Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are

by Frans de Waal

  The trunk, or proboscis, is an extraordinarily sensitive smelling, grasping, and feeling organ said to contain forty thousand muscles coordinated by a unique proboscis nerve that runs along its full length. The trunk has two sensitive “fingers” at the tip, with which it can pick up items as small as a blade of grass, but the trunk also allows the animal to suck up eight liters of water or flip over an annoying hippo. True, the cognition associated with this appendage is specialized, but who knows how much of our own cognition is tied to the specifics of our bodies, such as our hands? Would we have evolved the same technical skills and intelligence without these supremely versatile appendages? Some theories of language evolution postulate its origin in manual gestures as well as in neural structures for the throwing of stones and spears.65 In the same way that humans have a “handy” intelligence, which we share with other primates, elephant may have a “trunky” one.

  There is also the issue of continued evolution. It is a widespread misconception that humans kept evolving while our closest relatives stopped. The only one who stopped, however, is the missing link: the last common ancestor of humans and apes, so named because it went extinct long ago. This link will forever remain missing unless we happen to dig up some fossil remains. I named my research center Living Links, in a wordplay on the missing link, since we study chimpanzees and bonobos as live links to the past. The name has caught on, because there are now a few other Living Links centers in the world. Traits shared across all three species—our two closest ape relatives and ourselves—likely have the same evolutionary roots.

  But apart from commonalities, all three species also evolved in their own separate ways. Since there is no such thing as halted evolution, all three probably changed substantially. Some of these evolutionary changes gave our relatives an advantage, such as the resistance to the HIV-1 virus that evolved in West African chimps long before the AIDS epidemic devastated humanity.66 Human immunity has some serious catching up to do. Similarly, all three species—not just ours—had time to evolve cognitive specializations. No natural law says that our species has to be best at everything, which is why we should be prepared for more discoveries such as Ayumu’s flash memory or the selective imitative talents of apes. A Dutch educational program recently brought out an advertisement in which human children face the floating peanut task (see Chapter 3). Even though the members of our species have a bottle of water standing not too far away, they fail to think of the solution until they see a video of apes solving the same problem. Some apes do so spontaneously, even when there is no bottle around to suggest what to do. They walk to the faucet where they know water can be collected. The point of the ad is that schools should teach kids to think outside the box, using apes as an inspiration.67

  The more we know about animal cognition, the more examples of this kind may come to light. The American primatologist Chris Martin, at the PRI in Japan, has added yet another chimpanzee forte. Using separate computer screens, he had apes play a competitive game that required them to anticipate one another’s moves. Could they outguess their rivals based on their previous choices, a bit like the rock-paper-scissors game? Martin had humans play the same game. The chimps outperformed the humans, reaching optimal performance more quickly and completely than members of our own species. The scientists attributed the edge to chimps being quicker at predicting a rival’s moves and countermoves.68

  This finding resonated with me, given what I know about the politics and preemptive tactics of chimpanzees. Chimp status is based on alliances, in which males support one another. Reigning alpha males protect their power by a divide-and-rule strategy, and they particularly hate it when one of their rivals cozies up to one of their own supporters. They try to forestall hostile collusions. Moreover, not unlike presidential candidates who hold babies up in the air as soon as the cameras are rolling, male chimps vying for power develop a sudden interest in infants, which they hold and tickle in order to curry favor with the females.69 Female support can make a huge difference in rivalries among males, so making a good impression on them is important. Given the tactical shrewdness of chimpanzees, it is a great advance that computer games now help us put these remarkable skills to the test.

  We have no good reason to focus solely on chimpanzees, though. They often serve as a starting point, but “chimpocentrism” is a mere extension of anthropocentrism.70 Why not focus on other species that lend themselves to explore specific aspects of cognition? We could focus on a small number of organisms as test cases. We already do so in medicine and general biology. Geneticists exploit fruit flies and zebra fish, and students of neural development have gotten much mileage out of research on nematode worms. Not everyone realizes that science works this way, which is why scientists were dumbfounded by the complaint of former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin that tax dollars were going to useless projects such as “fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.”71 It may sound silly to some, but the humble Drosophila has long been our main workhorse in genetics, yielding insight in the relation between chromosomes and genes. A small set of animals produces basic knowledge applicable to many other species, including ourselves. The same applies to cognitive research, such as the way rats and pigeons have shaped our view of memory. I imagine a future in which we explore a range of capacities in specific organisms on the assumption of generalizability. We may end up studying technical skills in New Caledonian crows and capuchin monkeys, conformity in guppies, empathy in canids, object categorization in parrots, and so on.

  Yet all this requires that we circumvent the fragile human ego and treat cognition like any other biological phenomenon. If cognition’s basic features derive from gradual descent with modification, then notions of leaps, bounds, and sparks are out of order. Instead of a gap, we face a gently sloping beach created by the steady pounding of millions of waves. Even if human intellect is higher up on the beach, it was shaped by the same forces battering the same shore.

  6 SOCIAL SKILLS

  The old male faced a choice worthy of a politician. Every day Yeroen was being groomed by two rivaling males, each one eager to gain his backing. He seemed to enjoy the attention. Being groomed by the mighty alpha male, the one who had deposed him a year earlier, was utterly relaxing because no one would dare disturb them. But being groomed by the second, younger male was tricky. Their get-togethers greatly upset alpha, who regarded them as plots against himself and tried to disrupt them. Alpha would put up all his hair and hoot and display around, banging doors and hitting females, until the other two males became so nervous that they’d break up and leave the scene. Separating them was the only way to calm down alpha. Since male chimps never cease to jockey for position and are always making and breaking pacts, innocent grooming sessions don’t really exist. Every single one carries political implications.

  The current alpha male enjoyed massive popularity and support, including that of the old matriarch, Mama, leader of the females. If Yeroen had wanted an easy life, he would have opted to play sidekick to this male. He wouldn’t have rocked the boat, and there would never have been any threat to his position. Aligning himself with the ambitious young male, on the other hand, was fraught with risk. However big and muscular this male might be, he had barely left his adolescence behind. He was an untried entity who carried so little authority that whenever he tried to break up a female fight, as top males are wont to do, he risked the wrath of both contestants. Ironically, this meant that he did resolve the discord, but at his own expense. Instead of screaming at one another, the females now supported one another in chasing the would-be arbitrator. Once they got him cornered, however, they were smart enough not to physically grapple with him, being all too familiar with his speed, strength, and canine teeth. He had become a player to be reckoned with.

  The alpha male, in contrast, was so skilled at peacekeeping, so impartial in his interventions, and so protective of the underdog that he had become immensely beloved. He had brought peace and harmony to the group after a l
ong period of upheaval. Females were always ready to groom him and let him play with their children. They were likely to resist anyone who dared challenge his reign.

  Nonetheless, this is exactly what Yeroen went for when he sided with the young upstart. The two of them entered a long campaign to dethrone the established leader that took a great toll in tensions and injuries. Whenever the young male would position himself at some distance from the alpha male, provoking him with increasingly loud hooting, Yeroen would go sit right behind the challenger, wrap his arms around his middle, and softly hoot along. This way there was no doubt about his allegiance. Mama and her female friends did resist this revolt, occasionally resulting in massive pursuits of both troublemakers, but the combination of the young male’s brawn and Yeroen’s brain was too much. From the start, it was obvious that Yeroen was not out to claim the alpha position for himself but was content to let his partner do the dirty work. They never backed down, and after several months of daily confrontations, the young male became the new alpha.

  The two of them ruled for years, with Yeroen acting like a Dick Cheney or a Ted Kennedy, a power behind the throne; he remained so influential that as soon as his support began to waver, the throne wobbled. This happened occasionally after conflicts over sexually attractive females. The new alpha quickly learned that in order to keep Yeroen on his side, he’d need to grant him privileges. Most of the time Yeroen was allowed to mate with females, something the young alpha did not tolerate from any other male.

  Why did Yeroen throw his support behind this parvenu instead of joining the established power? It is informative to look at studies of human coalition formation, in which players win games through cooperation, and to study the balance-of-power theories about international pacts. The basic principle here is the “strength is weakness” paradox, according to which the most powerful player is often the least attractive political ally because this player doesn’t really need others, hence takes them for granted and treats them like dirt. In Yeroen’s case, the established alpha male was too mighty for his own good. By joining him, Yeroen would have gained little, because all this male truly needed was his neutrality. The smarter strategy for him was to pick a partner who couldn’t win without him. By throwing his weight behind the young male, Yeroen became the kingmaker. He regained both prestige and fresh mating opportunities.

  Machiavellian Intelligence

  When I began observing the world’s largest chimpanzee colony, at Burgers’ Zoo in 1975, I had no idea that I’d be working with this species for the rest of my life. Just so, as I sat on a wooden stool watching primates on a forested island for an estimated ten thousand hours, I had no idea that I’d never again enjoy that luxury. Nor did I realize that I would develop an interest in power relations. In those days, university students were firmly antiestablishment, and I had the shoulder-long hair to prove it. We considered ambition ridiculous and power evil. My observations of the chimps, however, made me question the idea that hierarchies were merely cultural institutions, a product of socialization, something we could wipe out at any moment. They seemed more ingrained. I had no trouble detecting the same tendencies in even the most hippielike organizations. They were generally run by young men who mocked authority and preached egalitarianism yet had no qualms about ordering everyone else around and stealing their comrades’ girlfriends. It wasn’t the chimps who were odd, but the humans who seemed dishonest. Political leaders have a habit of concealing their power motives behind nobler desires such as a readiness to serve the nation and improve the economy. When the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes postulated the existence of an insuppressible power drive, he was right on target for both humans and apes.

  The biological literature proved to be of no help understanding the social maneuvering that I observed, so I turned to Niccolò Machiavelli. During quiet moments of observation, I read from a book that had been published more than four centuries earlier. The Prince put me in the right frame of mind to interpret what I was seeing on the chimpanzees’ forested island, though I’m pretty sure the Florentine philosopher never envisioned this particular application.

  Among chimpanzees, hierarchy permeates everything. Whenever we set out to bring two females inside the building—as we often do for testing—one will be ready to get going on the task at hand while the other will hang back. The second female will barely take rewards and won’t touch the puzzle box, computer, or whatever else we’re using. She may be just as eager as the other, but she defers to her “superior.” There is no tension or hostility between them, and out in the group they may be the best of friends. One female simply dominates the other.

  Among the males, in contrast, power is always up for grabs. It is not conferred on the basis of age or any other trait but has to be fought for and jealously guarded against contenders. Soon after my long stint as chronicler of their social affairs, I put pencil to paper to produce Chimpanzee Politics, a popular account of the power struggles that I had witnessed.1 I was risking my nascent academic career by ascribing intelligent social maneuvering to animals, an implication I had been trained to avoid at all cost. That doing well in a group full of rivals, friends, and relatives requires considerable social skill is something we now take for granted, but in those days animal social behavior was rarely thought of as intelligent. Observers would recount a rank reversal between two baboons, for example, in passive terms, as if it happened to them rather than was brought about by them. They would make no mention of one baboon following the other around, provoking one confrontation after another, flashing his huge canine teeth, and recruiting help from nearby males. It is not that the observers did not notice, but animals were not supposed to have goals and strategies, so the reports remained silent.

  Deliberately breaking with this tradition, describing chimps as schmoozing and scheming Machiavellians, my book drew wide attention and enjoyed many translations. The U.S. Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, even put it on the recommended reading list for freshmen congressmen. The account met with far less resistance than I had dreaded, including from fellow primatologists. Obviously, the time was ripe, in 1982, for a more cognitive approach to animal social behavior. Even though I learned about it only after my own book, Donald Griffin’s Animal Awareness had come out just a few years before.2

  My work was part of a new Zeitgeist, and I had a handful of predecessors to lean on. There was Emil Menzel, whose work on chimpanzee cooperation and communication postulated goals and hinted at intelligent solutions, and Hans Kummer, who never ceased to wonder what drove his baboons to act the way they did. Kummer wanted to know, for example, how baboons plan their travel routes, and who decides where to go—those in front or those in the back? He broke down the behavior into recognizable mechanisms, and stressed how social relationships serve as long-term investments. More than anyone before him, Kummer combined classical ethology with questions about social cognition.3

  I was also impressed by In The Shadow of Man by a young British primatologist.4 By the time I read it, I was familiar enough with chimpanzees to be unsurprised by the specifics of Jane Goodall’s description of life at Gombe Stream in Tanzania. But the tone of her account was truly refreshing. She did not necessarily spell out the cognition of her subjects, but it was impossible to read about Mike—a rising male who impressed his rivals by loudly banging empty kerosene cans together—or the love life and family relations of matriarch Flo, without recognizing a complex psychology. Goodall’s apes had personalities, emotions, and social agendas. She did not unduly humanize them, but she related what they did in unpretentious prose that would have been perfectly normal for a day at the office but was unorthodox with regard to animals. It was a huge improvement over the tendency at the time to drown behavioral descriptions in quotation marks and dense jargon in order to avoid mentalistic implications. Even animal names and genders were often avoided. (Every individual was an “it.”) Goodall’s apes, in contrast, were social agents with names and faces. Rather than being the slav
es of their instincts, they acted as the architects of their own destinies. Her approach perfectly fit my own budding understanding of chimpanzee social life.

  Yeroen’s allegiance to the young alpha was a case in point. Not that I could resolve how and why he had made his choice, in the same way that it was impossible for Goodall to know if Mike’s career might have been different in the absence of kerosene cans, but both stories implied deliberate tactics. Pinpointing the cognition behind such behavior requires collecting a mass of systematic data as well as performing experiments, such as the strategic computer games that we now know chimps are extraordinarily good at.5

  Let me briefly offer two examples of how these issues may be tackled. The first concerns a study at the Burgers’ Zoo itself. Conflicts in the colony rarely remained restricted to the original two contestants, since chimps have a tendency to draw others into the fray. Sometimes ten or more chimps would be running around, threatening and chasing one another, uttering high-pitched screams that could be heard a mile away. Naturally, every contestant tried to get as many allies on his or her side as possible. When I analyzed hundreds of videotaped incidents (a new technique at the time!), I found that the chimpanzees who were losing the battle beseeched their friends by stretching out an open hand to them. They tried to recruit support in order to turn things around. When it came to the friends of their enemies, however, they went out of their way to appease them by putting an arm around them and kissing their face or shoulder. Instead of begging for assistance, they sought to neutralize them.6