted by BluePixie @ 10:46 PM
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