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The "Darwin Bicentennial Birthday Celebration" Lecture 4
Apr 14, 2009
150 Years Since On the Origin of SpeciesA Darwin Bicentennial Birthday Celebration Lecture Series
Tuesday, April 14
FRANCES WHITE
Department of Anthropology and Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences, University of Oregon
Frances White Frances White is a primatologist interested in the evolution of non-human and human primate social behavior. Her research has included field studies of the bonobos or pygmy chimpanzees of the Lomako Forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaïre) and wild and captive studies of lemurs in Madagascar, the Duke University Primate Center (DUPC), NC and on St. Catherine's Island, GA.
“Make Love, Not War: What Chimpanzees Can Tell Us About the Evolution of Human Behavior”
Studies of wild apes are fundamental to our understanding of human evolution. Until recently, scientists have focused on the violent nature of male chimpanzees to reconstruct early human societies. Humans have an equally close relative in the bonobo or pygmy chimpanzee. Bonobo societies are based on peaceful cooperation and strong social bonds both between males and females and among females. Bonobos show affiliation among unrelated females and long-term bonding between individual males and females, especially adult sons and mothers. Bonobo communities also associate peacefully. Male bonobos do not form the bands associated with male cooperative killing behavior of chimpanzees. Instead, bonobo aggression is mild. Disputes and social tensions are often diffused through sexual behavior. This talk addresses questions central to our understanding of the social differences between bonobos and chimpanzees especially the ecological and social reasons for the bonobos peaceful nature thus allowing reconstructions of the probability of violence in early human societies.
