TV Program Description
Original PBS Broadcast Date: February 19, 2008
At a research site in Fongoli,
Senegal, a female chimpanzee breaks off a branch, chews the end to make it
sharp, then uses this rudimentary spear to skewer a tasty bushbaby hiding
inside a hollow tree. The footage represents an astonishing breakthrough for
primate researchers: It's the first time anyone has documented a
chimpanzee wielding a carefully prepared, preplanned weapon.
But it's
only the latest in a slew of extraordinary new findings about ape behavior. The
more researchers learn about the great apes—chimpanzees, bonobos,
gorillas, and orangutans (see Our Family Tree)—the more evidence they
find of creative intelligence. What, then, is the essential difference between
us and them? "Ape Genius," a NOVA-National Geographic special,
explores that provocative question and examines research that is illuminating
the ape mind.
The spear-wielding chimps were
documented by anthropologist Jill Pruetz of Iowa State University, who also
observed the Fongoli colony doing something else never documented before:
holding a pool party. Chimps were long thought to be afraid of water, but as
charming poolside footage reveals, these hairy bathers swing from the trees and
take the plunge in high spirits.
In addition to Pruetz, "Ape
Genius" features contributions by other noted researchers, including
Brian Hare of Duke University, Andrew Whiten of the University of St. Andrews,
Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University, Rebecca Saxe of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and Josep Call and Michael Tomasello of the Max Planck
Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (For an extended interview with
Rebecca Saxe, see The Ape That Teaches.)
Bit by bit, these investigators are
converging on an explanation for why the non-human great apes never made the
breakthrough into an accelerating human-style culture that builds on the
achievements of previous generations. After all, apes are stronger and more
agile than we are. They have also shown previously unsuspected talents for
reasoning, creative problem solving, and other intelligent traits. Some have
even demonstrated rudimentary language abilities (see Kanzi the Bonobo). And
their emotional lives seem on a par with ours, as is evident in moving footage
of a mother chimp dealing with the sickness and death of her child.
But something has held them back.
What?
"Ape Genius" takes
viewers to the African savannah and research labs in Texas, Germany, and Japan
to explore a number of fascinating new experiments that shed light on just what
apes are thinking. (More footage of such experiments is available in Video
Extras.)
Through careful design, such tests
spotlight different features of the ape mind, and striking variation between
one species and another. For example, bonobos appear far more cooperative than
chimps and will work together on a simple task that yields a box of food to
split. Chimps are more selfish under such circumstances, but they appear to
have a code of conduct and will seek revenge when they have been wronged
intentionally.
One of the program's most
startling experiments suggests that chimps can easily outsmart young children.
In this test, toddlers follow a series of steps shown to them by an adult
teacher to obtain a piece of candy. Some of the steps are clearly unnecessary and
nonsensical, but the toddlers mindlessly follow every stage of the
instructions. In contrast, chimps cut out the unnecessary steps and get the
candy quickly. Yet the chimps' greater cunning can't disguise an
important implication of the experiment: We humans have a built-in expectation
that others are trying to teach us—an expectation that may have played a
vital role in the unique growth of human intelligence (see What Makes Us
Human?).
Something as simple as a common
gesture—pointing—marks another key difference between apes and
humans. Apes don't seem to relate to the act of communication involved
when a researcher points at an object. They can't understand it as a
request to attend to the same object, and therefore they miss out on a crucial
link in the learning process.
Ultimately, such gaps between
humans and apes—the little differences that make the big
difference—may explain why we study them and not the other way around.
Program Transcript
Program Credits
