Are bonobos meat-eaters?

Chimps are. Humans are. If you need to eat animal products to survive, you have to be able to kill. (I know there are vegan arguments that we are not meat-eaters, but I don’t think they stand up well.) From my study of the “rise” of humans, it seems we definitely have left a bloody trail behind us, but as sHx points out, we have a lot of conditioning going on in both directions.

I do, however, have to seriously disagree with sHx on his last point: Other animals, plants, the whole world have a lot to teach us about how to live on this planet without ripping the fabric of the biosphere to shreds. In that area, there is hardly an organism that can match our destructive capacity.

2- The best of the human killers, soldiers, must be trained for weeks and months to be de-conditioned so as to bring out the ‘killer instinct’. Even then, it is safe to say that an overwhelming majority of soldiers retire from their profession, live long afterwards, and die in peace, without firing a single shot in anger, let alone killing an enemy. The best killers among chimps and bonobos rise to become the leaders of the pack.

3- Firearms, from musket to hydrogen bomb, have certainly made killing much, much easier physically and psychologically. They have also enlarged the battlefield and made it deadlier. Yes, at the press of a single button, one may kill anywhere between 1 to 10.000.000 people. But, contrary to common perception, the deadlier the weapon, the less likely it’ll be used in war. Some would argue that wars between major powers have been avoided since World War II precisely because of the fears that nukes might be used. We don’t need any insights from chimps and bonobos to develop a sense of proportion and to acquire an ability for restraint; not in nuclear age.

4- I am not sure what chimps and bonobos think about all the ‘murders’ and violence that are being committed in their respective societies and what they do about it, but I am 100 percent certain that for all homo sapiens murder is a serious crime regardless of the reasons. Murder has been a crime in all human civilisations in all recorded human history, and laws impose very severe punishments for such crimes. Fortunately, we have moved away from the rather primitive ‘eye for an eye’ type of retribution for such crimes. We now have much better laws. Thanks to the Enlightenment and the spread of humanism, we now consider trial, conviction and incarceration for a certain period of time as more humane action than killing the killer on the spot.

We are humans, you see? We can think, we can reason, we can empathise; these are the qualities that makes us distinct from, and better than, other animals. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that other animals can teach homo-sapiens that can make our lives any better.

Sorry for the rant. Today, I am not in the mood to let chimpist/bonoboean romantic delusions that’s often inflicted on my fellow humans go unchallenged. I am high on testostrone; civility be damned.

Sadly this is not or at best partly the case. In situations of war, almost exclusively a prerequisite for genocide, usually a good comprehension of the situation, being well versed in the situation politically and historically and most importantly being a socially well adapted individual increases your chances of partaking in or initiating these acts. Conversely people who – actively – refuse to take part in rape, mass executions or torture for example are much more likely to be (mild) social outcasts, they fail to properly dehumanize the category of people that form the enemy at the time. They are often a little bit indifferent, a bit difficult, maybe interact superficially with the other members of the group and such, which fortunately allows for the possibility to dispose of them quickly by having them declared insane or get rid of them even more efficiently.

That seems to me to be the really problematic behavior which is much more complex (-ly rooted) than can be explained by hormonal disparities only. Exactly the qualities that help achieve success in normal (peaceful) social life is the behavioral basis for become a beast in an (abnormal) wartime situation.

Have bonobos always been limited to the Congo? My understanding is that the working model on their evolution is they split from common chimps about 1 million years ago possibly due to the formation of the Congo River. This has limited contact in the wild between bonobos and the various subspecies of common chimps.

Could the differences seen even at the hormonal level be outcomes of founder cultural effects? Learned behavior passed along (enhanced by differences in diet)?

Thank you for the article. Such studies of primate behavior fascinate me because of the similarities that are found between our species and our primate cousins. The kill instinct in humans was probably very important for the survival of the species in the evolution of Homo Sapien Sapien. The human instinct to kill. It’s rooted in the need to survive. The difference in primates and humans versus other species is that we are cognicant of what killing means. To kill another of our own kind is to rid oneself of a competitor, a potential threat, or another user of finite resources.

Now, with our ever evolving lives, would it be a good thing to rid humans in some way, shape, or form of our kill instinct? I say that would also be a dangerous proposition. To turn a whole species into a group of docile pacifists leaves them open for extinction if a new or more aggresive species tries to take hold. Rather, by learning about the instinct and the mechanisms that turn it on and off, we as a species can better understand those anomalies and help prevent unfortunate acts of violence from occurring in the future.

My opinion is that the instinct to kill is part biological, part chemical and part psychological. Chemical meaning the body releasing certain hormones and chemicals in reaction to a situation the brain perceives as threat or danger, similar to an adrenalyne rush. Finally, it is my opinion that our ability to comprehend and understand murder, genocide, war, and death is what stops many people from committing these acts. For most of us our ‘conscience’, for lack of a better term, stops us from performing these acts. We understand the consequences of these actions and stop short of performing them.

So the real question to me is, why can most people stop themselves whereas others cannot? Where is the disconnect?

1. yes, i agree, murder is complicated. And there are many, many contributors to why someone would kill, and why we have war. But the biological basis for aggression is one of these contributing factors, and therefore important to understand.

i don’t think we should be evolving towards chimpanzee or bonobo. I just think that as a super intelligent species, we can learn something from both, and maybe adapt our behavior to emulate.

i do think that the most dangerous thing we can do is pigeon hole murderers, mass murderers and the partakers of genocide into an ‘abnormal’ box that has nothing to do with ordinary people. Nazi Germany could happen anywhere. And has happened anywhere, repeatedly, all over the world.

The only way to prevent such things occurring is to understand why they occurred. From every angle, including why we would have a biological disposition to do them in the first place.