Nonhuman Primates essay

Culture and Nonhuman Primates

Culture describes a person’s way of life or the traits of a specific group of people. Cantor, Mauricio, and Hal Whitehead define culture as the knowledge shared among members of the same group that enables them to learn from one another and exhibit similar behavior (1). Therefore, behavior is the most significant aspect of a culture, according to the three researchers. Therefore, the aim of this essay is to demonstrate that nonhuman primates possess culture. While a section of scholars argue that nonhuman primates do not have culture, others such as Hal Whitehead are of the contrary opinion and base their arguments on the fact that the behavior of these primates resemble that of humans. Human beings have culture, and nonhuman primates behave exactly like them. This is an evidence to prove that nonhuman primates have culture (Cantor, 7). For instance, female Japanese macaques were observed dipping potatoes into the river to remove sand before consuming the potatoes. When other monkeys saw that, they imitated the behavior and it spread among all other monkeys. The animals learned from each other, and this resulted in the same behavior. Thus, nonhuman primates have culture because their behavior resembles that of humans who have culture.

Animal Testing and Medical Advances

The proponents of animal testing argue that it has resulted in a lot of life-saving treatments for both humans and animals. This research has caused a greater improvement in understanding the treatment of severe diseases such as cancer, leukemia in children, multiple sclerosis, and fibrosis. Therefore, the practice should be allowed to continue since it will help researchers to come up with various treatments and cures that save many human lives.

Works Cited

Cantor, Mauricio, and Hal Whitehead. “The interplay between social networks and culture: theoretically and among whales and dolphins.” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 368.1618 (2013): 20120340.

Gruber, Thibaud, et al. “Apes have culture but may not know that they do.” Frontiers in psychology 6 (2015).