Significant Others: The Ape-human Continuum And The Quest For Human Nature [Hardcover]

Craig B. Stanford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2001

In Significant Others, the co-director of the world-famous Jane Goodall Research Center uses our recent knowledge of great ape behavior to examine (and puncture) many myths about humans-about infanticide, mating practices, the origins of human cognition, the human diet, language, and many other subjects. Evolutionary scientists know that the dividing line between humans and other animals has grown increasingly blurry-it's even become a cliché to note that we share 99 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet this knowledge, while superficially accepted, has not really been absorbed by many fields, especially the social sciences. At the same time, the knowledge that all humans are genetically and cognitively modern, no matter how "primitive" we may find them, has left the apes the only true "savages." Thus if we want to learn about human nature and how we came to be as we are, we have to look to the apes to tell us.This is a sweeping, fresh, controversial book on what the science of primates can tell us about our own natures.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Engaging, enlightening, and eloquent, Significant Others tells of our closest cousins and the scientists who study them. Author Craig B. Stanford is co-director of the Jane Goodall Research Center and knows as much as anyone about field research on the great ape. His prose combines a vivid, almost poetic descriptive sensibility with a refreshingly deadpan rationality too often missing from writings on endangered or threatened species. Covering a wide range of topics from tool use to evolutionary psychology to the controversy over language in nonhumans ("an intellectual turf game, poorly played"), Stanford still sticks unerringly to his thesis that field research of wild apes yields deep insights into human nature. His enthusiasm for the work shines in passages like this one:

In a mountain meadow dripping with dew, we're following a group of gorillas on their daily rounds. It's a raw day and the clouds are hanging above and beneath us. The gorillas climb a steep, fern-coated hill to a saddle, and we all tumble over the crest into a huge salad bowl of a valley that is greener than green.

As if to ensure that such words won't provoke a glut of fieldworker wannabes, he is careful to mention the long hours, boredom, and physical suffering he and his colleagues must endure to earn such rewards. The inevitable collision of science with politics is especially pronounced in war-ravaged central Africa, where most great-ape work is conducted, and Stanford speaks plainly about life during wartime and his subjects' too-real threat of extinction. Significant Others gives the reader a fresh respect for apes as apes--not stunted people, not lab-dwelling curiosities, but uniquely wonderful beings in their own right. Just like us. --Rob Lightner

From Scientific American

"Apes and humans are cut from the same evolutionary cloth; all that fundamentally distinguishes us is posture, we being upright walkers and the apes quadrupeds. Everything else, from the size and function of our brains to the other aspects of our shared anatomies, is a difference of degree and not of kind." In eloquently laying out his argument, Stanford touches on many elements of modern anthropology, including its disagreements. Serving simultaneously as associate professor of anthropology at the University of Southern California, co-director of the Jane Goodall Research Center there and director of the Great Ape Project in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, he brings a rich background to his presentation.

Editors of Scientific American

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (May 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465081711
• ISBN-13: 978-0465081714
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,444,173 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Craig Stanford is a well-known authority on the behavior of primates and other animals, and on the biological and cultural roots of human behavior. He is Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at USC and Director of the USC Jane Goodall Research Center. Stanford has conducted field research on primates (especially our close relatives the chimpanzee and mountain gorilla) and other animals for 20 years in Africa and Asia. He is best known for his research on chimpanzee hunting and meat-eating, done in collaboration with his mentor Jane Goodall, and for his work on the ecological relationship between chimpanzee and gorillas in forests where the two apes occur together. He has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards for both his research and writing, and is a frequent guest on radio and tv.

Stanford is the author of more than 120 scholarly and popular articles on animal behavior and human nature topics. In addition to his primate and human origins works, Stanford has recently published The Last Tortoise (Harvard University Press, 2010) about the race against extinction for many of the world's endangered tortoises. He is currently working on a book about the conservation issues facing the great apes.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction, May 29, 2001

By 

Alnitak - See all my reviews

This review is from: Significant Others: The Ape-human Continuum And The Quest For Human Nature (Hardcover)

This book is a great introduction to the relationships among the higher primates including humans. The discussion of tool use, cognitive abilities, cultural practices, and language skills is both very easy to read and highly informative. Readers with background in the subject may find a new perspective on some issues, but the book is most appropriate for someone who wants a short overview of how we are related to the other primates and why we should care. For those who wish to explore further, enough references to other works and to the current scientific literature are provided to open many doors.

A good, quick read that demonstrates our kinship to those "significant others".

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Significant Others review, May 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Significant Others: The Ape-human Continuum And The Quest For Human Nature (Hardcover)

Craig Stanford has written a book that continues to inform the public of just how similar we are to the primates by attempting to show the reader that the differences between us are actually very minute. Through data and analysis Stanford points out how the behaviors of primates can be applied to our own human nature, which supports his thesis that "to understand human nature, you must understand the apes." (p.xviii). Stanford self describes Significant Others as a "field guide to the current state of our understanding of both human and ape culture..." (p. xviii). Through the descriptions of social interactions, tool usage, language, and culture Stanford provides a strong case in support of his thesis.
Starting right from the beginning in his introduction, Stanford uses data and research theory to support his thesis and to refute the alternatives. He is not afraid to discuss behaviors that are of questionable regard. He delves into the subject of infanticide with similar gusto as he does in the chapter on language. Stanford's bottom line is the same throughout that we can use the studies of the great apes to explain our human nature and why problem behaviors like human infanticide persist today.
Overall Significant Others is a good read. Stanford does an exceptional job of providing research that supports the notion that many of our human behaviors and traits can be explained by similar behaviors studied in the great apes. Although this was not pointed out until the end of the book by supporting his thesis Stanford also was providing strong evidence for the importance of conserving and protecting the great apes. Stanford was not afraid to indulge into his own opinions when he felt the need and this added a personal touch to the reading that provided interest to sometimes dry research findings. He also covered highly debatable information well by giving equal consideration to both sides of the picture, even though it was often evident what side of the debate he was on. I would recommend Significant Others to those that enjoyed reading Roger Fout's Next of Kin and want to further their knowledge of great ape behavior and how it might be related to human nature.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why you should read this book, March 18, 2002

By 

Ashwin (Bangalore, India) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Significant Others: The Ape-human Continuum And The Quest For Human Nature (Hardcover)

Craig Stanford is a good authority on the subject. He holds the position of the Director of the Jane Goodall research institute (And if you dont know who she is, perhaps you should begin with The chimpanzees of Gombe, written by her).

The book is wonderfully written and easy to read. The reason I am not giving it five is that the writer seems to digress from the central theme often. However, there is some wonderful elaboration of chimpanzee societies and their rituals, that brings a sense of eerieness to our own humanity and makes one sit up and think.

The book is wonderfully balanced and brings out many hitherto covered truths - such as the male dominated bastion of anthropology and hence masculine myths propagated, the views of the 'science' of evolutionary psychology etc. This is a book which allows you to develop your own theories after stating the facts of chimp interactions in a highly narrative and gripping story-format.

All in all a good book. If you are the kind who has a book collection of origins books which include Leakey and Jared Diamond, then Craig Stanford deserves his place there. If you are not a collector and are not planning on buying this, then check with your library and do read this, but read this you should - if indeed you have an interest in anthropolgy and the origins question.