AAAS Montreal Meeting, 26-31 December 1964

The origins of baboon aggression are to be seen in this shot of two juvenile baboons in competitive play. Stuartand Jeanne Altmann took the picture this year in Amboseli, Kenya.

The Social Nature of Man

The social sciences are heavily rep-resented on the program at the forth-coming AAAS meeting in Montreal.Following are resumes of six suchevents.

Monkey Business

One of the top events at Montrealwill be an International Symposium andConference on Communication and So-cial Interaction in Primates, which willrun from 27 to 31 December.

Research in this field promises toclarify much: origins of primate be-havior; how behavior develops in an

individual from infancy; how behavioris regulated by the nervous and endo-crine systems; capabilities and restric-tions that are set by each primate'sanatomy; and relations between be-havior, social organization, and environ-ment.

6 NOVEMBER 1964

So reports zoologist Stuart Altmann,University of Alberta, who arranged theevent. Monkeys make good researchsubjects, both because they are man'sclosest cousins and because their socialsystems and behaviors are simpler thanman's and thus easier to study.

Altmann reports that, just a decadeor two ago, few if any workers were inthe field studying the lower primates.But this year there have been more than20 (including Altmann himself, whowas in Kenya).

Laboratory research on monkeyshas shown a similar spurt. Equipmentis now being used for remote record-ing of behavior and for telemeteringand telestimulation of various physiolog-ical functions which affect behavior.Computer techniques and mathematicalmodels of social systems have been de-veloped, which make it possible to testtheories of behavior.

In fact, growth in this research has

been so fast, and has occurred in somany fields, that one purpose of theevent is to help researchers further co-ordinate their efforts. Altmann reportsthat about two dozen scientists fromfour continents will speak. Disciplinesrepresented will include anthropology,mathematics, neurology, psychiatry,psychology, and zoology.

Chimpanzee Tool-Users

The chimpanzee is a closer cousinthan many people realize. NaturalistJane Goodall, 29-year-old English-woman, has found that chimps in thewild use a variety of tools, have atleast a 20-word vocabulary, and eatmeat as well as plants.A color film illustrating her findings

and showing her laboratory-theGombe Stream Game Reserve nearLake Tanganyika-will be this year's

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Nation.al Geooraphic Society illustr;atedleCtUre. It \vill be shown the eveningof 30 Decemiber.

Duiring nearly 2 years of' obser-vinigthese miost intelligenit of mionkeys, Mliss

A ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Goodiallfouind proofs that chimps uiSeand even fashion tools. She sa-w a

chimiip use a leaf as a napkiln. to wvipehis sticky halnds aftter eating. She ob-

served a chimp crumple a leaf and Liseit as a sponge to soak uip raWinlwater inla hollow log. Most impressive was thisfinding: I have xxatched chimpanzees

-1] X::0: X fish [termites fromii a heap of dlirtl fortwo houirs at a timlae, picking daintynmorsels froml the stra\w uisedl to extractthe termlites] and mnLInching them with

4: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~delight. Somietimies a leafy\ igY isk -efoselect andbefore this caii be Lused

the chimipanzee has to strip off theleaves. In so dloing-in mdio f ing anatUral object to ilmLake it suitable for aspecific puirpose the chinil%inzec hasreached the first crudic he-ininc-Il-s oftool making" [Nuiomil (cuoiuphic

_ivM(u'ainc, AuLgulst 9631.FuLrther. liss Goodall w.as the first

to find concluSively that chimpijs eatmeat in add .ition to planits. 1 he redlcolohus inonkev is favored chimip gaimse.apparently becait-se It is easy to catch.

MNIiss Goodall also observeds a chimpetieating a chickeni. Anid she WaIS SLir-prisedt to see a chimrep with the skusllOf a young buishbuick, thiS IS a SLIr-prisingly l.arge animal f'ori chimp(weighing no miore thain 130 pountds)to kill.

Man Is not a-done as a uiser of toots: Jane Goodall fouind this chimpalnzee uising a stickto exti'act tasty termiite morsels from a miound of earth. She also saw chimips Cruminpleleaves for tise as a "sponge" in collecting drinking water, and saw another chimp usea leaf as a napkin for wiping his mouLth. [Baron HuLgo von Lawick, (. NationatA1 to1atic Polation ControlGeogiaphic Society]

In an atg,e when "de.ath control"(medicine) is more SuICCesstfltl thanicouLnterbalancing birth control nmeasuresin many parts of the world, mior-e re-search into populat ion control is needed.An ex\amiplc of such rese.arch is pro-

vided by V. C. Wynne-Edsarclds. Re-

-giuLs Professor of nalturral histoiy. Uni-versity of Aberdeen. In a speech in the

*0000:;0-~.. - I K AAAS lectuire series Moving Frontiersof Science, to be given 26 Decemiber,he will presenit his theory oni hows ani-m.al populations are controlledl aluto-matically.Wynne-Edwards concludes that dis-

ease is not a prime factor in controllinganimal populations. Nor, he thinks, are

.............--Xfii0 0 0 0 0 i .............................. :-:- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~predators-the lion, eagle, and skLuamXX. ~ have nonie, yet their popuIlations are

- x 00 0000000 < v 0003 ;00 00^ 00000 t0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 fa irlv stable.But S arVation is a factor, he say-s.

Baboon nap time. [StuLa.rt Altmann] Birtds and other animals fight for nest-

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ing and feeding grounds. They limit thepopulation density-winners get exclu-sive rights to a territory, and its foodwith it.

Birds "seldom draw blood or killeach other. Instead they merely threatenwith aggressive postures, vigorous sing-ing or displays of plumage." The strut-ting and dancing of the sage grouse isan example.

This, Wynne-Edwards concludes, rep-resents "an automatic restricting mech-anism analogous to the deliberate con-ventions or agreements by whichnations, for example, limit the exploita-tion of fishing grounds."The difference, of course, is that the

animals' control mechanism is appar-ently not consciously set-and man'smechanisms are. Man must depend onhis conscious and deliberate behaviorfor keeping his population in check.So far, Wynne-Edwards suggests, ani-mals have done a better job.

Humanistic Biology

Many successes in biology have comebecause researchers have examined thesmallest and simplest possible physio-logical and chemical systems of or-ganisms. But a great deal can be gainedby studying the biology of homo sapiensas a whole, suggests Rene Dubos of theRockefeller Institute. On 29 DecemberDr. Dubos will give the annual SigmaXi-Phi Beta Kappa lecture.Man is superior to his monkey cous-

ins by no order-of-magnitude jump inphysiological sophistication, Dubos re-ports. Yet clearly man has achieved afar more complex society and expresseshimself in far grander ways.Dubos suggests that there are "bio-

logical forces in man's nature whichare not governed by reason and indeedare not readily apparent, but whichconstitute nevertheless the most power-ful sources of inspiration" both forartist and scientist. Dubos even suggeststhat out of man's biological nature comesocial attitudes which in turn "canevolve into ethical principles." Indeed,"all the biological attributes of manare the raw materials out of which aremade the creations which are the con-cern of the humanities. . . . The roleof the biologist, as I see it, is to try torecognize the existence of these rawmaterials, to describe them as com-pletely as possible, to study their inter-play, and thus help man to know him-self."6 NOVEMBER 1964

Eskimo Origins and Evolution

How are the tribes of Eskimos re-

lated? Have they common ancestors?These and other questions will be

answered in a symposium on Archae-ological and Ethnological Problems inthe Arctic and Subarctic, to be held 29and 30 December, arranged by JacobFried of McGill University, GordonLowther of the University of Montreal,and Katherine McClellan of the Uni-versity of Wisconsin.

Fried explained the thinking whichled to the symposium: Archaeologists,ethnologists, and social anthropologistshave studied in detail individual sitesand tribes. The question now is, howare the tribes related? Where did theDorset culture come from and howwidely did it spread? Knowing that ul-timately the eastern Eskimo culturesderived from Western sources, howshall we fill the big gap in sites in thecentral arctic regions? Far back intime, what early cultural types de-veloped into "Eskimo" cultures andwhat into "Indian"? What have beenthe influences of fur traders and trap-pers, miners, whalers, missionaries, andgovernment personnel?

Environment versus Heredity

"Programs of . . . environmentalstimulation early in life [may affect]human capacity for forming conceptsand the ability to think, if providedearly enough and perhaps during 'criti-cal periods' for the formation of con-

cepts and ideas." This thought underliesa symposium on Early ExperientialDeprivation and Enrichment, and LaterDevelopment, set for 29 December andarranged by psychologist Dale Harrisof Pennsylvania State University.

Harris continues, "while specific pro-

grams of training, narrowly conceived,may improve performance in specificways, such programs often do not domuch to change the level of a person'scapacity for performance or for ac-

quiring skill in performance.""There is accumulating a new body of

evidence that extreme deprivation dur-ing periods of infancy may set definitelimits on the level of capacity that can

be developed by an animal, includingthe human animal. There is also evi-dence that increased opportunity to ex-

plore a complex environment early inlife" may boost ability to achieve at a

much later date.

Psychiatric Contributions

A symposium on Cognitive Processesand Psychopathology has been arrangedfor 26-27 December by a committeeheaded by Montague Ullman of Mai-monides Hospital of Brooklyn. In in-troductory remarks, Harley Shands ofthe State University of New York,Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn,will note that the scientific advances ofthe past two or three decades have putinto serious doubt every old theory ofman's thinking processes. Many of thenew developments come from the fieldsof psychoanalysis, linguistics, commu-nication engineering, and psychologicaldevelopment. These influences will bereviewed in the four sessions of thesymposium:

1) A session on information theory,keynoted by James Miller of the MentalHealth Research Institute, University ofMichigan. Miller will review his workon the concept of "information over-load" as it relates to psychiatric con-ditions.

2) A session on "holistic" theoriesof personality, keynoted by EugeniaHanfman, authority on schizophreniclanguage and recent translator ofVygotsky's important book Thought andLanguage. She will discuss her workon the posthumously published writingsof Andras Angyal. The discussion fol-lowing will concern itself in part withthe "linguistic relativity" ideas of Sapirand Whorf.

3) A session on thought-disorder asthe leading feature of schizophrenia,arranged by Silvano Arieti, author ofAn Interpretation of Schizophrenia.This panel will consider the "pathogno-monic" character of signs of thought-disorder in the diagnosis of schizo-phrenia.

4) A final session on the develop-mental psychology of Piaget, his "ge-netic epistemology," with the main ad-dress to be delivered by Piaget's long-time principal associate, ProfessorBarbel Inhelder of the University ofGeneva. Miss Inhelder will consider thepossible correlations of the Piaget sys-tem, constructed on the basis of the ob-servation of normal children, for theunderstanding of mental illness in amedical setting.

The symposium as a whole is orientedtoward furthering the rapidly growingrapprochement of fields in psychology,clinical and nonclinical, which for mostof this century have appeared to havevery little connection with each other.

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The Social Nature of Man

DOI: 10.1126/science.146.3645.801 (3645), 801-803.146Science 

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