Mr.Samsa wrote:I don't think the belief that bonobos are "peaceful" has been accepted for a while now. Unlike other apes and monkeys, bonobos are fairly unique in that not only will they physically attack any outsiders that come within their area, but the female leaders will actively organise hunting parties to chase these primates down into neighbouring territories, where they will capture them, bring them back to their territory, and then eat them.

The story in the news article is an interesting anecdote, I'd be interested in seeing some scientific evidence to back it up.

It's just more pop science written by people who would be better suited to blogging about Lady Gaga.

Mr.Samsa wrote:The story in the news article is an interesting anecdote, I'd be interested in seeing some scientific evidence to back it up.

How about this:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/3/l_073_03.html

You seem to be missing the fact that the violence they show towards outsiders in parallel to their more relaxed attitude towards each other is partly the to do with their better food supply compred with that of the chimps, and partly to do with the effects of the hormone, oxytocin, as a facilitator of social recognition:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1764849/

Humans and bonobos, both known for high levels of social reciprocity, empathy and sociosexual bonding, have a repetitive microsatellite locus 3625bp upstream of the transcription start site. In contrast, this microsatellite locus is absent in the common chimpanzee, reminiscent of the genetic differences between highly social and asocial voles at this locus

Is that good enough for you?

Maybe there's just a lower number of sexually frustrated males hanging around?

I'm With Stupid wrote:Maybe there's just a lower number of sexually frustrated males hanging around?

That is one factor, but there are clearly others, as discussed in the references above. It is well established that oxytocin engenders in-group social peace at the price of aggression towards outsiders, even in mammals generally, almost certainly including humans as well as bonobos and rats.

DavidMcC wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:The story in the news article is an interesting anecdote, I'd be interested in seeing some scientific evidence to back it up.

How about this:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/3/l_073_03.html

You seem to be missing the fact that the violence they show towards outsiders in parallel to their more relaxed attitude towards each other is partly the to do with their better food supply compred with that of the chimps, and partly to do with the effects of the hormone, oxytocin, as a facilitator of social recognition:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1764849/

Humans and bonobos, both known for high levels of social reciprocity, empathy and sociosexual bonding, have a repetitive microsatellite locus 3625bp upstream of the transcription start site. In contrast, this microsatellite locus is absent in the common chimpanzee, reminiscent of the genetic differences between highly social and asocial voles at this locus

Is that good enough for you?

Not really, I was hoping for some experimental research on reciprocity and altruism in bonobos. Observational studies are interesting, but ultimately marred by our biases - hence the need for science. The oxytocin mechanism is an interesting suggestion, but again the paper just mentions that bonobos are "known" for their altruism and reciprocity, without citing any studies which demonstrate this. It all just seems a bit circular: X are altruistic because of Y, and Y is a mechanism for altruism because X possess it.

I was hoping for some controlled experimental studies looking at altruism in bonobos, but I'm not sure any currently exists. As such, we should probably be a bit more wary of assigning characteristics to them based on observational reports.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Not really, I was hoping for some experimental research on reciprocity and altruism in bonobos. Observational studies are interesting, but ultimately marred by our biases - hence the need for science. The oxytocin mechanism is an interesting suggestion, but again the paper just mentions that bonobos are "known" for their altruism and reciprocity, without citing any studies which demonstrate this. It all just seems a bit circular: X are altruistic because of Y, and Y is a mechanism for altruism because X possess it.

I was hoping for some controlled experimental studies looking at altruism in bonobos, but I'm not sure any currently exists. As such, we should probably be a bit more wary of assigning characteristics to them based on observational reports.

Yep. Observational studies such as this are useful for developing hypotheses and almost entirely worthless for testing them.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Not really, I was hoping for some experimental research on reciprocity and altruism in bonobos.

You seem to be confusing "caring" with "altruistic". The OP doesn't even mention altruism. Thus, you go on to rubbish science papers on the basis of a misunderstanding on your part.

Understanding the neurobiological substrates regulating normal social behaviours may provide valuable insights in human behaviour, including developmental disorders such as autism that are characterized by pervasive deficits in social behaviour. Here, we review the literature which suggests that the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin play critical roles in modulating social behaviours, with a focus on their role in the regulation of social bonding in monogamous rodents.

Species differences in the density of receptors for oxytocin and vasopressin in ventral forebrain reward circuitry differentially reinforce social-bonding behaviour in the two species. High levels of oxytocin receptor (OTR) in the nucleus accumbens and high levels of vasopressin 1a receptor (V1aR) in the ventral pallidum contribute to monogamous social structure in the prairie vole.

That is what the second paper I referenced is actually about. The only assumption they are making in their reference to bonobos and humans is that the effects of oxytocin apply to all mammals, not just to rodents.

DavidMcC wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Not really, I was hoping for some experimental research on reciprocity and altruism in bonobos.

You seem to be confusing "caring" with "altruistic". The OP doesn't even mention altruism. Thus, you go on to rubbish science papers on the basis of a misunderstanding on your part.

You can nail @Mr.Samsa on wording, but his concerns are valid. I recently read an excellent article on nutritional epidemiology at http://garytaubes.com/2012/03/science-p ... -and-meat/ I don't find it particularly valuable for nutritional epidemiology, which I mostly do not care about, but what it says about science in general is quite good.

Basically, it's quite easy to find correlations. Searching for causal relationships is the hard part of science, and for this reason, it is omitted in a lot of research.

We know (or I guess we think we know) some things about bonobos and chimpanzees, including (maybe) the following:

1) In the words of George Carlin, bonobos make fuck, not kill.
2) Bonobos are smaller and weaker than chimpanzees.
3) They are on the other side of the Congo.
4) They don't compete with gorillas.
5) Do they have more oxytocin? Maybe. How many bonobo brains have been dissected to count receptors?
6) Bonobos are "led by females." I'm not even sure what that means. Female humans often say that male humans lead the world; male humans often say the same about female humans. Radar O'Reilly clearly led the 4077 M*A*S*H by one standard, Col. Potter by another. We can't even get our own species approximately right.
7) As for sex differences, female chimpanzees have been observed stealing and eating the infants of other female chimpanzees, and female humans have been observed sending young men to die in the Crimean War, neither of which is particularly caring.
8) Study of our closest relatives to any degree is in its infancy. It's younger than I am. I distinctly remember when organized warfare was discovered for the first time amongst chimpanzees, and I was already an adult.

In addition, apes dumber than chimpanzees and more removed from us have been observed behaving in quite different ways depending on the troupe (compare the Berkeley baboons to others).

Even if we were sure about everything on the list, it would take a lot of really good science to figure out what causes what. That's even without conflation from the warm fuzzy hippie glow that bonobos seem to have achieved in human folklore. Hell, even I would like to believe it. But science?

DavidMcC wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Not really, I was hoping for some experimental research on reciprocity and altruism in bonobos.

You seem to be confusing "caring" with "altruistic". The OP doesn't even mention altruism. Thus, you go on to rubbish science papers on the basis of a misunderstanding on your part.

There's no misunderstanding. "Caring" is not a scientific description of a behavior, when used in pop-science articles it refers to the concepts of altruism, reciprocity, social cooperation, etc. It's a general catch-all term for "acting nicely". This explains why the authors of the actual paper make no mention of "caring", and they make no claim that it's because they are led by females (they suggest it's because they are large mixed-sex groups who are interested in group cohesion). They make no claim about it being an example of "caring" or "altruism" etc, because they realise it's an observational study, so they only report the data and the fact, without their own interpretations. If it were an experimental design, the setup would be an "altruism" design; where one animal engages in an action that helps a conspecific (coming back and releasing it from the snare), at the cost or possible cost to themselves (they had to trek back over many miles, into an area with little food, etc).

DavidMcC wrote:

Understanding the neurobiological substrates regulating normal social behaviours may provide valuable insights in human behaviour, including developmental disorders such as autism that are characterized by pervasive deficits in social behaviour. Here, we review the literature which suggests that the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin play critical roles in modulating social behaviours, with a focus on their role in the regulation of social bonding in monogamous rodents.

Species differences in the density of receptors for oxytocin and vasopressin in ventral forebrain reward circuitry differentially reinforce social-bonding behaviour in the two species. High levels of oxytocin receptor (OTR) in the nucleus accumbens and high levels of vasopressin 1a receptor (V1aR) in the ventral pallidum contribute to monogamous social structure in the prairie vole.

That is what the second paper I referenced is actually about. The only assumption they are making in their reference to bonobos and humans is that the effects of oxytocin apply to all mammals, not just to rodents.

Unless "prairie voles" are a nickname for "bonobos", then the information is interesting but useless to us for the question we're asking. There are millions of possible mechanisms to explain altruism, cooperation, or social bonding in bonobos. All of those mechanisms are useless if there is no behavior there that needs explaining.

Mr.Samsa, if you check the NCBI paper I linked, you'll find that it does not use the word "caring" in any case. Therefore, why do you even think I was misled by it? I suggest that it is you who are misled, for the reasons I have already mentioned, based on the meaning of the word "altruism" that caused you (not me) to misinterpret the "popsci" article.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Unless "prairie voles" are a nickname for "bonobos", then the information is interesting but useless to us for the question we're asking.

Please try to read my posts better. I have already said that the scientists were assuming that the role of oxytocin is common to mammals, and not just to rodents. I think they themselves were aware of that assumtion.

... BTW, the above is a reasonable assumption as it would help all social mammals to live with each other (on whom they depend, as part of their environment), but not with the outsiders. This is true for both "mice and men", so to speak. (Well, OK, rats and men, then, as mice are not social!)

Forgetting the popsci article for a moment, if anyone has a problem with the science behind bonoboand rodent social behaviour, I suggest they take it up with the authors of the NIH paper:
Larry J Young, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, Yerkes National Primate Research Centre, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30329, USA

e-mail: lyoun03@emory.edu

Perhaps the main confusion in this thread is caused by the popsci article's use of the word "caring", which Mr.Samsa interpreted (rightly or wrongly, I wouldn't know) as altruism. The point is that I realise that the known differences bonobo and chimp temperament are probably related to a combination of oxytocin levels, food supply and sexual tension in males. Thus, the issue of altruism in bonobos is a red herring, which some posters have latched on to as something I am defending (which I am not).

DavidMcC wrote:Mr.Samsa, if you check the NCBI paper I linked, you'll find that it does not use the word "caring" in any case. Therefore, why do you even think I was misled by it? I suggest that it is you who are misled, for the reasons I have already mentioned, based on the meaning of the word "altruism" that caused you (not me) to misinterpret the "popsci" article.

I never said that you were misled. And I only skimmed the article in the OP to find out what the original paper was - my claims that it was an investigation into altruism was based on the paper published by the authors. Do you disagree with the conclusions of the authors based on the article in the OP?

DavidMcC wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Unless "prairie voles" are a nickname for "bonobos", then the information is interesting but useless to us for the question we're asking.

Please try to read my posts better. I have already said that the scientists were assuming that the role of oxytocin is common to mammals, and not just to rodents. I think they themselves were aware of that assumtion.

I can read your posts fine, but you keep making the same irrelevant point over and over again. Yes it's nice that the authors assume that it's common to all mammals. What I'm saying is that I'd like to see some evidence of this. The fact that these authors can speculate such a generalisation is not even interesting to me.

DavidMcC wrote:... BTW, the above is a reasonable assumption as it would help all social mammals to live with each other (on whom they depend, as part of their environment), but not with the outsiders. This is true for both "mice and men", so to speak. (Well, OK, rats and men, then, as mice are not social!)

It could help all mammals to live together, sure. Evidence that it applies to all mammals would be interesting.

DavidMcC wrote:Forgetting the popsci article for a moment, if anyone has a problem with the science behind bonoboand rodent social behaviour, I suggest they take it up with the authors of the NIH paper:
Larry J Young, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, Yerkes National Primate Research Centre, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30329, USA

e-mail: lyoun03@emory.edu

There's no problem with their paper. They discussed the science behind how oxytocin regulates social bonding (and other behaviors) in two rodents. They speculate that their findings may have implications for other mammals, with the implication that more research in that area is needed. The problem is not their science, but your interpretation, where you are assuming that their unevidenced speculation is evidential support for your beliefs.

DavidMcC wrote:Perhaps the main confusion in this thread is caused by the popsci article's use of the word "caring", which Mr.Samsa interpreted (rightly or wrongly, I wouldn't know) as altruism.

I didn't even realise "caring" was a relevant part of the linked article until you brought it up. My claims that the observational paper was based on altruism was derived entirely from the original article. Have you even read the original article?

DavidMcC wrote:The point is that I realise that the known differences bonobo and chimp temperament are probably related to a combination of oxytocin levels, food supply and sexual tension in males.

What known difference? The bulk of the original article (not the one linked to in the OP) was a discussion on how similar chimp and bonobo behavior was, and the authors used previous observations of chimp behavior to support their own findings. Particularly important was a paper written in 2008 where another group of researchers had observed chimpanzees performing the same behavior as the bonobos in their study, where they trekked back to find a trapped conspecific in a snare and set about releasing him.

DavidMcC wrote:Thus, the issue of altruism in bonobos is a red herring, which some posters have latched on to as something I am defending (which I am not).

The concept of altruism forms the basis of the original article. If you're not discussing altruism, then I'm not sure how your comments are relevant to this thread.

DavidMcC wrote:Forgetting the popsci article for a moment, if anyone has a problem with the science behind bonoboand rodent social behaviour, I suggest they take it up with the authors of the NIH paper:
Larry J Young, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, Yerkes National Primate Research Centre, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30329, USA

e-mail: lyoun03@[color=#CC0000][b]emory.edu

[/b][/color]

The paper is just fine. The problem is that you do not understand what kind of a paper it is, and you seem not to care.

The overwhelming majority of papers exist for the purpose of opening the minds of other people in the field to a possibility for further investigation. This is one of those papers. Then the hard work of focused experiment begins, except when it doesn't which is most of the time. When an issue seems important enough, eventually, scientists work on it to the point where the evidence is cogent. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this does not happen.

Consider the huge number of papers seeking to explore the Pons and Flieschmann cold fusion results. I was working in a mostly-physics but also cross-disciplinary research project at the time (with deep connections to CERN and Fermilab), and everyone, without exception was extremely excited and hopeful about the possibility. Everyone pretty much dropped everything to look into it. Then, as various research groups withdrew their assertions, and the final straw of the APS meeting where the poor calorimetry of the experiments was exposed. (My friend Jim Carr wrote an excellent little summary called "Shaken, not stirred")

The purpose of this paper and the majority of papers is to generate this kind of excitement, which mostly fails, but in some cases can lead to the kind of investigation by which the hard and useful part of science gets done. @Mr. Samsa is asking whether that part has been done. It seems that it hasn't, and it seems that you don't care.

Until then, this site is named rationalskepticism.org, so it is forgivable to conclude that rational skepticism, while obviously unpopular, is still technically permitted here.

epepke wrote:The problem is that you do not understand what kind of a paper it is, and you seem not to care.

Eh? Why do you think it's me that has misunderstood or "doesn't care"? The fact is that the hypothesis given in the NIH paper was a serious one, but Mr.Samsa dismissed it as some kind of popsci joke. I was merely pointing out I was not relying on popsci, as Mr.Samsa claimed.

DavidMcC wrote:

epepke wrote:The problem is that you do not understand what kind of a paper it is, and you seem not to care.

Eh? Why do you think it's me that has misunderstood or "doesn't care"? The fact is that the hypothesis given in the NIH paper was a serious one, but Mr.Samsa dismissed it as some kind of popsci joke.

I never dismissed that paper as pop-science. It's just irrelevant, and I explained why it doesn't answer the question I posed above.

DavidMcC wrote:I was merely pointing out I was not relying on popsci, as Mr.Samsa claimed.

I never claimed you were relying on pop-science. You brought up the issue of "caring" and I explained why the pop-science article linked in the OP used that term instead of more scientifically acceptable terms like altruism or social cooperation (as the authors in the original paper use).

Mr.Samsa wrote:Not really, I was hoping for some experimental research on reciprocity and altruism in bonobos.

Again, it was you that introduced the word "altruism" into this. Why? Nobody has suggested that altruism comes into bonobo behaviour in any case. It's just about how bonobos have reduced intra-group violence relative to chimps.

The problem is not their science, but your interpretation, where you are assuming that their unevidenced speculation is evidential support for your beliefs.

Gotcha! That's hilarious, but also revealing! If you think you're lecturing a hippy on science, think again. I am NOT a hippy, nor am I influenced in any way by unscientific hippy nonsense, nor were the authors of the NIH paper presenting "unevidenced speculation":

In sum, comparative studies in pair-bonding rodents have revealed neural and genetic mechanisms contributing to social-bonding behaviour.

It is only in the case of the extension to humans, and possible treatment for autism that they are speculative. But this thread is not about autism, or even human psychology.

epepke wrote:The paper is just fine. The problem is that you do not understand what kind of a paper it is, and you seem not to care.

Whilst I agree that, as an NIH paper, it's principal aim is to suggest lines of human medical research, it nonetheless presents hard evidence that is highly relevant to this thread. Thus your conclusion that "I don't understand and don't seem to care" is bizarre.