Chimp Charity,
Chimp Churlishness

Posted on January 26, 2006 in Compassion Creatures

Half the time, chimpanzees won’t do anything for or against another chimpanzee says a recent study. Chimps interned at the Max Planck Institute were given the choice of “pulling on a rope they could either deliver food to another chimpanzee or they could deliver it to an empty room. In both cases, the chimpanzee pulling the rope did not receive any food itself.” The experiment claims to show that those feces-throwing hairy caricatures of humans just don’t give a damn:

An altruistic chimpanzee would give food to its neighbour, despite the effort in pulling the food, and a spiteful chimpanzee would prevent its neighbour from having the food by delivering it to the empty room.

‘I predicted chimps would be spiteful. I thought if they knew they couldn’t have the food, they wouldn’t let anyone else have it.’ [Keith] Jensen found that half the time, the chimpanzees did nothing. A quarter of the time they delivered food to their neighbour, then a quarter of the time to the empty room. This demonstrated neither altruism nor spite.

‘They didn’t seem to care about the other guy one way or the other. All that concerned them was getting the food and they were completely focused on that. Even when they knew they couldn’t have the food, they didn’t help the other chimp but they weren’t spiteful either.’

In contrast, humans are obviously altruistic. We give blood, we donate money to charity, and we volunteer to help strangers. This kind of altruism has never been demonstrated in any other animal except for humans and some believe it is one of the characteristics that makes us human. But Jensen says spite is just as important. As a form of punishment, spite can encourage cooperative behaviour by penalising cheaters.

‘Punishing others is usually costly to yourself, whether that’s the taxpayer or the lawmakers but punishment is still a natural part of modern society. We punish theft, murder and countless other crimes to keep the fabric of society together. Perhaps human society is where it is today because spite exists and there is a mechanism to punish cheaters.’

Jensen obviously does not live in these United States or read about the latest machinations of the Bush regime.

Jensen struck out bearing the assumption that civilization was founded upon altruistic cooperation. Anyone who has seen the blue glint of a .45 clasped to the belt of a cop knows better. We are kind to each other and some are kinder than others. Yet many people use donations as a way of shielding themselves from the messiness of charity, from facing the needy. Here in the United States, charity has become increasingly controlled by religious groups which use it as a means of recruiting volunteers and enriching the leaders of so-called religious movements such as the 700 Club. Dollars that go to Robertson or Falwell often end up being used for mean-spirited attacks on women, the poor, and hated heads of state. Do human beings sound any better than chimps when we take in the whole picture? When we consider war, we sound worse than the apes and the irony is that some turn to nature to justify their brutishness.

I have a few quibbles about the experimental design: how do we know that the chimps understood the point of the experiment? They pull on a rope and they see food go to their neighbor, says Jensen. Eh. Not interested in this because I am hungry. Let me pull on the other rope. Still no food. I’m bored. Just ignore the ropes.

Would hungry humans be any better? Would a mother chimpanzee or a father keep pulling on the rope to feed a child? Would it make any difference if another chimpanzee was watching? Oh, I don’t want Ingrid to think I’m a selfish cad. Pull on the rope.

The trouble I have with these studies and the coverage is that they echo the basic theme of creationist thought which is that humankind is special and separate from all other creatures. There’s more than a hint of sociobiology implicit in the Planck Institute experiments. Altruism and spitefulness — as they are “scientifically” called — can only be felt by human beings. Jensen says “We’re obviously better than they are. Must be our genes.” But Jensen and his colleagues conducted no human experiments. They didn’t dump human beings into a room equipped with two ropes and not tell them what was up. Nor did he try the experiment with third party chimps watching.

So we don’t have a true comparison. That could tell us much about charity and churlishness, about their place in nature and the true nature of the kinship between man and semi-man.