Order and noise in primate societies

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511542275.008

6 - Order and noise in primate societies

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2009

Bernard Thierry

Edited by

Charlotte Hemelrijk

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Bernard Thierry: Affiliation:
Centre d'Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie, CNRS, Strasbourg
Charlotte Hemelrijk: Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands

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Summary

As students of animal societies, we claim we observe levels of organisation, networks of relationships, mating systems and demographic structures. We identify classes, matrilines and hierarchies. We consider things like parental investment, nepotistic patterns or dominance strategies. We try to explain the patterning of these behavioural characters by looking for their fitness. Hidden in such an endeavour is a common assumption among scientists: the world and its objects exist independently of any observer; scientists have to discover these objects. Such a stance is known as metaphysical realism (Putnam, 1981). In biology, this implies that we assume natural selection to act upon characters we observe. But ‘How would we know if social organizations were not adaptive?’ (Rowell, 1979). Even if we are not acquainted with philosophical thinking, we should be warned against the appearance fallacy. We are aware that the brain reconstructs reality from electrical signals transmitted by the sensorial organs. We do not perceive social organisations per se. As Ashby (1962) puts it, the organisation exists in part in the eye of the beholder. What is seen may be named sociodemographic forms, which means, sets of individuals that are distributed and behave in a structured manner (Thierry, 1994). Sociodemographic forms represent the phenomenon, the visible aspect of social organisations. If we attempt to reduce them to adaptive strategies, this may amount to attributing an adaptive function to reified structures, in other words to endowing appearances with a fitness (Thierry, 1997).

Type: Chapter
Information: Self-Organisation and Evolution of Biological and Social Systems , pp. 108 - 122

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511542275.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2005

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