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posted by Fnord666 on Monday April 20 2020, @10:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the lost-opportunities dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

When Jane Goodall witnessed a chimpanzee troop split into two bands in 1974, she called the event a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity. Now, a group of chimp researchers fears missing its own once-in-a-lifetime moment because of the coronavirus pandemic. Two years ago, they, too, witnessed a chimp group fission at Kibale National Park in Uganda. The consequences surprised them: Males of one group recently attacked the other and beat up the females. "I would have never predicted that males that have grown up together would be at each other's throats," says John Mitani, a primatologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. But he and his colleagues are likely to remain ignorant about how this power struggle plays out over the coming months or even the next year.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, most of the research team has left the country. Mitani says such precautions make sense for both humans and chimps, who are likely vulnerable to COVID-19, too, according to an 11 April preprint on bioRxiv. But he and his colleagues may miss the rare events that structure chimpanzee society.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2020, @03:50PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2020, @03:50PM (#985122)

    If chimps are our closest relative in the tree of life, it should come as no surprise that they are very much like us in the "negative" ways as in the "positive" ways.
    Even mentally labelling behaviors as "positive" or "negative" has no place in biology. Those are human categorizations that have no objective definition and vary wildly from person to group to even the same people over time! You can't impose a human moral code on animals that can't comprehend morals.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2020, @05:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2020, @05:31PM (#985157)

    for a negative behavior. The problem with human morals is, everyone and their dog is always reaching to tag more things "negative", for their perceived personal benefit, and thus create an utter noxious mess.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2020, @08:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2020, @08:30PM (#985211)

    Correct morals are complex, in fact I think they're too complex for me.

    IOW: "Your moral code confuses and perplexes me." - So am I off the hook? ;-)