1. Comment #312737 by Dhamma on January 5, 2009 at 1:22 pm

Lovely, I've been trying to post this awesome Ted talk TWICE to Rd.net. I guess someone respectful did it now.

This is a video every evolution-denier should see.

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2. Comment #312741 by Tezcatlipoca on January 5, 2009 at 1:35 pm

I'll have to check it out when I get home from work. My question is...did they break 100,000 on Pac-man(qm)

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3. Comment #312745 by FatherNature on January 5, 2009 at 1:41 pm

I've heard it said that chimps and bonobos share about 98% of our DNA. Based on the walking animation I'd guess that bonobos are a closer relative. Does anyone know which shares the highest percentage?

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4. Comment #312753 by ridelo on January 5, 2009 at 1:57 pm

They have to be closer to us than the other chimps. Does DNA confirm that?
But then again, maybe not. The other chimps are warmongers.

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5. Comment #312762 by Meph on January 5, 2009 at 2:31 pm

The proper title to this posting should be, "Other apes that write, start fires and play Pac-Man" ;)

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6. Comment #312773 by Muetze on January 5, 2009 at 2:40 pm

I would guess that it would be about equal. Bonobos are a species of chimpanzee, and we share the same common ancestor with both species. I wouldn't expect them to have more DNA similarity with us than pan troglodytes than would be expected by chance variation.

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7. Comment #312776 by AQZ on January 5, 2009 at 2:45 pm

As Richard Dawkins has explained (in The Ancestor's Tale, I believe), because the evolutionary split between the Bonobo and Common Chimpanzee occurred after humans split from chimpanzees, we can't be said to be a closer relative to either species.

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8. Comment #312777 by Brian English on January 5, 2009 at 2:47 pm

we can't be said to be a closer relative to either species.

Tell that to the guys who fondle chimps. :)

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9. Comment #312779 by Opisthokont on January 5, 2009 at 2:48 pm

Neither bonobos nor chimpanzees are closer to us. They diverged from a common ancestor a long time after that common ancestor diverged from an earlier ancestor which it shared with us. To put it another way, they are sisters, and our cousins. (Their common ancestors would then be their parents, and the older common ancestors our mutual grandparents.) Neither sister is more closely related to us than the other, and each is more closely related to her sister than to us. Make sense?

Now, of course, it is entirely possible that bonobos have undergone less evolution than chimpanzees, meaning that they resembles their common ancestor with chimpanzees more closely than do chimpanzees. In a way, that would make them more closely related to us, but only in the sense that one of my cousins might look more like me than another. Does that count as "more closely related"?

To put that another way, bonobos have been said to resemble what some imagine our common ancestor (our mutual grandparents in my analogy above) to have been like more than any of the extant descendants, so maybe one could say that they are closer to us. But this is speculative; and in any event I have not examined the phylogenetic relationships enough to say anything comfortably more authoritative on the matter. Ultimately, as with many questions in science, the answer depends on one's definitions and prior assumptions.

As for percentages, the number varies between 95% and 99%, depending on which data one looks at and how one looks at it. (Proteins tend to be more highly conserved than DNA; not all stretches of DNA change at the same rate; mitochondrial genomes evolve faster than nuclear genomes; and so on. I must confess that I do not know which specific numbers correspond to which specific methods and datasets, though.) Actually, the percent similarity is something of a red herring: the regulatory regions of the genes are more significant in distinguishing us from our cousins than are the genes themselves.

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10. Comment #312792 by AshtonBlack on January 5, 2009 at 2:59 pm

Amazing... wonderful work.

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11. Comment #312796 by headcold on January 5, 2009 at 3:04 pm

Interesting video. Scientists aren't known for their ability to correctly light a scene for video, which makes for some dark shots where I could barely distinguish where the chimps were.

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12. Comment #312808 by armin.lotze on January 5, 2009 at 3:20 pm

My sympathies for the bonobos notwithstanding, I do feel a bit uneasy about equalling them with the Tasmanian Aboriginals. If only because they belong to a different species and thus cannot be compared.

The Tasmanians are no longer in a position to prove what amazing faculties of abstraction they had, because they are extinct.

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13. Comment #312810 by Brian English on January 5, 2009 at 3:23 pm

Tasmanian aboriginals were/are homo sapiens. I think there's still a few people getting around with some claims to having Tasmanian aboriginal ancestors.

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14. Comment #312878 by AfraidToDie on January 5, 2009 at 4:23 pm

My first big question about what they were doing with the bonobos was when they learned how to build and start a fire with a lighter. They thought the bonobo might even be able to learn how to start a fire without the lighter - now that's a scary thought. I wonder how many major forest fires were started by early man while learning how to harness it?

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15. Comment #312887 by DamnDirtyApe on January 5, 2009 at 4:38 pm

Beautiful.

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16. Comment #312896 by armin.lotze on January 5, 2009 at 4:52 pm

No doubt there's still a few people getting around with some claims to having Tasmanian aboriginal ancestors (some three or four generations back). Quite unlike bonobo ancestors, unless you go back millions and millions of years.

I find the comparison of Tasmanians with bonobos at best naive; more likely: atrocious.

No matter how pleasant bonobos may be.

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17. Comment #312954 by Ohnhai on January 5, 2009 at 6:02 pm

@AfraidToDie: forget early man, modern man does plenty of damage in that regard while supposedly having the wits to know what they are doing...


@Armin: Why do you find the comparison so obnoxious? She specifically said this group of humans didn't have fire, 'culture' and so on.

If you took away from 'man' the knowledge of fire, song, complex tool making, complex language, stupid Victorian prudish morals, then we would simply be naked apes in the forest hunting and gathering. Alien visitors would be hard pressed to tell the difference save for amount of hair and some minimal morphological differences.

the fact that this group had apparently missed the technological and cultural revolutions in the intervening years since they arrived on Tasmania, where as other groups of the same period hadn't strengthens the claim that abilities such as music , art writing, toolmaking, fire theory, aren't biologically restricted in the apes but are learned culturally.

I'm sure (if they survived biological contamination with their 'discoverers') it wasn't long before these islanders had been taught the benefits of fire, improved clothing, and accepting Jesus as your personal savior... They were likely to be perfectly capable of these things, but had simply never been exposed to them.

as the majority of the great apes have the far less upright posture, with only Bonobo and Human showing distinct tendency towards fully upright, I find it a tantalizing concept that rather than the Chimp going back to all fours from a more upright common ancestor with Bonobo and Human, that the bonobo's upright gate is actually a parallel emergence of what we would consider 'human traits'. That they are on the road to becoming the 'other human'. After all we know that the eye has evolved in different guises and methods about 40 times, it makes sense that such a usefully adaptive solution such as the human form could be, would be and should be hit upon more than once.

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18. Comment #312961 by Styrer- on January 5, 2009 at 6:14 pm

As wonderful as this talk is, with its video, in showing us just how closely the Bonobos' actions can mirror our own, there is no evidence whatsoever that they can 'understand spoken language' as is enticingly stated by admin.

'Responding to certain sounds' is definitely in play, but there is no evidence whatsoever presented that the vital notion of 'language' here has been touched on at all.

Cute. But overegged, I think. And admin - you're not in the sales business, so refrain from trying to sell us the eggs.

Best,
Styrer

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19. Comment #312966 by Robin Burgess on January 5, 2009 at 6:18 pm

I'm begining to be convinced that (at least part of) the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should apply to Bonobos.

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20. Comment #312969 by Kellan on January 5, 2009 at 6:19 pm

She reminds me a lot of my anthropology professor.

Fascinating video too.

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21. Comment #313014 by armin.lotze on January 5, 2009 at 7:17 pm

Ohnhai -

Why do I find the comparison so obnoxious?

It isn't because I find bonobos so much inferior. It's because, in the course of history, aboriginal populations have so often been compared to animals; and "animals" was always MEANT as something inferior.

That's something I don't want to put up with.

The Tasmanians were most probably far better off without Jesus; and they had all the tools they needed. Except those that turned out to be necessary to fight off you know whom.

Archaeological findings suggest that they even forgot about the previously known art of making clothes, a feat unmatched in any other human society. Maybe it was good for them?

I still resent inter-special comparisons.

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22. Comment #313018 by chuckgoecke on January 5, 2009 at 7:21 pm

I think I remember learning that bonobos or chimps, although generally vegetarian, do occasionally eat meat. They even actively hunt, and the hunting groups are strictly male. They hunt mainly monkeys, and other smaller animals, the males eat most of the meat, but some of it is used to bribe females for sex. Sounds pretty human to me.

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23. Comment #313161 by Tumara Baap on January 5, 2009 at 10:05 pm

Fascinating. Thought provoking. Even uplifting.

And surely profoundly upsetting to Dinesh D'Souza. I suppose it's time for round two of a Bonobos-really-do-suck conservative rant in the WSJ.

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24. Comment #313176 by MPhil on January 5, 2009 at 10:22 pm

Well, that's part of what I've been saying all the time. Now the difference between what the best of these animals can do and what humans can do (including citities, government, poetry, scinece etc) comes from a different synaptic density, increased relative volume of critical functional areas and the resulting more complex neurocogntive architecture.

These findings show that the structure of the stimuli drive the development of neural architecture within the limits given by the genes and other environmental factors.

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25. Comment #313177 by DalaiDrivel on January 5, 2009 at 10:28 pm

I found it a bit unpleasant watching this, frankly.

Yes, we are learning about them and their abilities, but don't the researchers realise that by encouraging them to play the piano, use lighters, receive kisses, etc., that they are humanising them?

I don't want to say that the bonobos are learning more about humans than vice versa, but they are certainly learning about us.

A great part of me yearns for them to be left alone, and observed.

The paranoid side of me sees a Pandora's Box of interspecies' friction erupting. Maybe in many years, many generations' time, and its maybe only dark fantasy, but nonetheless...

What if people openly wanted to adopt or humanise them? Who knows- what if nutjobs wanted them to give up their sex lives through humanisation, or see them in circuses? It makes me recoil.

At the very least I want to see that the team has invested thought into the consequences of interaction, and has made confident predictions of the effects on bonobo culture, as they acknowledge said culture exists.

As Sam Harris stated in the Four Horsemen discussion, we can never actually gauge the true future extent of our actions, like presupposing that souls live in petri dishes.

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26. Comment #313179 by Roy_H on January 5, 2009 at 10:29 pm

You can teach a Bonobo to make fire. You can't teach a creationist anything.( They know it all )

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27. Comment #313180 by DalaiDrivel on January 5, 2009 at 10:31 pm

I'd like to add one thing:

Bonobos aren't human. And that's why they've got everything going for them.

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28. Comment #313185 by joycey28 on January 5, 2009 at 10:39 pm

Absolutely amazing video.

No wonder all those chimps smoke, they have a natural tendency to use cigarette lighters - maybe giving a pack of smokes and a lighter to other species may point to other close ancestors?

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29. Comment #313189 by MPhil on January 5, 2009 at 10:44 pm

The problem with the written 'langauge' (or rather set of lexicograms) was both that the grapheme memory and recollection (and perhaps the intention-to-grapheme mapping) was not as sophisticated, which is probably due to less voluminous and synaptically dense Broca's and Wernicke's areal and various other specialized sub-architectures in them compared to us - and the other problem was the lack of syntactic complexity.

Of course you can't try several systems on one individual and see which it can adopt best... so I would say the next logical step would be to devote that sort of attention to teaching bonobos and chimps - i.e. enhancing their neuro-cognitive development, but try different systems of reference and expression with incerasing complexity. That way we can test which complexity of cognition and thus of situated, extended awareness their neural architecture allows them to develop.

From there on, we should be able to begin finding out how the specific differences in neuroanatomy, neurobiology and neurophysiology (focussing on architecture, synaptic density and complexity of weight-distributions) account for the differences in observed cognitive capacity.

Man, the future of neuroscience will be even more exciting than the its first 50 years.

It's so great to be alive during the time when we really begin figuring out the greatest mystery, or rather 'puzzle' of all - mentality and cognition.

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30. Comment #313217 by Quine on January 5, 2009 at 11:56 pm

It's so great to be alive during the time when we really begin figuring out the greatest mystery, or rather 'puzzle' of all - mentality and cognition.

Would like to be around to see the next 100 years of it, but that's a long shot.

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31. Comment #313231 by J.Anderson on January 6, 2009 at 12:37 am

Good video, but professor Savage-Rumbaugh is off her rocker if she thinks culture is the only thing that separates the bonobo from human beings (such as the Tasmanian people). Primitive humans such as the New Guineans are now getting advanced degrees and flying jets, when just a few decades ago they were hardly more sophisticated than the Tasmanian tribe. The bonobo, as intelligent as they are, struggle to figure out the logic of a simple motor vehicle. Any human would have mastered such a machine in minutes. But these points are obvious — I just don't understand how professor Savage-Rumbaugh could say such a thing.

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32. Comment #313279 by AfraidToDie on January 6, 2009 at 1:44 am

This lecture is not intended to be about the major differences between the species. It is about the many common evolutionary traits we share which just adds more evidence (fills the gaps) of evolution.

armin.lotze: I find the comparison of Tasmanians with bonobos at best naive; more likely: atrocious.

I don’t think the intent was to denigrate Tasmanians at all. The intent was to show that bonobos really do possess many traits that evolved in a way not dissimilar to many of the traits that evolved with modern man. It is simply building more evidence to support our own evolution, and in doing so, mounts ever so much more evidence against creationism.

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33. Comment #313294 by YouGottaShowMe on January 6, 2009 at 2:01 am

I would certainly love for Richard as the professional ethologist round here to comment on what he makes of Savage-Rumbaugh's interpretation of her apes' behaviour.

To me, what we can see of Kanzi in the videos looks a bit as though Savage-Rumbaugh were just commenting on Kanzi's actions and never quite causing them, at least not without lots of cues. Supposing I'm right on that, has she done any properly controlled experiments?

YouGottaShowMe (I guess)

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34. Comment #313299 by irate_atheist on January 6, 2009 at 2:06 am

From the article title, I initially assumed the article was about homo sapiens...

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35. Comment #313342 by tomdupre on January 6, 2009 at 3:53 am

This bonobo is better at driving, playing the piano and pacman than me.

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36. Comment #313373 by Rosbif on January 6, 2009 at 4:34 am

Any human would have mastered such a machine in minutes

Go to your local kart track and check out the first time kids. Or watch a parisienne try out her new Twingo.

Amazing video and makes one wonder how anybody can prefer stubborn ignorance than be excited by nature and its evolutions.

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37. Comment #313379 by Howay the Toon on January 6, 2009 at 4:41 am

re: the comparison with Tasmanian Aboriginals

The point of the comparison was not to say that Tasmanians were like Bonobos.

The point was that the Tasmanian's lack of certain technologies was not due to any inherent biological difference with the rest of Homo sapiens. They were exactly the same as the rest of us except for their cultural environment.

in the same way these Pac-man playing, fire starting, golf buggy driving bonobos are exactly the same as wild bonobos except for their cultural environment.

It was to emphasise the importance of the cultural environment in developing skills and language.

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38. Comment #313463 by J.Anderson on January 6, 2009 at 6:38 am

I beg your pardon, but she went much further than that. She clearly insinuated that Bonobos have language and that their cognitive capabilities are not that far off from human beings.

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39. Comment #313483 by Anvil on January 6, 2009 at 7:20 am

37. Comment #313379 by Howay the Toon:

Exactly!

38. Comment #313463 by J.Anderson:

But they 'do' have 'language', don't they? And surely, in terms of deep time at any rate, their cognitive capabilities are not that far off from human beings?

The ratchet of evolution in a fitness environment, both genetic and cultural, is what places us (and the Bonobo Society - I loved the way she emphasised the word Society) where we are. I thought this was the point she was trying to make. They, like us, are in a highly developed transitional stage with regards to cognition and language and that culture has a powerful effect in this development.

Watching a Bonobo make tools and the presenters following comparison with Homo Habilus blew me away.

Anyway, enjoyed it. Made me think - a bit, at least.

Anvil.

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40. Comment #313495 by weesam on January 6, 2009 at 7:45 am

Ohnhai
If you took away from 'man' the knowledge of fire, song, complex tool making, complex language, stupid Victorian prudish morals, then we would simply be naked apes in the forest hunting and gathering. Alien visitors would be hard pressed to tell the difference save for amount of hair and some minimal morphological differences.



That is so absurdly wrong it is laughable. If homo-sapiens did not have those qualities you mention, we would still have the brain to acquire them.

The potential difference in a human baby with none of those qualities; and an ape infant is almost infinite. So indeed, an alien, clever enough to cross the cosmos and arrive on earth, would indeed see that potential; because it is blindingly obvious.

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41. Comment #313497 by J.Anderson on January 6, 2009 at 7:47 am

They communicate, but I see no evidence of language.

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42. Comment #313511 by RichardofYork on January 6, 2009 at 8:11 am

I recoiled when i saw the collars and leads the bonobos were restrained with , it says alot about the difference of species

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43. Comment #313529 by InfuriatedSciTeacher on January 6, 2009 at 8:58 am

Weesam>
Care to elaborate, preferably with evidence, on the claims you made in #40' It may be blindingly obvious, but 'round here that's referred to as "begging the question".

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44. Comment #313561 by Anvil on January 6, 2009 at 10:26 am

41. Comment #313497 by J.Anderson:

They communicate, but I see no evidence of language.

Yes, but... sorry, I'm no expert on this - or indeed anything, for that matter - and I'm as prone to anthropomorphism as the next person (my dog understands everything I say!) but communication is more than just a prerequisite for language isn't it? Surely it's part of the development of language itself? Communication is language.

Hey, maybe it's all just semantics. Anyway, just a thought.

Anvil.

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45. Comment #313637 by zeroangel on January 6, 2009 at 12:32 pm

What if people openly wanted to adopt or humanise them? Who knows- what if nutjobs wanted them to give up their sex lives through humanisation, or see them in circuses? It makes me recoil.

Indeed. What if people decided to take them into thier homes and have them do menial tasks like the dishes, the laundry, walking the dog, picking cotton etc. in exchange for food.

I am only half-joking when I say this.

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46. Comment #313640 by Border Collie on January 6, 2009 at 12:38 pm

Astounding ...

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47. Comment #313848 by chuckgoecke on January 6, 2009 at 2:46 pm

RichardofYork, I believe the author said something to the effect that it is the policy of the Primate research center that the apes all wear a lead when they are outside. In other words it wasn't her call. Your sentiments I concur with though. I was left with an uneasy feeling that even in one of the most humane(-is that the right word?) care facilities for primates, it is still basically a prison.

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48. Comment #313879 by DalaiDrivel on January 6, 2009 at 3:01 pm

Zeroangel,

Indeed. What if people decided to take them into thier homes and have them do menial tasks like the dishes, the laundry, walking the dog, picking cotton etc. in exchange for food.

Better the "inferior" species does it right? And that species won't be the humans...

We have an account of bonobos and humans deeply interacting here. I really don't think it would take much for human pig-headedness to expand these inter-species relations.

And the restraining with leashes, was, albeit a precaution probably necessary, disgusting and an affront to the sanctity of wild animals, and symbolised for me the extent to which they are at our mercy.

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49. Comment #314011 by zeroangel on January 6, 2009 at 5:14 pm

DalaiDrivel:

Actually, this is something I have been laboring over recently:

Firstly, up front: I am not a vegeterian. I do enjoy meat (often esp steak) and argue that it is natural. However, I imagine if stem cell research allows us to create meat for consumption without killing animals that would be a good thing.

That said, I think there are degrees to which animals should be given "rights." I dont think anyone would worry so much about the "rights" of a sponge, but a whale?

Is a developed CNS (one like ours) a good gauge of who deserves "rights?" Is that idea itself an arrogant human-centric idea?

If it's OK to eat cows (or whales in at least one culture), why is it not OK to treat animals as slaves? It seems accpetable to treat horses (for example) as slaves. Are they different because they aren't "wild?" Then again, they aren't wild because of humans in the first place.

It's a tough one, but back to the point: am I not so sure a futuristic world in which Bonobos are protected and cared for by human beings in exchange for manual labor is a terrible thing. Although, I think it might hit close to home because they just seem so "human."

Then again, I saw an ape in the Bronx zoo recently, I have to say, it didn't look happy, and I felt bad for her.

Anyhow, just thinking out loud here. I welcome any thoughts.

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50. Comment #314078 by Wosret on January 6, 2009 at 7:19 pm

I thought that the speaker was leading the audience a little too much for my liking.

The drawing symbols on the floor I found interesting, but the rest didn't seem all that impressive to me.

I'm not much better at drawing Kanji.

I'd rather see them observed in the wild. Them being caged, and leashed I find disturbing.

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