

Chimps choose more rationally than humans - garbowza
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2007/10/08/chimps_choose_more_rationally_than_humans/8872/

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nextmoveone
I may be wrong here but...

I dont think chimpanzees have a firm grasp on economics or even an analogous
example; chimps don't think about spending banana's to make more bananas in
the long run. Chimps arent thinking about trading banana's for shelter or
safety or manual labor.

"In the game, a human or chimpanzee who receives something of value can offer
to share it with another."

Also, from what I gathered from that article the people and chimps have to
work to get something, then they can choose to share it. Why would they share?
Person or Chimp? That would be real self-interest.

I mean if you are forced to make an offer and you know your counterpart is not
as smart as you...let's say a chimp, you would be dumb not to offer less.

That's just my two cents.

~~~
iamwil
It's hard to draw conclusions here, since there are important details left out
in the article and there was no link to the actual paper.

While I can't argue for comprehension of economics by chimps, I think
chimpanzee have a grasp of how to cooperate with others in order to ensure
their own survival and after that, the survival of their offspring. If they
didn't, I don't think they'd live in social groups. Therefore, they should
have comprehension about sharing and giving.

So the result could be an indication of how much cooperation is required to
survive in a particular chimp society. But even then, I personally wouldn't be
so quick to jump to that conclusion, because something like cooperation is
learned (I have no proof, but I can't imagine one knows how to cooperate from
birth), and different troupes of animals have different learned cultures, even
within the same species--especially if they are social animals.

Animals have culture--i.e. knowledge and behaviors passed from generation to
generation through learned experience. There are two cultures of Killer
Whales, but they are genetically the same species. One culture beaches itself
to hunt seals and the other eats fish only. You can probably find video
footage on youtube of a mother training its young to beach itself for seals.

Only specific cultures of apes know how to crack nuts with rocks and others
fish ants out of trees. Only the macaques in japan wash their sweet potatoes
before eating them.

The last case is also interesting because the exact moment of that particular
innovation was observed by Japanese scientists back in the 50's. A young
macaque named Imo found that she could solve the annoying problem of sand in
her sweet potatoes by washing them. The scientists found that the innovation
spread from Imo to her mother, and then through to her playmates. The last to
adopt potato washing were the males--especially the high ranking males.

Amazingly, that wasn't the last innovation Imo had. She also learned to
separate sand from wheat by throwing it into water (wheat floats, sand sinks),
instead of picking it out one by one. This behavior has also spread to the
other macaques in her troop. I think they all still do this to this day.

So besides that tangent about animals having culture, if cooperation is indeed
learned and passed from generation to generation, I think it'd be premature to
say that ALL chimps are more selfish in their cooperation. One might only be
able to claim some--and from a particular troupe.

------
Retric
That depends on the number of rounds. Granted with one round you should accept
anything. But, if you have more than one you can set a minimum bound and
punish people who give you low bids.

AKA Round 1 accept 10% Round 2-100 accept 1%? vs. Round 1 reject 10% Round 2
reject 25% Round 3 reject 40% Round 4-100 accept 50%

