But the discovery that babies are capable of deception led experts to conclude that “mind-reading” skills develop gradually, and fuelled debate about whether they might be present in other primates.Įxperiments in the 1990s indicated that great apes and some monkeys do understand deception, but that their understanding of the minds of others is probably implicit rather than explicit as it is in adult humans. This ability to attribute mental states to others was once thought unique to humans, emerging suddenly around the fifth year of life. To outwit someone you must understand their desires, intentions and motives – exactly the same ability that underpins the “theory of mind”. Perhaps the surest sign that an individual has insight into the mind of another is the ability to deceive.
“In sperm whales, and likely other whales and dolphins, culture has the potential to affect population biology, and so issues as diverse as genetic evolution and the impacts of global warming on the species.” 2. Read the original article: Culture shock (24 March 2001) Although both live in the same waters and interbreed, they have very different social structures and lifestyles, distinct ways of communicating, different tastes in food and characteristic hunting techniques – all of which parents teach to offspring.
Killer whales, for example, fall into two distinct groups, residents and transients.
But culture at its core is simply the sum of a particular group’s characteristic ways of living, learned from one another and passed down the generations, and other primate species undoubtedly have practices that are unique to groups, such as a certain way of greeting each other or obtaining food.Įven more convincing examples of animal cultures are found in cetaceans. Clearly no other animal has anything approaching this level of cultural sophistication. CultureĪrt, theatre, literature, music, religion, architecture and cuisine – these are the things we generally associate with culture. Plus, we have rounded up six videos of animals displaying ‘human’ abilities. We have also asked the researchers involved to update us on their latest findings. To accompany the article So you think humans are unique? we have selected six articles from the New Scientist archive that tell a similar story.
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