Wednesday, April 13, 2022

The Triumphant Return of Live Secret Science Club Events

Last night marked the resumption of Secret Science Club live lectures at the beautiful Bell House in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn.  It also marked the end of my two-year-and-two-month exile from the borough. Time being a strange thing, as I walked down 7th Street on a gorgeous afternoon, I felt like it hadn't been any time at all.  I was ecstatic to see the usual Tuesday night bartenders were working- I absolutely love them, and was greatly relieved to see that they had weathered the pandemic unscathed.  My greatest concern for the past two years has been the prospect of people I know missing from my favorite establishments.  So, yeah, major sigh of relief here.

I am also happy to report that the lecture was by a man who I have long admired, primatologist Dr Frans De Waal, professor emeritus of Emory University and former director of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center Living Links Center.  I have noted earlier that I read a lot of Dr De Waal's academic papers while in college, and I had enjoyed his prior SSC lectures.  Last night, I also had the great good fortune to be able to speak one-on-one with the good professor before the lecture.  Needless to say, I was unabashedly 'fanboying' the whole evening.

Last night's lecture by Dr De Waal concerned gender, the topic of his new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist. I joked to Dr De Waal about his prescience in writing a book about gender in time for it to be released while an acrimonious Culture War regarding gender is raging throughout the United States.  It's going to take intelligent, compassionate, level-headed voices like Dr De Waal's to get us out of the mess we're in.

Dr De Waal began his lecture by commenting on the importance of live events.  While the Zoom lectures were a success, humans want to see, hear, and smell people in person.  He then joked that he would be lecturing on gender because he wanted to pick a topic that's non-controversial, that we all agree on.

The lecture then started in earnest with a discussion of Sex vs Gender.  Sex is determined by biology, it is a matter of chromosomes and hormones.  Humans exhibit less sexual dimorphism than the other great apes.  Men and women don't have many differences in physical capabilities, the one significant difference being males, on average, having more upper body strength.  Gender is how we define ourselves.  Sex is largely, but not entirely, a binary.  Gender is a social construct and is not binary.  As far as the nature vs nurture part of the equation, it's not a big deal.

Dr De Waal, noting that human sexual dimorphism is tiny compared to that of the other apes, illustrated this in hilarious fashion by displaying a picture of himself and his five brothers towering over their diminutive mother.  He noted that growing up in a household of six boys made him curious about gender.  He stated that humans are apes, being large tailless primates, and noted that our closest relatives, chimps and bonobos, are more sexually dimorphic than humans but less sexually dimorphic than gorillas and orangutans.  Male chimps are built like bodybuilders and have larger canines than females, and males are dominant.  Bonobos form social groups in which females are dominant.

The topic then shifted to gender among our ape relatives.  Gender is an important concept for humans.  Humans are culture-oriented, we mature slowly because we need to learn many things.  Apes also mature slowly, a chimpanzee can be considered an adult at 16, they are dependent on their mothers until age 10, and typically become weaned around 4 years of age.  Apes are culture-oriented, they need to learn things from others, such as tool use, what to eat, and, of particular importance, social behavior.

Mothers are the important models for behaviors- they teach their young how to, for example, use twigs to 'fish' for termites.  It's been observed that female chimpanzees tend to follow the examples of their mothers more closely when it comes to the duration of  'dipping' for termites and the form of their twigs.  Males tend to emulate male role models, and often show greater variation in twig length and dipping duration (this raised quite a chuckle from the audience).  When it comes to self-socialization, the young emulate models of their own gender.  In the case of the self-socialization of transgender children, models of the opposite sex are emulated.

Dr De Waal then introduced us to Donna, a gender non-conforming chimpanzee at the Yerkes center.  Donna had been studied since she was two.  Her build was similar to that of a male, and she enjoyed wrestling with other males in her youth.  She also exhibited the long hair typical of male chimpanzees, and would experience less genital swelling than other female chimpanzees.  She was largely asexual, best described as infertile and peaceful.  Donna was well-integrated with the group.  Dr De Waal then noted that some males are atypically non-confrontational.  These males, like Donna, tend to be individually well-accepted- pigeonholing is not done, apes don't play those games.

Chimpanzees and bonobos are equally close to humans genetically, but they contrast greatly with each other behaviorally.  Chimps frequently engage in conflict, and males dominate in social groups.  Bonobos have female dominated societies marked by little conflict.  Dr De Waal noted that the posture of dominant male chimpanzees is best described as a bipedal swagger, but that even the swaggering alpha male usually depends on the support of powerful older males that cease to fight for dominance:

 

Chimpanzee societies are territorial, they often attack, and sometimes even kill, neighbors.  There have been 151 documented cases of violent deaths in chimpanzee conflicts, but only one suspected case of a bonobo killing another bonobo.

Bonobos have high-pitched voices, and before they were recognized as a separate species, were confused for young chimpanzees.  Bonobos are more anatomically similar to humans than chimpanzees are, having longer legs.  Bonobos are known for their sexual ways- they like sex in all positions and combinations, and use sex for social reasons.  Bonobos came to be known in the popular culture as the 'make love not war' apes.  Bonobo sexual activity is often elicited by food- food excites them, and they have sex.

There are 120 bonobos in captivity worldwide, and all of their social groups are led by females.  This dominance is a collective dominance, individual females cannot dominate on their own, so they team up.  This dominance isn't always nice, biting does occur.  

Bonobos are not territorial, and when different groups meet, the females like to mingle and share food.  They will even adopt orphans from other groups.

Dr De Waal then went on to discuss gender preferences in toys.  Young female chimps and bonobos are attracted to dolls, they will care for dolls and even build nests for them.  They will even improvise dolls from logs that they carry like infants.  Young males have a more technical interest, they often rip dolls apart to see what's inside.  

Among macaques, females will handle other mothers' infants, and even juvenile females will handle babies.  Males are not nearly as interested in babies, and mothers are not as willing to let them handle them.  Young females often act as baby sitters, which allows mothers to spend more time feeding and grooming.

Male chimpanzees are more prone to rough-and-tumble play, which provides them with the skills they will need in their adult life.  Adolescents will learn how to control their strength and learn to be gentle with babies.

Regarding intelligence, Dr De Waal noted that, for centuries, belief in male intellectual superiority was used as an argument for inequality.  Even Darwin, so right about many things, was terrible about women's intellectual equality:

“The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is [shown] by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than woman can attain — whether requiring deep thought, reason or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands.”

Dr De Waal stressed that there is no data to indicate intellectual differences between males and females.  

He then shifted the topic of the lecture to displays of intelligence among chimpanzees, such as Ayumu, a chimpanzee which excels at memorization tasks, beating humans at this game:

He then showed us a video of Lisala, a female bonobo, transporting a rock a kilometer to a place with a hard surface in order to crack nuts.  This necessitated planning ahead.

Dr De Waal reiterated that there are no sex differences in males and females when it comes to intelligence.  Intelligence evolved in tandem between the sexes.  He drove this point home with a video of a group of female chimpanzees which conspired to take down a drone that they despised:

Dr De Waal quipped, "Meet your ape overlords."

The topic then shifted to alpha males, and Dr De Waal noted that not all bullies, and that many notions about alpha males are really excuses for societal inequality.  Using the hamadryas baboon as an example, the males are much larger than the females, but many of the assumptions about their behavior were the result of a study of a captive population in a London zoo composed of 100 males and 5 females... while wild baboon societies are not always nice and gentle, they aren't at all like this London nightmare scenario.

Most ape societies are functional.  Alpha males tend to keep the peace by defending the underdog- females from males, juveniles from grownups.  They generally regulate aggressive behavior.  Effective alpha males are popular, are good leaders, are protective, and well-supported.  Bullies are dealt with, sometimes even killed.  To illustrate good alpha behavior, Dr De Waal showed us a video of a male standing in a road while the group crossed it.  At least half of alpha males are effective leaders, not bullies.

In bonobos, females are the leaders.  Even chimpanzee societies have powerful females- dominance and power are not equal.  Alpha males need support, and powerful matriarchs, such as the famous Mama, can be helpful in this regard.  Dr De Waal posed the question: Who is more powerful?  All societies have hierarchies, which is more important, the dominance or the support?  He joked that the concept of the pecking order comes from hens, not roosters.  Both sexes are hierarchical.  Then, there's the case of Japan's Monkey Queen, a young female which wrested control of a huge macaque troop.

Often, powerful females are mediators.  Mama was known to interpose herself between fighting males until a reconciliation would be reached.

Males are sometimes known for care of juveniles, but they protect rather than nurture.  In Uganda, a respiratory disease killed many chimps, leaving orphans which were often adopted by older siblings. In one case, an alpha male named Freddy adopted an orphaned male named Oscar.  Males have the capability to care for the young when necessary. Things are easier in human societies, in which the nuclear family is important, and males have stronger paternal tendencies.

Dr De Waal concluded his lecture with a list of point, noting that he is a biologist working in the psychology department.  It's useful to distinguish between sex and gender, but they cannot be completely disconnected.  All hominids have genders and behavioral differences exist. Differences are often assumed about topics like female hierarchies and male friendships- lines can be blurry between rivalries and friendships.  There is no difference in intellectual capacity between males and females. 

The lecture was followed by a Q&A session, and some Bastard in the audience noted that the timing of the release of this book could not have been more fortuitous, given the current culture war over gender identity.  Dr De Waal noted that this conflict is primarily over transgender issues, and that primates don't discriminate in this way.  He supports transgender rights, but feels that the issue of competitive sports, while overblown, needs to be, and will be, sorted out, though transgender athletes compose only about one-thousandth of competitors (in our one-on-one, I suggested getting rid of gendered athletics, using body mass and height as neutral qualifiers).  Regarding Donna, the gender non-conforming chimp, no studies were made of her genetically or hormonally- Dr De Waal said, "We took her as she was."  Regarding mental abilities, the only difference between males and females is that males are slightly better at spatial orientation and the rotation of 3D objects- this might be because in most mammal species, males travel from female to female while females tend to have their own territories.

Asked about transphobia, Dr De Waal notes that language does not cause it, but it doesn't help.  Apes can't vocalize about gender or racial differences.  Colombian spider monkeys come in many colors, but there's no labeling.  Labeling can increase pigeonholing due to different appearances.  Among chimps and bonobos, not too many males act in a feminine fashion, but homosexual behavior is pretty common.  Even sex is not a binary- about one to two percent of the population is non-binary or intersex.  Gender is certainly not binary.  Transphobia and homophobia are not observed in chimps or bonobos, the only thing that is greeted with intolerance is disturbing the peace.

The Secret Science Club has returned to form, serving up a fantastic, topical lecture by Dr Frans De Waal, who hit what I call the 'Secret Science Sweet Spot', that heady blend of hard science, advocacy, and entertaining narrative, in this case the exploits of various apes.  Kudos to the good doctor, to Margaret and Dorian, and to the beloved staff of the beautiful Bell House.  I'm overjoyed to be back, learning while intoxicated, with such wonderful people.  Hugs all around!

For a taste of the Secret Science experience, here is Dr De Waal lecturing on alpha males, a topic he touched upon in his SSC lecture:


Pour yourself a nice beverage and soak in that SCIENCE!

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