After reading the introduction and first chapter of Primates of Park Avenue I have came to the conclusion that the author, Wednesday Martin, was very interesting in her way of using her knowledge of the habitants of Park Avenue to incorporate it into her “anthropological expedition”. The unusual norms of this subculture that Martin reveals to me as the reader really caught my eye. The fact that she moved from Michigan into the Upper East side shows thats her opinion on the Park Avenue society is authentic. The way Martin uses her expertise in anthropology to take in all of what is going on around her once she moves to this area provides a more detailed and understanding way of who these people are. The anthropological perspective clearly…
The sciencemag.com article “Anti-Alzheimer’s Gene may have Led to the Rise of Grandparents” by Kelli Whitlock Burton talks about the how the protective variant of the CD33 gene may explain why humans have grandmothers that help with child rearing. The article explains the “grandmother hypothesis” that says humans live such long and healthy lives even after they are no longer able to reproduce because they help with child rearing. The CD33 gene plays a big role in Alzheimer’s disease and scientists Ajit Varki and Pascal Gagneux discovered that there are two variants of it: a protective allele and a damaging one.…
The event related to animal rights that motivate Ed Yong to write this article is the Great Ape Project. The Great Ape Project was established in 1993 and requests a basic set of moral and legal rights for great apes. The questions that were raised by Yong about this issue are why can’t all nonhuman animals that feel pain have rights. Another question Yong has is what would be the credible reason not to…
Before Jane Goodall’s discovery scientists believed that non-human primates lived simple life. It turns out that they are highly intelligent, emotional creatures that live in complex societies. This new discovery lead people to feel compassion and concern for the animals. Leakey’s once said “new we must redefine tool, redefine man, or consider chimpanzees as humans”. We now see that we are not alone with being advanced that there are other non-human primates that also are advancing.…
A mother can impact lives greatly. Could you imagine growing up without a mother? You can either be very lucky with a mother that cares for you or be deprived of that sense of love from a mother figure. It is inhumane to destroy any kind of maternal bond because mothers are not people to depend on, but are people to make depending not required.…
Animals should have the right to decide if they want to collaborate in experiments. In Ed Young’s article, “Of Primates and Personhood”, he explains that, “the Great Ape Project demands a basic set of moral and legal rights for apes”. This quote informs us that apes should be more than just property. Some may argue that experimentation is beneficial to humans because it helps us decide what kinds of products are safe for human use. However, the experimentation on apes sometimes leads to their death.…
1) The subfields of anthropology seem quite diverse in their specific subjects and methods. Why, then, are they all considered parts of the single discipline of anthropology? What ties them together? Anthropology is divided up into four sub-fields of study (Park, 2014). The four sub-fields are biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology (Park, 2014).…
The author wants us to agree that we have “more in common with our primate cousins than we do with any other animal”. He can only do this by showing us a lot of visuals that dynamically compare us two. We are shown many species of both monkeys and apes, and even that of a few…
Primates are one of the most interesting mammals on earth, not only because of their complex social structures, but because they hold so many similar characteristics to humans. Primates are often cited as our closest living relatives and on two separate occasions I observed four separate species of primates at the San Diego Zoo that can justify their use of their physical characteristics and behaviors that may be similar as well as different to the other primates and ours.…
Researchers have proposed two major mental map representations of space in non-human primates. In a route-based or topological spatial representation map, primates have ideal pathways that they make use of repeatedly. Route-based makes also consist of discrete chosen landmarks as reference points to arrive at numerous locations from distinct directions (Urbani, 2009). In comparison, euclidean (coordinate-based) spatial maps are more technical depictions of ecological features. The mental representation of these features are said to encode an x and y coordinate scale that is fairly precise (Garber and Dolins, 2014). Moreover, landmarks are points, features or olfactory cues in the environment used…
Many of the behaviors observed in primates are known to have evolutionary causes. Infanticide is one that has been questioned whether to be caused by an evolutionary purpose or pathological behaviors. Infanticide has been observed in the wild amongst primates as a situation where new males join a new group and begin to kill off infants that continue to be dependent on their mothers for food. This is thought to be either caused by stressful environments or a reproductive tactic. There has been enough evidence observed to prove that infanticide is executed for reproductive benefits for males entering a new group of many females with children of their own.…
To compare the distinctive features of primate parenting, we first need to know what they are. Primate parenting features including, feeding their offspring, along with teaching them vital skills in order for them to obtain their own food. An example of this would be the variety of tool using, or culture, used by several primates (using rocks to crack open nuts, or using a branch to get ants and consume them) not only demonstrate the learning ability of these creatures, but also the importance that parenting has when dealing with the development of the offspring. Apart from the learning behaviors that are thought to the offspring, other distinctive parenting features come into play, for example primates usually give birth to more than one offspring…
Ed Yong informs us according to the right and dignity of animals . He questioned his readers if great apes are deserving to have their own rights as a person and if so, might as well give other animals too. Animals shouldn't be mistreated or used as experimentations, but at the same time they should not have human rights.…
‘Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?’, they described experiments to assess whether the primate most closely related to…
The first premise of his argument was that all human and non-human animals possess equal inherent value because they are all individuals experiencing life. His second premise is that possessing inherent value demands that these individuals have rights that should not be violated by others. The final premise of his argument is that any individual with rights must be treated equally and with respect. In this paper, I objected to his third premise by arguing that we humans should not interact with animals at all because we are not able to distinguish their perception of equality and…