Colin Chapman: Why Do We Want to Think People Are Different?

Decorative image for session Colin Chapman: Why Do We Want to Think People Are Different?

My Session Status

What:
Talk
When:
9:00 AM, Saturday 30 Jun 2018 (1 hour 30 minutes)
Where:
Université du Québec à Montréal - DS-R510
Tags:
anthropologyzoologysocial organizationsocial behaviordifferences
Colin Chapman 
McGill Universit

Valéry Giroux 
Coordonnatrice Centre de recherche en éthique
Moderator

Various branches of science keep trying to define how humans and non-human primates (hereafter primates) differ, so as to call humans unique. But are we so different? Here I contrast some of the basic behaviors of humans and primates to evaluate claims of differences. I will look at disparities in terms of aggression, social complexity, territoriality, empathy, and cognitive abilities. We will consider why humans have the desire to be unique and what this desire leads to.

Chapman, C. A., Twinomugisha, D., Teichroeb, J. A., Valenta, K., Sengupta, R., Sarkar, D., & Rothman, J. M. (2016). How do primates survive among humans? Mechanisms employed by vervet monkeys at Lake Nabugabo, Uganda. In Ethnoprimatology (pp. 77-94). Springer, Cham.
MacLean, E. L., Herrmann, E., Suchindran, S., & Hare, B. (2017). Individual differences in cooperative communicative skills are more similar between dogs and humans than chimpanzees. Animal Behaviour, 126, 41-51
Fuentes, A. (2018). How Humans and Apes Are Different, and Why It Matters. Journal of Anthropological Research, 74(2), 151-167

Colin Chapman
Participant

Valéry Giroux
Moderator

My Session Status

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