Looking Back in Anger Sexual; Encounters Between Communities Adrienne L
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nate females, and relationships between males and females are congenial and highly Looking back in anger sexual; encounters between communities Adrienne L. Zih/man are generally friendly. The authors maintain that P paniscus is highly specialized anatomically, as shown Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence. By Richard Wrangham and by their smaller shoulder blade. The Dale Peterson. Houghton Mifflin: 1996. Pp. 332. $22.95. authors emphasize similarities in anatomy and behaviour between P troglodytes and HUMAN violence is a topic of prime con tory wide", a feature that "has its ultimate gorillas. But genetically the two species are cern in most cultures, an expression of the sources in male violence". Like chimpanzee much closer to each other than to any dark side of human nature, a focus of males, men try to dominate their peers and other primate, and both species are equally research and a favourite ingredient in want to win no matter what the cost. distant from Homo sapiens. the daily headlines. The primatologist Much of the book is devoted to dealing Language here is a problem. Rather Richard Wrangham has joined the writer with violence in humans and apes - but than describe as neutrally as possible what Dale Peterson to explore whether men's not in P paniscus. Males are found guilty of animals do and avoid tendentious interpre violent behaviour is cultural or has ancient acting abominably towards members of the tations that have specific meanings for roots in our ape ancestry. same species, hence the judgemental title human institutions or legal systems, the In tracing the roots of human violence, of the book. Males form coalitions to raid authors, from the title onward, schuss the authors draw parallels between the and murder their neighbours; males rape down the slushy slope describing ape human species and free-ranging chim and batter females and kill their infants. behaviour in terms of assassination, mur panzees at Gombe, Tanzania. Males from Yet females are obliged to turn to these der, infanticide, battering and rape. After one group seemed to kill systematically and very persecutors for protection. Females this downhill run, it seems easy to coast to brutally former compatriots; survivors and ape and human - perpetuate this pattern the conclusion that the behaviours so their descendents now form a neighbour through sexual selection by being attracted described have the same genetic, develop ing community. This observation in 1974, to the more aggressive males and bearing mental and social context for both apes and the first of its kind after 13 years of chimp their progeny. humans. watching, is often considered to reveal the It is understandable why P paniscus From the authors' point of view, ancestral origin of warfare and is the foun appears very late in the book and is P. paniscus is "a tale of vanquished dation for the authors' case that a unique dismissed as a deviant late arrival on the demonism". They speculate that the combination of social characteristics is evolutionary scene, a dead end. Focusing species moved away from a violent ancestry shared between humans and chimpanzees: on a P paniscus 'model' rather than because of the particular conditions of the that is, male-bonded communities and P troglodytes would of course undermine environment. P paniscus does not share its male-driven lethal intergroup raiding. the whole 'demonic' argument. In P panis rainforest habitat with gorillas, the argu What develops early on as a consider cus there is little aggression between males; ment goes, allowing it to take advantage of able flaw in this argument is that the males tend to avoid each other and stay the abundant herbs that are normally eaten authors discuss in detail the behaviour of close to their mothers. Males do not domi- by gorillas. The more abundant food only one of the two species of chim panzees. The genus Pan includes two species, P troglodytes and P paniscus, but, throughout the book, the authors use 'chimpanzee' to mean only P troglodytes. The term 'bonobo' rather than the original term 'pygmy chimpanzee' is used for P paniscus. This usage reflects valid dis agreement within primatology but is sure to confuse and mislead a nonprimatologist. Calling P paniscus bonobos wrongly implies that they are not chimpanzees, which they are. And, in their social behav iour, P paniscus in many ways is the oppo site toP troglodytes. Cross-cultural studies provide the authors with examples of the universality of male violence against men, against women and against members of other communi ties. The Yanamamo people from Brazil are well known for their lethal raids and counter-raids, and the raiders are allegedly the most genetically successful. There are no known human cultures, the authors report, that are rape-free or that have equality between the sexes. The island par THE great apes have a diverse range of social organization, from the solitary lives of orang-utans to patriarchy in gorillas. Great Ape Societies describes recent research on all adises of Paul Gauguin and Herman four species. The book, edited by William C. McGrew, Linda F. Marchant and Toshisada Melville existed only in their imaginations, Nishida, opens with a foreword by Jane Goodall, famous for her fieldwork with and Margaret Mead's vision of Samoa was chimpanzees, making a plea for conservation. Cambridge University Press, £55, hopelessly astigmatic. Patriarchal male $64.95 (hbk), £19.95, $24.95 (pbk). bonded cultures are "world wide and his- NATURE · VOL 384 · 7 NOVEMBER 1996 35 © 1996 Nature Publishing Group BOOK REVIEWS source allows it to live in larger and more - the usual opening to an academic cohesive groups than can humans or P. Myths about a career. (He was awarded only a fourth troglodytes. class, the lowest possible pass.) He then Furthermore, P. paniscus has not yet polymath became resentful towards the Uppsala been observed to hunt monkeys, a behav physicists who condemned all attempts at iour found in P. troglodytes. Could it be, the Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent theoretical interpretations. authors ask, that the suppression of per But in fact Arrhenius's 1884 doctoral sonal violence also suppresses predatory Arrhenius: From Ionic Theory to the dissertation, aimed at determining molecu aggression? They conclude that "murder Greenhouse Effect. By Elisabeth Craw lar weights by conductivity measurements, and hunting may be more closely tied ford. Science History Publications: 1996. did not contain his theory of electrolytic together than we are used to thinking". In Pp. 320. $49.95. dissociation and his famous equation, recalling Raymond Dart's emphasis on the which were established only in 1887. One predatory habit as "the mark of Cain" sep- To many students of chemistry, Arrhenius of the most valuable chapters in the book arating man from ape, the authors bring us is just a name attached to an equation. Elis examines the influence exerted on the full circle to recurring themes: connecting abeth Crawford's biography of the Swedish development of Arrhenius's theory by hunting and eating meat with aggression scientist unveils the face behind the name, Jacobus van't Hoff's memoirs on the law of and war, and vegetarianism and eating and reveals a human being living, loving chemical equilibrium, published in 1886. A herbs with a placid and peaceful nature. and fighting against his colleagues. Svante popular myth is that the theory of the 'ion The theme was sounded in the story of August Arrhenius (1859-1927) is recog ists' first met hostility in the scientific com Cain and Abel and in Robert Ardrey's nized as one of the founders of physical munity and generated great controversy. best-selling African Genesis (1961), which chemistry, but until now there has been no Crawford counteracts this with evidence of introduced a generation of readers to complete biography, and all the published a contrast between a handful of opponents meat-eating 'killer apes' - A ustralopithe- sketches repeat standard accounts of his and the great mobilization of Friedrich cus africanus preying on their herbivorous work formulated by Arrhenius and his Wilhelm Ostwald and the "army of ionists" contemporaries, A. robustus. Before that brother-in-law. who, through an active campaign, worked we had H. G. Wells's Time Machine, in _, for a wide circulation and rapid which demonic Morlocks of the distant iJ; acceptance of the notion of future dine on the dumb but happy flower permanent ions. eating Eloi. The most original feature of In evolutionary science, there are no the book is its emphasis on demons or angels. The capacity for aggres local context and its influence sion and violence, like the capacity for on Arrhenius's scientific style. friendship and peaceful coexistence, exists As a postdoctoral fellow, he in most individuals and human cultures, as travelled in Germany and Aus it does in the apes and other mammals. tria where he was able to col The authors argue that both species of laborate with Ostwald, Walter chimpanzee and humans descended from Nernst and Ludwig Boltzman. a violent common ancestor, but it could as Although Arrhenius gained easily be argued that both species of chim an international reputation, panzee descended from a peaceable ances he decided to make a career in tor such asP. paniscus. In either case, our his native Sweden, which was two closest living relatives together express then on the periphery of the major scientific powers. a wider range of behaviours than either Arrhenius: expert at promoting myths about himself. taken alone and offer a broader platform He succeeded Anders Jonas for speculating about the early history of Crawford enjoys a high reputation for Angstrom at the Royal Institute of Tech our own multiplex genus and species.