Of all the animals of prey, man is the only sociable one.
Every one of us preys upon his neighbour, and yet we herd together.
The Beggar's Opera: John Gay

Tuesday, 15 January 2013

"Does the other one talk?" "Only when she lets me."

Did anyone else see this news story...
Chimpanzees have a similar sense of fairness to people, say scientists.
...and immediately think of this?



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5 comments:

  1. JuliaM15 January 2013 at 18:12

    "Trailers were certainly different in those days - talk about spoilers!"

    Oh, indeed! Whereas with modern trailers, they are just all the highlights of the film...

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  2. A K Haart15 January 2013 at 18:49

    "Chimpanzees have a similar sense of fairness to people, say scientists."

    It niggles me when people drag in words such as "fairness" to big up research like this.

    Chimps are social animals, but all this research shows is that they can play a very simple reward game and avoid losing. They aren't being "fair".

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  3. James Higham15 January 2013 at 22:31

    Ah yes, the bananas.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Macheath16 January 2013 at 08:42

    Julia - at least with film trailers you do get some sense of what it's about; I'm getting increasingly fed up with the lowest-common-denominator TV channel season previews which consist almost entirely of people shouting, crying or kissing.

    AKH, I agree - the anthropomorphism is entirely at odds with the objectivity such research requires.

    JH, the bananas were only mentioned in the radio interview, but just so.

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  5. JuliaM17 January 2013 at 05:48

    "... I'm getting increasingly fed up with the lowest-common-denominator TV channel season previews which consist almost entirely of people shouting, crying or kissing."

    But...that IS what most modern films are about, it seems! :)

    ReplyDelete

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