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Human Ethology Bulletin Volume 24, Number 2 ISSN 0739‐2036 June 2009 Human Ethology Bulletin © 2009 − The International Society for Human Ethology – www.ISHE.org Contents Human Ethology Summer Institute BULLETIN STAFF & POLICIES 2 The 2nd ISHE sponsored Human Ethology Summer Institute will be held at the University BOOK REVIEWS of Maine in Orono (USA) 5‐9 July. Some program details and updates are included in this issue, Wm. C. McGrew reviews The Bonobos 3 by T. Furuichi and J. Thompson (eds.) including the expected program schedule. More complete information is available at A Review and Critical Comparison of IQ and www.ISHE.org. Global Inequality (Lynn & Vanhanen, 5 2006) and A Farewell to Alms (Clark, 2007) by A. J. Figueredo This issue includes the final call for nominations NEW BOOKS 9 for two important ISHE positions: trustee and Report on a 2009 International VP/President‐Elect. The deadline is 30 June. Symposium of Evolutionary Psychology 10 This issue also includes a review by in Brazil by Glenn & Carol Weisfeld primatologist Wm. McGrew of a book on 2009 Human Ethology Summer Institute: bonobos, and an essay review of two recent Program schedule and other information 12 books on differences between societies by A. J. Figueredo. Preliminary Announcement: ISHE 2010 16 Back Issue Information 16 As previously announced, tentative plans continue to be developed and examined that 2009 Human Ethology Summer Institute would transform the Bulletin in to an on‐line 17 Registration Form publication with additional content consisting of Call for Nominations 18 peer‐reviewed articles. Input from ISHE ANNOUNCEMENTS 19 members has been almost entirely supportive and encouraging, so 2009 or 2010 may be the last FORTHCOMING 21 year for the Human Ethology Bulletin in its present CURRENT LITERATURE 22 form. If so, the Bulletin should remain easily UPCOMING CONFERENCES 26 recognizable, but become more readily available and more widely read, and provide more ADDRESS CHANGES 26 content. ISHE officers remain eager to hear Membership & Subscriptions 27 advice and comments from members on this potential change. – Editor 2 Human Ethology Bulletin, 24(2), 2009 Bulletin Policies Editorial Staff Submissions. All items of interest to ISHE members EDITOR are welcome, including articles, responses to articles, Thomas R. Alley news about ISHE members, announcements of Department of Psychology meetings, journals or professional societies; etc. Book Clemson University reviews and review inquiries may be sent to the Editor 418 Brackett Hall or to an Associate Editor. Guidelines for book reviews Clemson, SC 29634‐1355 USA are available from any staff member and on the ISHE tel. 1‐864‐656‐4974 / fax 1‐864‐656‐0358 web site. Other types of submissions should be sent to E-mail: [email protected] the Editor. These include Brief Communications and Brief Reports which may cover such topics as teaching ASSOCIATE EDITORS ethology, ethological methodology, human evolution, and evolutionary theory. Aurelio Jose Figueredo Department of Psychology All submissions must be in English, and sent to the 1503 East University Blvd. appropriate editor via email, preferably as an P.O. Box 210068 attachment. If email is impossible, hard copies will be University of Arizona accepted, as long as they are accompanied by the same Tucson, AZ 85721‐0068 USA text on CD‐R (preferably in Microsoft Word format). E-mail: [email protected] All submissions, including invited contributions, are subject to editorial review. Some submissions are Maryanne Fisher rejected, but political censorship is avoided so as to Department of Psychology foster free and creative exchange of ideas among St. Mary’s University scholars. Submissions are usually reviewed only by 923 Robie Street members of the editorial staff, although outside Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3C3 Canada reviewers are used occasionally. All submissions E-mail: [email protected] should be original, and are not to be published Aaron T. Goetz elsewhere, either prior to or after publication in the Department of Psychology Bulletin, without permission from the Editor. California State University, Fullerton Disclaimer. The opinions expressed in the Human P.O. Box 6846 Fullerton, CA 92834 USA Ethology Bulletin, and any policy implications that might be inferred from them, do not necessarily reflect E-mail: [email protected] the views of the editorial staff or ISHE. Informed responses offering alternative views are welcome and CURRENT LITERATURE EDITOR can be sent directly to the Editor. Johan van der Dennen Dept. of Legal Theory, Faculty of Law Reproduction. Material published in the Bulletin may University of Groningen be reproduced without limit for scholarly purposes but Oude Kijk in‘t Jatstraat 5/9 not for commercial activities. That is, Bulletin contents 9712 EA Groningen, The Netherlands may not be reproduced in any form for profit unless tel. 31‐50‐3635649 / fax: 31‐50‐3635635 prior permission is obtained from the Editor or the E-mail: [email protected] ISHE President. In all cases, the Human Ethology Bulletin or ISHE should be acknowledged, as appropriate (e.g., with a complete citation of source). Back Issues of the Bulletin may be ordered following the policy and pricing available in the most recent issue. Human Ethology Bulletin, 24(2), 2009 3 index that is missing lots of terms, but the presentation is clean and readable. BOOK REVIEWS Ethologists will likely gravitate first to the section on behaviour, which contains four chapters. Disappointingly, all are from captive populations, so we learn nothing new about The Bonobos: Behavior, behaviour in the wild. This is not surprising, Ecology, and Conservation as there are few populations that are habituated to close‐range observations, and some of them have been studied only Edited by Takeshi Furuichi & J. Thompson intermittently because of civil and military Springer, New York, NY, 2008, 327 pp. ISBN: strife in the DRC. Captive studies are 978‐0‐387‐74785‐9 [Hardback: US$149] constrained by simple demographic limits, e.g., there is not a single group of socio‐ Reviewed by W. C. McGrew Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary ecologically valid composition. Instead, small Studies, Department of Biological Anthropology, (usually 5‐10 individuals) colonies of bonobos University of Cambridge, Fitzwilliam St., are scattered across European and American Cambridge CB2 1QH, U.K. zoological gardens. The topics covered here, [E-mail: [email protected]] i.e. social dynamics, dominance, play, gestural communication, are all of interest, and the researchers do the best that they can with Everybody loves bonobos (Pan paniscus). They what they have to work with. But whether or are the ‘make love, not war’ primates, the not phenomena observed in captivity, such as liberated hippies, of the Hominoidea, who adult females providing agonistic support for show female dominance and kinky sex. The their sons, are generalisable to natural settings subsistence technology or warfare of their remains to be seen. [Informative and sibling species, the chimpanzee (Pan unexpected results are emerging from field troglodytes), is not for them. But what do we studies in behavioural primatology, most actually know about bonobos? notably from LuiKotale where, for example the bonobos are now known to hunt and to Now comes the tenth volume from Springer’s eat monkeys, behavior hitherto thought to be series, Developments in Primatology: Progress limited to chimpanzees. See Surbeck and and Prospects, to provide answers, in an edited Hohmann (2008) for details.] volume of 15 chapters with a total of 49 authors. As usual with Springer, the purchase The six chapters in the ecology section are price is exorbitant, so that the average cost is split into two types: Three deal with the US 45 cents per page, which gets you a few behavioural ecology of the bonobos of colour plates but only five photographs of Wamba, one of the two oldest study‐sites bonobos. There are no abstracts to the (along with Lomako, which is not represented chapters, but each of the three sections has a here), with researchers based mostly at Kyoto. useful foreword, conveniently reprinted in They tackle basic issues of food availability, French (which is the official language of the social structure, ranging, etc. All are only country with wild bonobos, the methodologically strong, even incorporating Democratic Republic of Congo). The book is non‐invasive collection of DNA for sloppily edited, with an especially inadequate genotyping, but none of the results is striking, 4 Human Ethology Bulletin, 24(2), 2009 and one gets the impression that the really trying to save wild bonobos, but in no place good stuff will continue to go into journal are they secure, it seems. articles. The other three chapters deal with issues of applied ecological primatology, such Overall, this reviewer’s recommendations are as doing censuses to provide information to this: If you are a hard‐core bonobophile, bite guide conservation efforts. For reasons not the bullet and buy the book, or at least make made clear, all three studies deal with the sure it ends up on a nearby library shelf. If same national park, Salonga, and come to you are interested in apes, or even some contradictory conclusions. This is not as primatology in general, check out the book surprising as it seems, as Salonga is huge and photocopy the chapters of interest. (said to be Africa’s largest such park, but different figures of its area are given in the chapters), and the study‐areas of the three References projects do not overlap. Censuses in Surbeck, M. & Hohmann, G. (2008). Primate hunting by primatology are based on a variety of indirect bonobos at LuiKotale, Salonga National Park. measures, but usually the decisive data come Current Biology, 18: R906-907. from nest‐counts. These are problematic for Wrangham, R.W. & Ross, E. (eds.) (2008). Science and several reasons ( e.g., how many nests per day Conservation in African Forests.
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