The antiquity of empathy

The view of humans as violent war-prone apes is poorly supported by archaeological evidence and only partly supported by the behavior of our closest primate relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos. Whereas the first species is marked by xenophobia, the second is relatively peaceful and highly empathic in both behavior and brain organization. Animal empathy is best regarded as a multilayered phenomenon, built around motor mirroring and shared neural representations at basal levels, that develops into more advanced cognitive perspective-taking in large-brained species. As indicated by both observational and experimental studies on our closest relatives, empathy may be the main motivator of prosocial behavior.     

Social components of fitness in primate groups

There is much interest in the evolutionary forces that favored the evolution of large brains in the primate order. The social brain hypothesis posits that selection has favored larger brains and more complex cognitive capacities as a means to cope with the challenges of social life. The hypothesis is supported by evidence that shows that group size is linked to various measures of brain size. But it has not been clear how cognitive complexity confers fitness advantages on individuals. Research in the field and laboratory shows that sophisticated social cognition underlies social behavior in primate groups. Moreover, a growing body of evidence suggests that the quality of social relationships has measurable fitness consequences for individuals.     

Chimpanzees recruit the best collaborators

Humans collaborate with non-kin in special ways, but the evolutionary foundations of these collaborative skills remain unclear. We presented chimpanzees with collaboration problems in which they had to decide when to recruit a partner and which potential partner to recruit. In an initial study, individuals recruited a collaborator only when solving the problem required collaboration. In a second study, individuals recruited the more effective of two partners on the basis of their experience with each of them on a previous day. Therefore, recognizing when collaboration is necessary and determining who is the best collaborative partner are skills shared by both chimpanzees and humans, so such skills may have been present in their common ancestor before humans evolved their own complex forms of collaboration.     

Identification of the social and cognitive processes underlying human cumulative culture

The remarkable ecological and demographic success of humanity is largely attributed to our capacity for cumulative culture, with knowledge and technology accumulating over time, yet the social and cognitive capabilities that have enabled cumulative culture remain unclear. In a comparative study of sequential problem solving, we provided groups of capuchin monkeys, chimpanzees, and children with an experimental puzzlebox that could be solved in three stages to retrieve rewards of increasing desirability. The success of the children, but not of the chimpanzees or capuchins, in reaching higher-level solutions was strongly associated with a package of sociocognitive processes-including teaching through verbal instruction, imitation, and prosociality-that were observed only in the children and covaried with performance.     

Lemur social behavior and primate intelligence

Our human intellect has resulted from an enormous leap in capacity above the level of monkeys and apes. Earlier, though, Old and New World monkeys' intelligence outdistanced that of other mammals, including the prosimian primates. This first great advance in intelligence probably was selected through interspecific competition on the large continents. However, even at this early stage, primate social life provided the evolutionary context of primate intelligence. Two arguments support this conclusion. One is ontogenetic: modern monkeys learn so much of their social behavior, and learn their behavior toward food and toward other species through social example. The second is phylogenetic: some prosimians, the social lemurs, have evolved the usual primate type of society and social learning without the capacity to manipulate objects as monkeys do. It thus seems likely that the rudiments of primate society preceded the growth of primate intelligence, made it possible, and determined its nature.     

Social relationships and social cognition in nonhuman primates

Complex social relationships among nonhuman primates appear to contribute to individual reproductive success. Experiments with and behavioral observations of natural populations suggest that sophisticated cognitive mechanisms may underlie primate social relationships. Similar capacities are usually less apparent in the nonsocial realm, supporting the view that at least some aspects of primate intelligence evolved to solve the challenges of interacting with conspecifics.     

Chimpanzees are rational maximizers in an ultimatum game

Traditional models of economic decision-making assume that people are self-interested rational maximizers. Empirical research has demonstrated, however, that people will take into account the interests of others and are sensitive to norms of cooperation and fairness. In one of the most robust tests of this finding, the ultimatum game, individuals will reject a proposed division of a monetary windfall, at a cost to themselves, if they perceive it as unfair. Here we show that in an ultimatum game, humans' closest living relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), are rational maximizers and are not sensitive to fairness. These results support the hypothesis that other-regarding preferences and aversion to inequitable outcomes, which play key roles in human social organization, distinguish us from our closest living relatives.     

Heritability analyses of IQ scores: science or numerology?

Estimates of IQ heritability are subject to a variety of systematic errors. The IQ scores themselves contain uncontrollable, systematic errors of unknown magnitude. These arise because IQ scores, unlike conventional physical and biological measurements, have a purely instrumental definition. The effects of these errors are apparent in the very large discrepancies among IQ correlations measured by different investigators. Genotype-environment correlations, whose effects can sometimes be minimized, if not wholly eliminated, in experiments with plants and animals, are nearly always important in human populations. The absence of significant effects arising from genotype-environment correlations is a necessary condition for the applicability of conventional heritability analysis to phenotypically plastic traits. When this condition fails, no quantitative inferences about heritability can be drawn from measured phenotypic variances and covariances, except under special conditions that are unlikely to be satisfied by phenotypically plastic traits in human populations. Inadequate understanding of the precise environmental factors relevant to the development of specific behavioral traits is an important source of systematic errors, as is the inability to allow adequately for the effects of assortative mating and gene-gene interaction. Systematic cultural differences and differences in psychological environment among races and among sociocco-nomic groups vitiate any attempt to draw from IQ data meaningful inferences about genetic differences. Estimates based on phenotypic correlations between separated monozygotic twins-usually considered to be the most reliable kind of estimates-are vitiated by systematic errors inherent in IQ tests, by the presence of genotype-environment correlation, and by the lack of detailed understanding of environmental factors relevant to the development of behavioral traits. Other kinds of estimates are beset, in addition, by systematic errors arising from incomplete allowance for the effects of assortative mating and from gene-gene interactions. The only potentially useful data are phenotypic correlations between unrelated foster children reared together, which could, in principle, yield lower limits for e(2). Available data indicate that, for unrelated foster children reared together, the broad heritability (h(2)) may lie between 0.0 and 0.5. This estimate does not apply to populations composed of children reared by their biological parents or by near relatives. For such populations the heritability of IQ remains undefined. The only data that might yield meaningful estimates ot narrow heritability are phenotypic correlations between half-sibs reared in statistically independent environments. No useful data of this kind are available. Intervention studies like Heber's Milwaukee Project afford an alternative and comparatively direct way of studying the plasticity of cognitive and other behavioral traits in human populations. Results obtained so far strongly suggest that the development of cognitive skills is highly sensitive to variations in environmental factors. These conclusions have three obvious implications for the broader issues mentioned at the beginning of this article. 1) Published analyses of IQ data provide no support whatever for Jensen's thesis that inequalities in cognitive performance are due largely to genetic differences. As Lewontin (8) has clearly shown, the value of the broad heritability of IQ is in any case only marginally relevant to this question. I have argued that conventional estimates of the broad heritability of IQ are invalid and that the only data on which potentially valid estimates might be based are consistent with a broad heritability of less than 0.5. On the other hand, intervention studies, if their findings prove to be replicable, would directly establish that, under suitable conditions, the offspring of parents whose cognitive skills are so poorly developed as to exclude them from all but the most menial occupations can achieve what are regarded as distinctly high levels of cognitive performance. Thus, despite the fact that children differ suibstantially in cognitive aptitudes and appetites, and despite the very high probability that these differences have a substantial genetic component, available scientific evidence strongly suggests that environmental factors are responsible for the failure of children not suffering from specific neurological disorders to achieve adequate levels of cognitive performance. 2) Under prevailing social conditions, no valid inferences can be drawn from IQ data concerning systematic genetic differences among races or socioeconomic groups. Research along present lines directed toward this end-whatever its ethical status-is scientifically worthless. 3) Since there are no suitable data for estimating the narrow heritability of IQ, it seems pointless to speculate about the prospects for a hereditary meritocracy based on IQ.     

Chromosomal speciation and molecular divergence--accelerated evolution in rearranged chromosomes

Humans and their closest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees, differ in approximately 1.24% of their genomic DNA sequences. The fraction of these changes accumulated during the speciation processes that have separated the two lineages may be of special relevance in understanding the basis of their differences. We analyzed human and chimpanzee sequence data to search for the patterns of divergence and polymorphism predicted by a theoretical model of speciation. According to the model, positively selected changes should accumulate in chromosomes that present fixed structural differences, such as inversions, between the two species. Protein evolution was more than 2.2 times faster in chromosomes that had undergone structural rearrangements compared with colinear chromosomes. Also, nucleotide variability is slightly lower in rearranged chromosomes. These patterns of divergence and polymorphism may be, at least in part, the molecular footprint of speciation events in the human and chimpanzee lineages.     

自主知识体系建构视域下的中国特色数字人文循证范式述要

[目的 /意义]构建具有中国特色的数字人文循证范式自主知识体系是时代的要求。[方法 /过程]本文以“范式”理论为基础,对中国特色数字人文循证范式自主知识体系的基本理论要素进行深入探讨。[结果 /结论]本文认为,把马克思主义的基本原理与中华优秀传统文化相结合,是中国特色循证数字人文自主知识体系的思想基础。中华民族源远流长的集体记忆及其载体,构成了中国特色数字人文循证范式自主知识体系的文化基础。丰富多彩的传统典籍文献为中国特色循证数字人文自主知识体系的形成奠定了坚实的文献基础。“文史互证”指引下具有鲜明中国治学特色的目录学则为循证数字人文自主知识体系打下了厚重的方法论基础。本文所展开的梳理和解析,有望为构建具有中国特色的循证数字人文自主知识体系产生积极的影响。     

BLOOD GROUPS IN ANTHROPOID APES AND BABOONS

Tests on chimpanzees, orangutans, gibbons, baboons, and a gorilla, with blood grouping reagents prepared for human red cells, have disclosed patterns of reactions characteristic of each primate species. Determinations have been made of A-B-O groups and subgroups, M-N types, Rh-Hr types, secretor status, and Lewis types. Immunization experiments with ape and monkey blood are in progress.     

What children do in spite of what they know

New studies support the hypothesis that young children have basic cognitive capacities but utilize them inefficiently; older children aid these capacities with generally valid cognitive heuristics which produce poor performance on critical problems.     

Altruistic helping in human infants and young chimpanzees

Human beings routinely help others to achieve their goals, even when the helper receives no immediate benefit and the person helped is a stranger. Such altruistic behaviors (toward non-kin) are extremely rare evolutionarily, with some theorists even proposing that they are uniquely human. Here we show that human children as young as 18 months of age (prelinguistic or just-linguistic) quite readily help others to achieve their goals in a variety of different situations. This requires both an understanding of others' goals and an altruistic motivation to help. In addition, we demonstrate similar though less robust skills and motivations in three young chimpanzees.     

语言理据及其研究对外语教学的意义以及语言理据的分类

无论是认知心理教育学、二语习得、还是认知语言学的研究都表明,有意义的学习有利于提高外语学习效果。语言理据的产生（理据过程）是一个概念化的过程,是目标语言形式和源头之间产生意义联系的过程。了解理据,就是一种有意义的学习。理据的来源有语言系统、人的认知（主观世界）以及客观世界,除了语言本身,还要考虑文化、社会、认知（狭义）、生理、交际（语用）等因素。理据可以分为语内理据和语外理据,本文讨论4种语内理据和6种语外理据。     

Multivariate analysis of an early hominid metacarpal from swartkrans

Discriminant analysis permits hand bones of living primate genera to be represented as swarms of points in a multidimensional statistical framework within which intergroup relationships, and the affinities of fossil forms, can be examined. The metacarpal of Paranthropus from Swartkrans, South Africa, was so located with respect to groups of monkeys, apes, and modern man. The results suggest that the fossil metacarpal may be functionally similar to that of chimpanzees.     

京郊新农村建设中产业现状及对策探析

北京郊区经历改革开放二十多年的发展,产业结构日趋合理,但与新农村建设中产业发展的目标还有差距,存在几个方面的问题,并因此提出以"一村一品"为基础,发展特色产业集群;利用北京的资金和智力优势,加快产业向资本密集型、知识密集型转移;加强对农民进行知识和技能培训;加大对农村优势企业和产业进行资金投入,培育和发展优势和新兴产业四项对策建议.     

Poster: the macaque genome

The rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) facilitates an extraordinary range of biomedical and basic research, and the publication of the genome only makes it a more powerful model for studies of human disease; moreover, the macaque's position relative to humans and chimpanzees affords the opportunity to learn about the processes that have shaped the last 25 million years of primate evolution. To allow users to explore these themes of the macaque genome, Science has created a special interactive version of the poster published in the print edition of the 13 April 2007 issue. The interactive version includes additional text and exploration, as well as embedded video featuring seven scientists discussing the importance of the macaque and its genome sequence in studies of biomedicine and evolution. We have also created an accompanying teaching resource, including a lesson plan aimed at teachers of advanced high school life science students, for exploring what a comparison of the macaque and human genomes can tell us about human biology and evolution. These items are free to all site visitors.     

Primate predation: interim report on the development of a tradition in a troop of olive baboons

A troop of olive baboons, Papio anubis, has developed systematic predation, which includes hunting and sharing of meat. Although meat-eating among nonhuman primates-baboons and chimpanzees especially-had been discovered in earlier field studies, systematic predation had been reported for chimpanzees and humans only. Starting as an adult male activity in the olive baboon troop, this tradition rapidly expanded to include capture and consumption of prey by adult females and juveniles of all ages and both sexes. Infants eat but have not been observed to capture prey.