I found the following information on the studies of these two monkeys interesting, I thought some people here might be interested in this article

[discovermagazine.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2008 08:03AM by Ariel55.

that was a nice article to read, thankyou!


the way the brain develops and evolves is not only related to food, though;
the way some scientists study human brain evolution from monkeys is by looking at different genes as well

i found this link, which definitely is not supportive of raw (sorry), that claims the human brain grew because we ate meat. then again, this didn't make us smarter -- that was the key
[www.livescience.com]

our brain grew, but he says that cooking food made it more digestible - aiding in allowing the brain to, well, focus more on the brain (and brain metabolism). After all, our brains are made us what we are today, and we did not eat like chimps.

but then again - like i said - it's not always about food, and perhaps this has no relevance; making a raw diet plausible

I found the comparison of the Spider monkey and the Howler
monkey very interesting. They both eat Fruit, Leaves, and Flowers.
The SM eats more fruit (30% more), and less leaves (26% less) than
the HM. Katharine Milton is promoting the idea that high fruit eating
is responsible for the higher intelligence of the SM, as compared to
the HM. In another article she promotes meat-eating as being the reason
for the rise of Human Evolution. I'd discount anything she says.
If the Spider Monkeys are more 'intelligent', then the Howler Monkeys are
more 'spiritual'. The HM can't even think of some of the devious pranks that
the SM pull......WY

as they are 2 different speices of monkeys to begin with i dont see how you can make a fair commparison anyways .. its not exactly a control group A - spider monkey vs. control group B spider monkey .. so its kinda just observations in my opinion

interesting article tho



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2008 04:05AM by Jgunn.

I liked the following artilcle by Laurie Forti, which represents a line-in-line critique of MiltonsĀ“s theories.

See: [www.ecologos.org]

One statementof Laurie Forti:
"One of the more amusing crackpot theories propagated by meatarian propagandists is that eating animal fat made the human brain grow larger, thus animal fat made us more intelligent. If that were true, then why aren't carnivores much more intelligent than humans, considering that they have been eating animal fat millions of years longer than humans? Energy in the brain is provided by glucose, blood sugar, not animal fat; if the brain is using fatty acids for energy, the body is in a severely malnourished condition, such as that created by the Atkins' diet. Each non-carnivorous animal makes exactly the amount of fat that it needs from its natural diet; it does not have to eat exogenous animal fat to make the required fat."

Another:
"Milton: Thus, using data from various lines of evidence, there seems to be general consensus that humans come from an ancestral lineage that was strongly dependent on plant foods, and that human gut anatomy is very similar to that of other extant hominoids. Despite this basic similarity, there is one striking difference between the gut anatomy of humans and apes. This difference is in the size relationship of different sections of the gut. In all apes, the greatest gut volume is in the colon (>45% of total), with only about 14 to 29% of the total gut volume in the small intestine. For humans, the greatest gut volume is in the small intestine (>56%); only about 17 to 23% of the total gut volume is in the colon."

Laurie Forti: "Could this mean that humans are even more markedly frugivorous than the other apes? Could the larger colon capacity in the other apes be necessary to support more fermentation of the fibrous, non-fruit, leafy plant material? Could the reason for the latter be similar to that for the large fermentation-dedicated chambers of the true herbivore (leaf-eater)? "

So it seems, humans are frugivores... Meat-eating/hunting (like chimps do) is identified as a social behavior (maybe for demonstration of superiority?) and no nutritional necessity. What do You think?

The above article was simply an interesting observation on the differences between fruit eating monkeys and leaf eating monkey,not meat eating/hunting chimps.

When I've watched the documentaries where chimps have hunted monkeys, it is often when monkeys stray into chimps territory looking for food.

With the bonoboes they have also suffered habitat destruction and deforestation as other primates may have also been subjected too, I'm surprised no one considers that loss of habitat may have affected their natural food supply, and may contribute to why they hunt for meat at times.

the theory behind eating animals and brain evolution is actually that our digestive systems had to focus less on what we were digesting and chewing all the time and focus more on brain development; though it's said the brain didn't change for thousands of years until we finally started inventing new weapons all the sudden - this is when we saw an increase in brain size.

anyway, i dont' know all about it; but this is a significant theory that should not be simply brushed away because of the discussion about meat. Nutritional anthropology is a very interesting topic that should be discussed here, I think.

some raw foodists eat raw meat - they have reason to believe this because some say they've figured out that raw meat's enzymes actually do help the human digestive system digest easilier- where as plant enzymes do nothing for the human body, which is why some plants can be digested easier when cooked. so it's strange, really; why would cooking help the brain grow if cooked meat is actually harder to digest? I feel like one of my sources is flawed or something. i will have to read more about this subject.

anyway; i would never eat meat simply because of the ethical reasons. poor animallls

Interesting replies. Thankyou. I don't know much about nutritional anthropology sounds interesting, I agree it is an area that should be discussed I just didn't want it to get into the chimps eating meat area too much, as I feel there are all sorts of reasons but maybe I misinterpreted that.

Tony Wright and Graham Glynn have also written a book called left in the dark, essentially the authors propose how humans brains changed from right brain intuition based functioning to left brain logical functioning after
the move away from the tropical fruit forests fundamentally altered human internal biochemistry in a way that lead directly to what amounts to a neurological condition that is now being exhibited by our damaged but dominant left hemispheres. The main symptom of this 'fall from grace' is the compromised state of consciousness humanity currently displays, which manifests as virtually every destructive behaviour ever exhibited by mankind. Luckily it seems, the right hemisphere is not nearly so damaged, and acts as a repository for our incredible lost function that is there for everyone, if we can only learn how to access it.

They say brains functioned better on mostly fruit sugar but also recommends green leaves and seeds but I just find some common interest with the monkeys and fruit and greens observation.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2008 08:05AM by Ariel55.

why not get into every area of discussion about chimps? it's better to know every scientific theory rather then ignoring them. Chimps are extremely barbaric in many fields; there is not peace (like we think about) but balance in the wild; Chimps do eat a very small percentage of meat compared to the western diet of human beings - it's already pretty much proven that humans do not need that much fat/protein. I've read an article comparing chimps to people's diets - not for any particular reason or based on any intention to get people to eat a certain way - but they agreed that even the RDA was about atleast 6-8% fat in the diet to live - with western diets averaging about 15-25%. But even tribes in the tropical rainforest have a hard time finding food. Their diets vary depending on dry season and wet seasons - and they include meat. The human is an opportunistic eater just like the chimp. Though, our insides are quite different; for example: the chimp has a much larger colon then the human - while the human has a much larger small intestine then the chimp. Chimps are also able to digest more kinds of fibers then us. I find raw food is not widely excepted because of the lack of science and technical proof of the diet; at least i have yet to see this, so i'm doing a little study for myself on random thoughts.

There is much to be discussed about anthropology, I agree. Not everyone in humanity has bad intuition, though, if that's what the left brain switch is talking about. Humans are not a disaster, at all; There is an overpopulation for sure; right now i think of people like dogs - domesticated and thousands of breeds. All different. This is only one thing that separates us from monkeys. Let us not forget, our cortex's are twice that of the chimp - we survived and expanded because of the knowledge that we had. Natural selection would not have allowed us to live if we had not used our brains.

Just because an animal eats what is given to it, does not necessarily mean that is what's best for it. A human can decipher what makes them feel good and bad and we have such a large selection now a days, it's possible to even combine certain foods and gain the knowledge of nutrition. All over the world, just look at india, china, anywhere - there's always some kind of "cure" for something going on, and euro-asians are probably a little more advanced then america in the diet recommendation area and more near the natural side of cures. it's just very cool, and I feel like instead of trying to tap into and sink back to a "natural" state, we should be expanding our thoughts to everything and taking a look at every diet as to what potential it has.
it's like guilt if i just ignore information out there; i just want to know studies that everyone has done. I don't care if they support meat, or cooked food, or raw food - but I would like to hear an in depth study of what they believe. It's worth listening to, because no one person is ever correct in every single thing they say, really. And rather then ignore what could have potential to be truth, just jump on it and see how it compares in your head. Some people are set in what they think; but i'm never one to decide completely..

So yeah; this board should definitely discuss more about what is said in the human past about cooking food or eating meat. It's including these topics that will keep the discussions open-minded rather then rejecting. It's not like it's promoting anything anyway, only discussing.

I agree the chimps eating meat is part of it but it is just I've read it all hundreds of times before, I still feel loss of habitat and deforestation therefore loss of food is an ignored part of why primates eat meat.

The book is interesting nevertheless, I don't agree or resonate with all of it one reason is that it does not mention the corpus callosum the piece of nerve fibre that acts as a bridge fascilitating messages between right and left brain, I don't understand how a book on left and right brain functioning could leave that detail out.

There is a study in there though, that states that humans are more designed to be frugivores than other fruit eating primates which is interesting, just connecting bits and pieces and that they also state that our brains functioned at best on fruit and when I saw the monkey study I felt it was another connection. I eat loads of greens though myself.

the loss of habitat may play with the cause - but when the chimps kill other monkeys and go hunting it looks like it's more out of shear barbaric attitude or dominance; it never seems to mention scarcity of food in the documentaries I've seen. hm.. still they also do a lot of other things barbarically, like have wars against each other's packs and sometimes kill unfamiliar mothers and child chimps. So perhaps eating meat is part of this ecstasy to attack, like some people have. Just look at animal abuse, perhaps that is a connection to a barbaric state.

mmhmm, that is important, that corpus callosum.. it didn't mention it at all?

Yes, but how valid is that one study/how complex did it talk about it? There are studies out there saying people are best on this and that diet. It's also thought that our brains function best on these said diets..and theeese said diets..etc. etc.

It may just be the fact that the monkeys have to remember more in order to get the fruit - evolution will of course make sure that the strongest survive. And if eating fruit is what is best for this certain monkey, then it must have a brain power to remember where all this fruit is, when it's ripe, teach it to their young, and so on. Or hey, it could be because they simply eat fruit. But I'm just suggesting it may be something else, as well.
Haha, yeah, i mean greens are pretty good. it's nice to have a balance of sweet and non-sweet things. just look at the complexity of our taste buds.

Very interesting article.... Loss of habitat and being hunted by humans has been a challenge for spider monkeys, those of Barro Colorado Island in Panama having been wiped out by 1912 [en.wikipedia.org] and then reindroduced in the 1960's. Spyder monkeys are smart, inquisitive and maybe a little hungry as shown by the way they try to get a piece of Milton's lunch.. they don't seem to have a killer instinct.. at least their confrontations with the Howlers don't appear to result in injury. Their diet is specialized to the point where it may have taken superior brain power and amazing speed and agility to get to their food source.

Milton seems just as engaged with the Howlers if not more so these days, studying their parasites, anti-nutrients in their diet and population dynamics [ecnr.berkeley.edu] .. I'm not sure what has drawn her to them.... I agree on the "spiritual" quality of them and appreciate their vocal talents; subtle clicks and grunts, males with a roar audible three miles away.. and yeah, I'm a leaf eater..

*LMAO* I saw the title of this thread and immediately thought, "SOMEONE'S read Left In the Dark!!"

(I'm still having a love affair with that book... and raw fruit... what a life!)

Yeah Phantom, great book, glad you liked it too!

Unfortunately, "smart" is subjective, esp. when measured by humans.