No Time for Bullies: Baboons Retool Their Culture

[Beaker]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/science/13BABO.html

Sometimes it takes the great Dustbuster of fate to clear the room of bullies and bad habits. Freak cyclones helped destroy Kublai Khan's brutal Mongolian empire, for example, while the Black Death of the 14th century capsized the medieval theocracy and gave the Renaissance a chance to shine. Among a troop of savanna baboons in Kenya, a terrible outbreak of tuberculosis 20 years ago selectively killed off the biggest, nastiest and most despotic males, setting the stage for a social and behavioral transformation unlike any seen in this notoriously truculent primate.

In a study appearing today in the journal PloS Biology (online at www.plosbiology.org), researchers describe the drastic temperamental and tonal shift that occurred in a troop of 62 baboons when its most belligerent members vanished from the scene. The victims were all dominant adult males that had been strong and snarly enough to fight with a neighboring baboon troop over the spoils at a tourist lodge garbage dump, and were exposed there to meat tainted with bovine tuberculosis, which soon killed them. Left behind in the troop, designated the Forest Troop, were the 50 percent of males that had been too subordinate to try dump brawling, as well as all the females and their young. With that change in demographics came a cultural swing toward pacifism, a relaxing of the usually parlous baboon hierarchy, and a willingness to use affection and mutual grooming rather than threats, swipes and bites to foster a patriotic spirit.

Remarkably, the Forest Troop has maintained its genial style over two decades, even though the male survivors of the epidemic have since died or disappeared and been replaced by males from the outside. (As is the case for most primates, baboon females spend their lives in their natal home, while the males leave at puberty to seek their fortunes elsewhere.) The persistence of communal comity suggests that the resident baboons must somehow be instructing the immigrants in the unusual customs of the tribe.

"We don't yet understand the mechanism of transmittal," said Dr. Robert M. Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford, "but the jerky new guys are obviously learning, `We don't do things like that around here.' " Dr. Sapolsky wrote the report with his colleague and wife, Dr. Lisa J. Share. Dr. Sapolsky, who is renowned for his study of the physiology of stress, said that the Forest Troop baboons probably felt as good as they acted. Hormone samples from the monkeys showed far less evidence of stress in even the lowest-ranking individuals, when contrasted with baboons living in more rancorous societies...

maybe we've been going at the problems with U.S. society the wrong way-
maybe what we need is some kind of "Final Solution" to rid us of the most rabid right-wing hatemongers.
so- when and where should we start building the camps...?

[Dufaeth]

1. This is freeper ammo waiting to happen.

"Look at what the DUers are saying!"

[Beaker]

7. when was the last time anyone cared or paid attention...

to what "freepers" are saying?
especially when it comes to what they're saying that we're saying...?

:silly:

[Dufaeth]

8. I don't care what freepers are saying....

....

[xchrom]

2. pacifists rule

cool!

[ant]

3. the bonobo way!

http://songweaver.com/info/bonobos.html

Based on an analysis of many such incidents, my study yielded the first solid evidence for sexual behavior as a mechanism to overcome aggression. Not that this function is absent in other animals--or in humans, for that matter--but the art of sexual reconciliation may well have reached its evolutionary peak in the bonobo. For these animals, sexual behavior is indistinguishable from social behavior. Given its peacemaking and appeasement functions, it is not surprising that sex among bonobos occurs in so many different partner combinations, including between juveniles and adults. The need for peaceful coexistence is obviously not restricted to adult heterosexual pairs.

[truthspeaker]

4. if you build camps, you become the bullies

and perpetuate the behavior, even if you get rid of the original practitioners.

[FDRrocks]

5. "maybe what we need is some kind of "Final Solution""

That is horribly tasteless.

[DBoon]

6. If women would refuse

to have children by these agressive a-holes, it would accomplish the same thing.

Or perhaps "testosterone poisoning" is in fact a medical condition requiring immediate sterilization as the only treatment?

[cryofan]

9. World War 1 & 2 did this to Europe, I think

And ever since it has been a relatively quiet and peaceful place, with socialist leanings.

[chaska]

10. Are you guys aware of communes?

There are places where these behaviors are practiced.

[Moderator]

11. Locking

an interesting discussion...without the inflammatory last paragraph.
Thx