Signs of culture in whales and monkeys
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/349980/description/Signs_of_culture_in_whales_and_monkeysThe phrase “monkey see, monkey do” applies to humpback whales. Vervet monkeys and humpback whales both copy behaviors from their neighbors, researchers report April 25 in Science. The two studies suggest that, like humans, some wild animals pick up new habits from each other.
Accurately imitating one another’s actions is a “potential building block of culture,” says cultural evolutionist Peter Richerson of the University of California, Davis, who was not involved with the work. Complex culture builds upon people learning skills from each other, he says.
Scientists have previously spotted signs of social learning in monkeys, birds and other animals, but most studies relied on field observations or experiments with captive animals, says cognitive biologist Andrew Whiten of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
To gauge the role of social learning in wild animals, Whiten’s team trained four groups of vervet monkeys living in a South African game preserve to eat either blue or pink corn and despise corn of the other color. Whiten and colleagues did this by soaking one type of colored corn in an aloe solution that the monkeys found disgusting.
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That still isn't going to stop the Japanese, Norwegians & Icelanders from slaughtering
the whales or the scum of various nations from killing off monkeys for "bush-meat".
The poor creatures could even sit outside the United Nations building, writing their
own placards, yet they would *still* be seen as "dumb animals fit only for exploitation"
by the above nations and their supporters.
... but anyone who takes any interest in such research already has an appropriate
"sense of cosmic importance" and those who persist in the slaughter of other sentient
species are not interested in anything of that nature.
Yes, I agree that it is a wonderful thing to be publicised and yes, I think it may help
sway the world-views of some of the "undecided" (or simply ambivalent) but I am just
deeply cynical with regard to it changing the habits/thoughts/intentions of anyone who
is of the wilfully closed, destructive mindset and who is thus causing the major issues.
