Significant Others: The Ape-Human Continuum and the Quest for Human Nature

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Summary: Significant Others review
Review: Craig Stanford has written a book that continues to inform the public of just how similar we are to the primates by attempting to show the reader that the differences between us are actually very minute. Through data and analysis Stanford points out how the behaviors of primates can be applied to our own human nature, which supports his thesis that "to understand human nature, you must understand the apes." (p.xviii). Stanford self describes Significant Others as a "field guide to the current state of our understanding of both human and ape culture..." (p. xviii). Through the descriptions of social interactions, tool usage, language, and culture Stanford provides a strong case in support of his thesis.
Starting right from the beginning in his introduction, Stanford uses data and research theory to support his thesis and to refute the alternatives. He is not afraid to discuss behaviors that are of questionable regard. He delves into the subject of infanticide with similar gusto as he does in the chapter on language. Stanford's bottom line is the same throughout that we can use the studies of the great apes to explain our human nature and why problem behaviors like human infanticide persist today.
Overall Significant Others is a good read. Stanford does an exceptional job of providing research that supports the notion that many of our human behaviors and traits can be explained by similar behaviors studied in the great apes. Although this was not pointed out until the end of the book by supporting his thesis Stanford also was providing strong evidence for the importance of conserving and protecting the great apes. Stanford was not afraid to indulge into his own opinions when he felt the need and this added a personal touch to the reading that provided interest to sometimes dry research findings. He also covered highly debatable information well by giving equal consideration to both sides of the picture, even though it was often evident what side of the debate he was on. I would recommend Significant Others to those that enjoyed reading Roger Fout's Next of Kin and want to further their knowledge of great ape behavior and how it might be related to human nature.

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Summary: Why you should read this book
Review: Craig Stanford is a good authority on the subject. He holds the position of the Director of the Jane Goodall research institute (And if you dont know who she is, perhaps you should begin with The chimpanzees of Gombe, written by her).

The book is wonderfully written and easy to read. The reason I am not giving it five is that the writer seems to digress from the central theme often. However, there is some wonderful elaboration of chimpanzee societies and their rituals, that brings a sense of eerieness to our own humanity and makes one sit up and think.

The book is wonderfully balanced and brings out many hitherto covered truths - such as the male dominated bastion of anthropology and hence masculine myths propagated, the views of the 'science' of evolutionary psychology etc. This is a book which allows you to develop your own theories after stating the facts of chimp interactions in a highly narrative and gripping story-format.

All in all a good book. If you are the kind who has a book collection of origins books which include Leakey and Jared Diamond, then Craig Stanford deserves his place there. If you are not a collector and are not planning on buying this, then check with your library and do read this, but read this you should - if indeed you have an interest in anthropolgy and the origins question.

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Summary: Sounds Familiar
Review: I have not read this book, but judging from other reviews as well as the editor notes, it sounds like the author is simply repeating the ideas of researcher Desmond Morris, who has been around for decades. If you liked this book, you would love The Human Animal and others by Desmond Morris.

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Summary: Thoughtfully considers the ape-human continuum
Review: In Significant Others, Craig Stanford thoughtfully considers the ape-human continuum and the quest for human nature as he persuasively argues that the gap between apes and humans is very narrow, and not a vast unbridgeable realm. Stanford's argument draws close associations between apes and humans, considering their complex societies, social groups, and communications. An intriguing study.

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Summary: Fun, Factual, and Fascinating
Review: Mr. Stanford has written yet another fascinating and gripping book about human origins and primate behavior that is easy for the lay person to read and understand.

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Summary: Great introduction
Review: This book is a great introduction to the relationships among the higher primates including humans. The discussion of tool use, cognitive abilities, cultural practices, and language skills is both very easy to read and highly informative. Readers with background in the subject may find a new perspective on some issues, but the book is most appropriate for someone who wants a short overview of how we are related to the other primates and why we should care. For those who wish to explore further, enough references to other works and to the current scientific literature are provided to open many doors.

A good, quick read that demonstrates our kinship to those "significant others".

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Summary: Flawed, but definitely worthwhile
Review: University of Southern California anthropologist (and primatologist) Craig Stanford's thesis in this attractive but somewhat breezy (and politically considered) book is that the difference between humans and apes is one of degree and not of kind. That is why the word "continuum" is used in the title.

I agree with his thesis, and I think he does a great job of making the case. His prose is readable and his enthusiasm is genuine. However there are some problems. In attempting to walk the tightrope of political correctness while conveying to the reader what he has learned as a scientist, Stanford sometimes slips into a fuzzy and inexplicit expression.

To begin with (p. 16) he contends that if women "crave" men with resources (he is attempting to answer David Buss, et al.) it is "mainly in patriarchal societies in which they must depend on men to obtain resources and power for them." This is gratuitous because, as Stanford himself notes on page 147, "Human societies are, political correctness notwithstanding, universally patriarchal." Whether women would behave differently if the societies were matriarchal (or otherwise) is unknown. Citing an isolated society in special circumstances that is matriarchal really does not prove the general case, although it does point to a range of possibilities, and that is good. However it is ingenuous to pretend that women are not looking for resources in a mate if they can find them. Why would a reasonable woman, given a choice, choose a poor, ineffective, unsuccessful man, to one who has the ability to help her provide for her children?

In the same paragraph, Stanford contends that the "old adage about _what women want_ should more accurately be phrased as _what women can realistically hope to achieve in their cultural context_." In the first place, it's not an adage, it's a joke or a lament, and it's a question, "What DOES a woman want?" The original is lost in the prehistory, but Ernest Jones attributed these words to Freud: "The great question...which I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is _What does a woman want?_" This is probably the source that Stanford had in mind--and, by the way, this is a question that evolutionary psychology has largely answered, much to the dismay of those who would prefer to keep the mystery. In the second place it is NOT enough to merely say "in their cultural context." There is a biological context as well, exemplified by nine months of being pregnant, and several years of intense maternal responsibility that is fundamental to all cultures that can't be explained away as something from the patriarchy unless you believe that human biology itself is patriarchal.

There is also Stanford's summary dismissal of evolutionary psychology in Chapter 8 to consider, a strange dismissal since part of his title is "the Quest for Human Nature" (from the study of primates), which is one of the ways that evolutionary psychologists work. (He is actually being an evolutionary psychologist himself but apparently doesn't know it.) Evolutionary psychology should be compared with other psychologies, say, psychoanalytical theory, or behaviorism, and not to, e.g., biology.

It's important to add that the work of anthropologists is no more scientific or rigorous than the work of evolutionary psychologists, as can be demonstrated from reading this book. For example on page 129 Stanford tells a story of seeing the low-ranking chimp Beethoven make a sexual display through a cluster of chimpanzees. He writes: "This enraged the alpha, Wilkie, who chased Beethoven off into the thickets, whereupon Beethoven circled around and came back to mate with an eager female before Wilkie realized what was happening."

Stanford uses this as an example of planned deceptive behavior in chimps, but whether Beethoven displayed foresight or just got lucky is unclear. To be picky I could also point out that "enraged" and "realized" are anthropomorphic projections of Stanford's lively mind and not something that could be tested scientifically (which is the essence of his criticism of evolutionary psychology on page 134).

Yet, Professor Stanford understands that social scientists today are mightily constrained by a postmodern culture in academia that demands politically correct findings first, and scientifically persuasive findings only if they are in agreement with the PC party line. He writes, "Some of this sentiment [not admitting "essential cultural commonalities"] reflects anthropologists' political burden of favoring the cultural underdog at all costs. Postmodernism's purpose has become a vehicle, in part, to give meaning to identity politics in the battle of the oppressed against the perceived enemy, the white male elite." (p. 146)

There is a lot more worth discussing in this book. (I wish I had more space.) The chapter on what it's like in the field (Chapter 12) is vivid and compelling; and in the concluding chapters we can see that Stanford is a scientist who cares passionately about the great apes and their environments. He is also a man who can communicate what he knows to a general readership as long as he avoids the trap of imagining that there is a political censor sitting on his shoulder as he writes. The truth will out, and the educated public that reads books written by professional scientists is much more sophisticated than is sometimes supposed.