Frans de Waal and Amy Parrish at Aloud

On Wednesday evening I went to L.A.'s central library for a discussion between Frans de Waal and Amy Parish, both primatologists, he from Holland.  Frans de Waal's newest book is "The Bonobo and the Atheist...are primates wired for morality?' 

Bonobo's have been referred to as "Left bank chimpanzees" that I guess refers to their creativity in addition to their similarities to humans.  Both Amy Parrish and the author have studied and lived with the Bonobo and talked about the animals' empathy and compassion toward each other.  They talked about how all mammals have shown these traits including elephants, cats, dogs, whales, etc.  Dr. de Waal showed videos of animals recognizing themselves in the mirror, opening their mouths and looking inside and trying to removed tape placed on one side of the head that they only discovered by looking in the mirror.  Other videos showed chimps helping each other and coordinating their efforts to achieve a goal.  This empathy and sense of fairness demonstrates that morality came before religion.  Religion only appeared after the population grew and the need arose to create some rules attributed to gods.  The notion that God keeps an eye on people resulted in greater external control.

They talked about how science came later and explains how all this has come together.  Both scientists talked about how they have evidence that the Bonobo and other mammals show empathy and grief in how they deal with the loss of loved ones.  For example, elephants visit remains of loved ones bones and treat them with respect and reverence. They also said that the degree one demonstrates empathy toward others depends on the amount of parental nurturing they received.  We know this about humans as well through the study of the effects of child neglect.

Their premise is that morality is innate and it did not come from a higher order as proved in the behavior of animals.  Bonobos give us hope that peace and empathy can survive and grow in humanity.