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Skeptic Monkeys

Ericka

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Vervet Monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked. The Vervet Monkey seems to possess what has been called the "rudiments of language". Alarm calls vary greatly depending on the different types of threats to the community. There are distinct calls to warn of invading leopards, snakes, and eagles.

Experimenters managed to "frame" a particular vervet-monkey as a "boy who cried wolf". They recorded his warning cry, and then played it back to the group in inappropriate situations, until they became 'habituated' to it and no longer payed attention. This much can be explained behaviouristically. But, importantly, the habituated call is apparently "synonymous" to another (quite different sounding) call. And the other monkeys also ignored the framed monkey when he tried to give calls of this other type. As Dennett explains it, the framed vervet can "lose credibility with the group on a particular topic, thanks to being "framed" by experimenters."

So you can see that the only language we have found in animals is rooted in skepticism. Vervet monkeys are skeptical that the other monkeys can protect themselves unless they give warning calls. And they are skeptical that giving a warning call will make a great deal of differance to their personal survival.

Other specis of animals will help others in the same specis, but not at risk for themselves. But the Vervet monkey is so untrusting of the other monkeys around itself that it has developed a language to protect its potential mates and children, at risk to itself. Perhaps this shows how skepticism is rooted in risk taking. And once people or animals begin to take risks, and weigh their options they develope intelligence to decide what the best possibilities are. A kind of free will, and a language develope.

But in order for them to take those risks, they have to realize that everything isn't always certain. I mean c'mon, Monkeys with critical thinking skills?
 
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Firstly, we already know that many animals are capable of learning and are also capable of individual recognition, so this is nothing surprising, even though it is quite interesting.

Secondly, do you actually have any evidence for this, or do you just expect us to blindly believe you after you have spent your time trolling other threads?
 
Ericka said:
But the Vervet monkey is so untrusting of the other monkeys around itself that it has developed a language to protect its potential mates and children, at risk to itself.
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You've made a few mistakes with this statement, and since it seems to be the core of your post, I think they need to be addressed.

1) You're making the mistake of anthropomorphizing the poor little primates. There is no evidence to indicate that these monkeys do not "trust" their fellow feces-flingers. They just shout out warnings to protect its potential mates and children.

2) How much of a "risk to itself" is there, really? Obviously this particular breed of monkeys is still surviving. If this were as big a threat to their survival as you seem to make it out to be, there should be predators snatching them up left and right...the species would be dead within a week.

3) Back to the "trust" issue. Since you seem to be bent on anthropomorphizing the little guys, maybe we should take that all the way. Put yourself in their shoes. Suppose that you are walking down a street with your family and stop to do a little window-shopping. You glance up and see your family a few hundred feet away, looking at something else, and a man with a knife is sneaking up on them.

Would you remain silent, or would you shout out at risk to yourself to protect them? If the latter, is it because you don't trust your family, or because you want to protect them?
 
thomps1d [B said:
emphasis mine[/B]]1) You're making the mistake of anthropomorphizing the poor little primates. There is no evidence to indicate that these monkeys do not "trust" their fellow feces-flingers. They just shout out warnings to protect its potential mates and children.
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Nice post and Good observation with the anthropomorphising. However, you need to take the point a little farther and avoid assuming internal states (e.g. intent). I would argue, to be as objective as possiblem, that the bolded sentence should be changed to :

"They make loud noises and, contiguously, no harm to other members of the group is observed."
 
Ericka said:
Vervet Monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked.
...
Experimenters managed to "frame" a particular vervet-monkey as a "boy who cried wolf". They recorded his warning cry, and then played it back to the group in inappropriate situations, until they became 'habituated' to it and no longer payed attention. This much can be explained behaviouristically. But, importantly, the habituated call is apparently "synonymous" to another (quite different sounding) call. And the other monkeys also ignored the framed monkey when he tried to give calls of this other type.
Click to expand...

To my memory, Erica appears to be reporting accurately about experiments that have been conducted. I tend to remember this information from a Scientific American episode with Alan Alda. Other interesting findings were that monkeys will not warn others of danger if they believe the others can perceive the danger themselves. If all the monkeys can see the threat, no warning calls go up.

Beyond her cut-and-paste reporting of the experiment, I don't think any of her conclusions logically follow. Monkeys may increase the risk to themselves by warning others or, by getting the entire clan involved in defense, may drastically decrease the risk to themselves. The anthropomorphising of the monkeys by reading in human intentions has already been commented on.
 
Interesting thoughts. I am tentatively agreeing with the idea that more complex language necessitates some critical evaluation of it to be functional.
 
It isn't really 'anthropomorphizing' when the other animals actually have those characteristics. For instance saying other animals do or don't trust others isn't a false thing to say. Any Dog owner including myself can tell you that pets trust some people and don't trust others. For instance my dogs only trust some specific people whom they know and that's it.

I don't find it hard to believe that monkeys likely being more intelligent than dogs can have distrust of other monkeys.
 
Dustin said:
It isn't really 'anthropomorphizing' when the other animals actually have those characteristics. For instance saying other animals do or don't trust others isn't a false thing to say. Any Dog owner including myself can tell you that pets trust some people and don't trust others. For instance my dogs only trust some specific people whom they know and that's it.

I don't find it hard to believe that monkeys likely being more intelligent than dogs can have distrust of other monkeys.
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Yes, Goodall is a bit of a hero to me, and it has been at least three decades since she wrote her important essay on this subject: "Anthropophobia." Her concern was that it was a bigger leap of faith to argue that these very familiar observed behaviors did not relate to what we recognize from our own cognition than to suggest that they do. The model would be very strained. She did not think it was a 'leap' to suggest that Pan spp felt analoguous emotions to our own.

Vervet monkeys and trust? Why not? Critical thinking? I wouldn't go that far. Trust is a primitive emotion, and does not require critical thinking.
 
Ehhh, excuse me, but this is certainly not unique to vervets. Many flock animals do this. There is a small cave dwelling African animal (the name eludes me just now) that literally employ sentries. While the others are foraging, one or two of the short-legged creatures are standing on their hind legs looking around for dangers.

A flock of birds, e.g. sparrows will alight on the warning from one, but there will be "critical thinking", that is some of them may evaluate the threat individually and choose to stay.

Finally, on putting youself in danger, many birds will do the "broken wing act" to lure you away from their young.

Hans
 
blutoski said:
Yes, Goodall is a bit of a hero to me, and it has been at least three decades since she wrote her important essay on this subject: "Anthropophobia." Her concern was that it was a bigger leap of faith to argue that these very familiar observed behaviors did not relate to what we recognize from our own cognition than to suggest that they do. The model would be very strained. She did not think it was a 'leap' to suggest that Pan spp felt analoguous emotions to our own.

Vervet monkeys and trust? Why not? Critical thinking? I wouldn't go that far. Trust is a primitive emotion, and does not require critical thinking.
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Anthropomorphism should be defined as not simply giving human qualities or emotions to other animals since many other animals actually have these qualities and emotions but should be specific in giving purely human characteristics to other animals. Some good examples would be preference of music or clothing or hair cut or something like that. I don't think Dogs care much about whether their dog tag is blue or pink or green for instance.
 
Dustin said:
It isn't really 'anthropomorphizing' when the other animals actually have those characteristics.
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I don't know how true this is, either. When we say that animals "trust" us, I think we're mostly saying that they "recognize us as creatures which will do no harm but may feed and give tummy rubs". That's something distinct from the human concept of trust.

I know many people that won't harm me, may feed me, and (for all I know) may be willing to give me a tummy rub. That doesn't mean that I trust them.

I do agree that it isn't anthropomorphizing when the other animals actually share the characteristics we impose upon them; I just think that the concept of "trust" is too complex to assign to animals so lightly.
 
And if we really want to get all behaviorist, we can't really apply any emotional/intellectual characteristics to animals at all, since we can't ask them if that is actually what they are feeling. All we can do is describe their behavior.

I don't particularly like to go that far, but the people who do have a point, particularly in terms of animals (I'm not so sure they do in terms of humans but at least we can ask humans what they are feeling and hope they tell the truth).
 
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