Kurt Vonnegut released Galapagos in 1985. The book predicts that a million years in the future, humans have evolved into seal like creatures with dramatically smaller brains. Many traits associated with modern humans as we know them today have vanished in the seal-like people. Warfare is a thing of the past. So is industry, architecture, art and culture. One thing does remain the same, however. Farts are still funny.
It now seems like such a move may bring the species full circle. Challenging the specist notion that laughing is a uniquely human trait, researchers have begun to suggest that the "laughing" found in other types of primates points to a common ancestor.
"Our evolutionary tree based on these acoustic recordings alone showed that humans were closest to chimps and bonobos, but furthest from orang-utans, with gorillas somewhere intermediate. And that is what you see in the well-established evolutionary tree of great apes," said Davila Ross. "What this shows is strong evidence to suggest that laughing comes from a common primate ancestor."
Check out the full story if you don't believe me. Personally, I think it's kind of cool to think that the monkeys at the zoo could be laughing at me just as much as I'm laughing at them. By the by, did you know that chimps can ride segways?
I hate it when people try to make the following point. "Put 100 monkeys in a room with a typewriter, give them from here until eternity and they'll eventually come up with Shakespeare." You don't know what you're saying. To those people, I believe, one young David Gilmour had this to say:
It would be interesting to see exactly what four people could do if just given the equipment, who didn't know anything about it really, and just told them to get on with it and do something. I think we'd come off better.
This comment was made in 1972, during the filming of a docu-concert detailing the creative Big Bang of progressive rock, when the Les Paul was forced to make room for the amplifiers and synthesizers and cultural alarmists were already mourning the death of rock and roll.
But we already know how this particular story goes. Rock and roll never died. The Saucerful experiments didn't give rise to some awful Frankenstein monster (though they were initially received with popular hostility, see Rolling Stone 26 October 1968); art was not freakishly manufactured in some violent and unstable way. Nor was the curtain pulled in the Emerald City. Rather, rare talent met with technological circumstance and Dark Side of the Moon, one of the best selling albums worldwide, was born.
I'm not trying to be a specist or anything, so when I say I hate it when people make the "100 monkeys" comment I'm not saying that they're wrong; I'm sure 100 monkeys and a typewriter given from here until eternity could produce Shakespeare. I'd still consider it a cause to celebrate when they do. The part I hate is the attempt to shine a light on Shakespeare and dissect the work into its constituent parts; a monkey, typewriter, time and chance. What's lost is the moment, in real time and in physical space, of creative inspiration when rare talent meets technological circumstance. What's lost is what happens in the dark.
Parrots can dance. If you didn't know, shame on you. Videos have been posted on YouTube for years; obviously your elitist perception of the world prevented you from seeing that a species besides your own can shake their tail feathers, or ride dirty (like Paul can), maybe even better than you can. Fucking specist. You're the new racist. But I digress.
OK, you may be thinking, "So Snowball can dance to Backstreet Boys and Queen, but that's like the easiest music to dance to. Let's see your precious Snowball do THIS":
I'd say that you're missing the point and that not only are you still a specist, but now you're a Michael Jackson fan. I can forgive the second part. But dude, put your specist blinders down for two seconds.
This video and those like it inspired two studies, published very recently and available at Current Biology. I'm looking at the first, titled "Experimental Evidence for Synchronization to a Musical Beat in a Nonhuman Animal" (available for download here, pdf). The paper contains the following summary:
The tendency to move in rhythmic synchrony with a musical beat (e.g., via head bobbing, foot tapping, or dance) is a human universal [1] yet is not commonly observed in other species [2]. Does this ability reflect a brain specialization for music cognition, or does it build on neural circuitry that ordinarily serves other functions? According to the vocal learning and rhythmic synchronization hypothesis [3], entrainment to a musical beat relies on the neural circuitry for complex vocal learning, an ability that requires a tight link between auditory and motor circuits in the brain [4,5]. This hypothesis predicts that only vocal learning species (such as humans and some birds, cetaceans, and pinnipeds, but not nonhuman primates) are capable of synchronizing movements to a musical beat. Here we report experimental evidence for synchronization to a beat in a sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita eleonora). By manipulating the tempo of a musical excerpt across a wide range, we show that the animal spontaneously adjusts the tempo of its rhythmic movements to stay synchronized with the beat. These findings indicate that synchronization to a musical beat is not uniquely human and suggest that animal models can provide insights into the neurobiology and evolution of human music [6].
This is actually pretty amazing stuff. Two theories to explain the ability to dance are advanced and evaluated experimentally (and I hope that you guys will correct me on this if I misspeak or if I miss the point). The first theory suggests that dancing reflects a specialized ability to understand and appreciate music. The second theory suggests that dancing doesn't reflect such a specialized ability, rather it is an extension of a capacity for vocal learning. If the second theory holds true, then that would mean that only those species with a capacity for vocal learning should be able to dance. And as far as I can tell, the evidence from this study supports the second theory.
So cockatoos can danceatoos. Let me put this in terms that you can understand, you Jackson fan. "Heal the World," man. "Black or White" or feathered, man. It's all the same. And if you don't like it, you can "Beat It," man. What? You "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"? Before you do, take a look at the "Man In the Mirror," and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." "The Way You Make Me Feel"? "Bad," man.
NOTE: This post may be revised and developed throughout the day as comments or thoughts arrive. Keep checking, you fucking specist.
vocal learning and rhythmic synchronization
hypothesis [