Neanderthals. Fossils of their newborns show that they were born with a brain as large as our own, which grew even faster during infancy, but those creatures acted far more like apes than we do. Something more than an extra dose of grey matter has made us what we are. To quote Darwin: ‘of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important’. A glance at our relatives shows how right he was.
Chimpanzees are nastier than many people like to think. They kill monkeys and are pretty unpleasant to each other too. Their sex lives would shock Queen Victoria and their ethical universe, if they have such a thing, is far darker than our own. They live in groups, but the groups break and reform as their members quarrel. Terror makes the world go round. Set up a task in which two chimps need to pull a rope to get a tray of food. They will, but only if they are out of reach of each other. Otherwise, the dominant animal attacks its subordinate even if neither then gets anything. Anger and greed destroy the hope of reward. What makes humans different is a loss of fear, odd as that sounds in a world where that emotion seems to be everywhere. When anxiety goes, society can emerge.
Our social skills begin early. A group of two-year-olds asked to find a piece of food after they saw it moved to a new place or turned to a new position or put in a box with a beep were pretty good at each job - but no better than adult chimpanzees, for both babies and chimps succeeded at about two trials out of three. When it came to the need to learn from others the babies won hands down. They became far better at each problem when they saw someone else solve it, or when an adult pointed to or gazed at where the food was hidden or made noises that told them they were getting warm. Each response demands an insight into another’s inner sentiments. We have a lot more of that talent than do our relatives. The chimps took no notice of those who tried to help.
Chimpanzees can learn, but do not teach: like all apes, they ape but do not educate. In some places, adults fish for insects with a stick or bash nuts with a stone, and the young emulate them. Even so, the grown-ups make no effort to show the infants how to do the job, do not change their ways when youngsters are around and never check to see how well they are doing. Birds, with their bird brains, can do what a chimp does, for a budgie will pull out the stopper of a bottle of food if it sees another do the job, and crows are even smarter.
Real education asks for more. A good pedagogue can teach almost any subject as long as he keeps a few pages ahead of his charges and they respond to his efforts. Teachers also have insight into the mental lives of their pupils, into who understands the lesson and who does not, and know how to encourage them without their becoming bored.
The chimp’s negligence about the next generation is a reminder that the minds of our hairy relatives are not much like our own. A competent teacher needs to understand what his students are thinking - and chimps do not: they have no more than a rudimentary ‘theory of mind’, as psychologists put it. We have lots, and it helps those on both sides of the lectern. Teenagers might doubt the fact, but no ape could ever become a schoolmaster.
The best way of reading a mind is to chat to it. Thomas Love Peacock invented a character called Sir Oran Haut-Ton, who learns to play the French horn but not to speak (he is elected to Parliament, where his silence gives him an air of wisdom). Homo sapiens is the eloquent ape. Even deaf children left in groups babble with their hands. Speech is the scaffold upon which society is built. No other primate can speak and all attempts to persuade them to do so have failed (Noam Chomsky, the theoretician of language, noted that it was ‘about as likely that an ape will prove to have a language ability as there is an island somewhere with
Chimpanzees are nastier than many people like to think. They kill monkeys and are pretty unpleasant to each other too. Their sex lives would shock Queen Victoria and their ethical universe, if they have such a thing, is far darker than our own. They live in groups, but the groups break and reform as their members quarrel. Terror makes the world go round. Set up a task in which two chimps need to pull a rope to get a tray of food. They will, but only if they are out of reach of each other. Otherwise, the dominant animal attacks its subordinate even if neither then gets anything. Anger and greed destroy the hope of reward. What makes humans different is a loss of fear, odd as that sounds in a world where that emotion seems to be everywhere. When anxiety goes, society can emerge.
Our social skills begin early. A group of two-year-olds asked to find a piece of food after they saw it moved to a new place or turned to a new position or put in a box with a beep were pretty good at each job - but no better than adult chimpanzees, for both babies and chimps succeeded at about two trials out of three. When it came to the need to learn from others the babies won hands down. They became far better at each problem when they saw someone else solve it, or when an adult pointed to or gazed at where the food was hidden or made noises that told them they were getting warm. Each response demands an insight into another’s inner sentiments. We have a lot more of that talent than do our relatives. The chimps took no notice of those who tried to help.
Chimpanzees can learn, but do not teach: like all apes, they ape but do not educate. In some places, adults fish for insects with a stick or bash nuts with a stone, and the young emulate them. Even so, the grown-ups make no effort to show the infants how to do the job, do not change their ways when youngsters are around and never check to see how well they are doing. Birds, with their bird brains, can do what a chimp does, for a budgie will pull out the stopper of a bottle of food if it sees another do the job, and crows are even smarter.
Real education asks for more. A good pedagogue can teach almost any subject as long as he keeps a few pages ahead of his charges and they respond to his efforts. Teachers also have insight into the mental lives of their pupils, into who understands the lesson and who does not, and know how to encourage them without their becoming bored.
The chimp’s negligence about the next generation is a reminder that the minds of our hairy relatives are not much like our own. A competent teacher needs to understand what his students are thinking - and chimps do not: they have no more than a rudimentary ‘theory of mind’, as psychologists put it. We have lots, and it helps those on both sides of the lectern. Teenagers might doubt the fact, but no ape could ever become a schoolmaster.
The best way of reading a mind is to chat to it. Thomas Love Peacock invented a character called Sir Oran Haut-Ton, who learns to play the French horn but not to speak (he is elected to Parliament, where his silence gives him an air of wisdom). Homo sapiens is the eloquent ape. Even deaf children left in groups babble with their hands. Speech is the scaffold upon which society is built. No other primate can speak and all attempts to persuade them to do so have failed (Noam Chomsky, the theoretician of language, noted that it was ‘about as likely that an ape will prove to have a language ability as there is an island somewhere with
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