On Opening Up a Can of Monkeys... Chimpanzees, Humans, and Lots of Controversy. Can Bonobos Show Us the Path to World Peace?

Biological truths behind "Make Love, Not War." As a follow up to recently published proposal by Morris Goodman re: adding chimpanzees and bonobos to genus Homo, San Diego biologist and author, Judith L. Hand, PhD., adds her research and provocative discussion of the bonobos social use of free-sex and male/female power-balancing as a way to resolve conflict and agression,to the controversial DNA similarity subject. Her studies and perspective imply that there is a path to social stability and world peace if the behavioral examples of the bonobos are considered.

(PRWEB) May 24, 2003

Contact: Karen Winston

858.481.3526

kewinston@pacbell.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 22, 2003

On Opening Up a Can of Monkeys….

Chimpanzees, Humans, and Lots of Controversy

Can Bonobos Show Us the Path to World Peace?

San Diego, CA (PRWEB) -- The battle between science and creationism is heating up once again as researchers like Morris Goodman at Wayne State University of Medicine report their new results on gene sequencing of chimpanzee DNA. Comparison is inevitably made to the genes of humans. And, the close genetic similarity (as much as 99.4%) between the two species provokes questions about the nature of the process of evolution. It may also have implications for world peace.

    In his recent comments to the media, Morris proposes that there should be three species in the genus Homo: Homo sapiens, for humans, Homo troglodytes, for the common chimpanzee so familiar to most Americans, and Homo paniscus, for the so-called “pygmy” chimpanzee, also known as bonobos.

San Diego biologist and author, Judith L. Hand, PhD. through her research and in her book, Women, Power, and the Path to Peace, suggests that social differences between chimpanzees and bonobos may cast significant light on the question of aggression and war by that other member of their proposed shared genus, Homo sapiens. Hand’s perspective includes the genetic, biological, and social behavioral similarities/differences of chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans, and offers a provocative discussion on how a path to lasting world peace is possible, based on biological differences between males and females if there were to be true power-balancing between the genders. And she predicts that as the remarkable behavioral differences between chimpanzees and bonobos become more widely known, everyone will find fodder for renewed controversy.

Chimpanzees and bonobos appear to be equally closely related to humans genetically, but their social behavior could not be more different. Chimpanzees live in a social world where males are dominant, where conflicts tend to be resolved by displays of physical power and signals of dominance and submission. In contrast, bonobos live in a social world where male and female dominance hierarchies are equal, where females tend to be the focal animals, and where individuals often resolve conflicts by engaging in sex. As Hand says, “Sex is every bit as controversial as evolution. And the unusual use of sex (male/female sex, but also female/female sex and male/male sex) by a species genetically so close to humans will, I’m sure, eventually stir up debates of ferocious proportions.”

“The bonobos are particularly intriguing because while common chimpanzees have been documented to engage in murder, infanticide, and even a primitive kind of war, none of these “vices” have, to date, been observed in the more peaceable, more sexually power-balanced, world of bonobos,” continued Hand.

Women, Power, and the Path to Peace, by Judith Hand and published by Questpath Publishing is due out Fall 2003. For more information, visit http://www.jhand.com and or call 858.481.3526.

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