Creationism in Crisis - Bonobos Show Cooperative Behaviour - And Another 'Uniquely Human' Trait... Isn't

Bonobos offer insight into evolution of cooperation — Harvard Gazette

The researchers considered grooming behaviors of bonobos an indicator of out-group cooperation.

Photos by Martin Surbeck

One by one the human traits that creationists like to cite as evidence of our special creation, apart from the other animals, are being shown to be anything but unique, and very often it turns out that they are in fact evidence of common descent, being present in our closest relatives.

In this case, bonobos have been shown by two Harvard researchers to form relationships for mutual benefit not only with immediate kin groups but across them and even with strangers, something that was thought to be uniquely human, requiring intelligence, empathy, a sense of 'self' and an ability to predict different outcomes from different options.

This conclusion comes as a result of two years of data collection in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the only place where endangered bonobos exist in the wild in a population of about 20,000.

The findings of senior author, Assistant Professor Martin Surbeck and first author, Martin Surbeck of Harvard's Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, are published open access in Science.

The research and its significance are explained in an article in the Harvard Gazette by Anne J. Manning:

Our work with bonobos is showing that cooperation beyond social borders, without immediate payoff between unrelated individuals, is not uniquely human.

Assistant professor Martin Surbeck, senior author
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology
Harvard University, MA, USA

[Martin Surbeck] has researched bonobos for 20 years. The study was published in Science with lead author Liran Samuni, a former Harvard research associate who works at the German Primate Center in Göttingen.

A previous study, based on the same bonobo communities, found that the primates maintained distinct, stable social borders, so called “communities.” In their latest analysis, Samuni and Surbeck found evidence of cooperation between members of different communities, facilitated by an assortment of key individuals. These certain few consistently engaged in behaviors such as grooming and food-sharing and acted as links between groups — think ape ambassadors. Within each behavior, individuals cooperated with specific counterparts who were also good cooperators in that domain.

Members of the local community and bonobo data collection team at the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve: Medard Bangela (from left), Vincent Moscova, and Leonard Lolima Nkanga.

The conclusions arose from daily observations of within- and between-group interactions of 31 adult bonobos, living in two communities called Ekalakala and Kokoalongo, all within the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve in the Congo. Surbeck initiated the project in 2016 and, together with Samuni, has been working with Congolese partners and local villagers to collect data.

For the study, Surbeck, Samuni, and a team of local trackers focused on three cooperative behaviors: food-sharing; grooming; and forming alliances, which consists of joint action against a common opponent.

They found that certain individuals exhibited these acts outside their social bounds with others who would be likely to return the favors. Although bonobos are known for being a peaceful species, compared with their more warring chimpanzee cousins, the researchers found that the bonobos were not random in their benevolence.

They’re not similarly nice to everybody,[they formed preferences for some and not others.] The extreme tolerance we observed between members of different bonobo groups paves the way for pro-social cooperative behaviors between them, a stark contrast to their sister species, the chimpanzees.

Liran Samuni, fist author
Cooperative Evolution Lab
German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany.

Humans and bonobos share 99 percent of their DNA. Observing the animals in their natural environment can offer a window into our evolutionary past, the researchers say. Work at the preserve takes years of remote coexistence with the bonobos; habituation of the animals to a human presence has been key to making the studies successful, Surbeck said.

Surbeck’s team works closely with local partners, including the conservation organization Vie Sauvage, the Congolese Conservation authorities (ICCN), and the Bonobo Conservation Initiative, to gain support and permission to work in the country and on the community reserve.

Long-term research sites don’t always quite get the recognition they deserve, in terms of what they contribute to both basic data collection and serving as a platform for other scientists, as well as for the conservation of the species.

Martin Surbeck

Bonobos are a critically endangered species, with only a few thousand left in the wild, yet they represent a key comparative model to human social systems, “a rare opportunity to reconstruct the ancestral conditions of human large-scale cooperation,” according to the paper.

From the paper in Science, which is sadly behind a paywall:

Abstract

Cooperation beyond familial and group boundaries is core to the functioning of human societies, yet its evolution remains unclear. To address this, we examined grooming, coalition, and food-sharing patterns in bonobos (Pan paniscus), one of our closest living relatives whose rare out-group tolerance facilitates interaction opportunities between groups. We show that, as in humans, positive assortment supports bonobo cooperation across borders. Bonobo cooperative attitudes toward in-group members informed their cooperative relationships with out-groups, in particular, forming connections with out-group individuals who also exhibited high cooperation tendencies. Our findings show that cooperation between unrelated individuals across groups without immediate payoff is not exclusive to humans and suggest that such cooperation can emerge in the absence of social norms or strong cultural dispositions.

Liran Samuni, Martin Surbeck
Cooperation across social borders in bonobos.
Science 382, 805-809(2023). DOI:10.1126/science.adg0844

Copyright © 2023 The Authors
Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Reprinted with kind permission under licence #5673030034294.

This ability to engage in 'out-group' cooperation is the basis of human societies and exchange of goods and knowledge, so, if this ability is also present in our closest relative, the probability is that it was present in a common ancestor. And once again something that creationists cite as evidence for creationism turns out, on closer inspection, to be evidence for exactly the opposite.

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