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Revisiting a Seminal Anthropological work

Revisiting a Seminal Anthropological work. Through the lens of addiction medicine. Examining the difference between Dame Jane Goodall’s initial research 1960-1965 duration and her later observations

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Revisiting a Seminal Anthropological work

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  1. Revisiting a Seminal Anthropological work Through the lens of addiction medicine

  2. Examining the difference between Dame Jane Goodall’s initial research 1960-1965 duration and her later observations • “Behavior of the the Free-Ranging Chimpanzee” which detailed her first five years of study at the Gombe Reserve, Tanzania. 1960-65 (Completed when she was Baroness Lawick-Goodall)

  3. For thefirst five years of Goodall’s research she followed the Chimpanzee tribe across its home range and for two years she became an accepted member of the group until a new alpha male (Frodo) kicked her out. • The chimpanzees lived by an immediate return foraging system and were essentially peaceful towards both related and unrelated members of their own species.

  4. Post her PHD Goodall tired of wandering over an extensive home range to observe the chimpanzees and decided to keep her subjects close to her base camp by provided limited quantities of bananas through timed release providor boxes. • This meant that Goodall could observe the chimp interactions without all that walking

  5. In the mid seventies the previously egalitarian chimps became very different with open warfare breaking out and infanticide being observed. At Goombe one chimpanzee tribe gradually eradicated a break away tribe over several years. • Similar events occurred at the other multi-decade Tanzanian chimp site (Mahale) which also used timed provisioning.

  6. What had occurred between the early 1960’s and the 1970’s which might have altered the Chimps behavior.

  7. Margaret Power (1992) Made the suggestion that it was Goodall’s use of feeding which over time had changed the nature of the chimp society. • Previously chimps accessing fruit laden tree’s would call to their compatriots and the whole tribe would descend. • Fruit laden tree’s always had more ripe fruit than the chimp could eat at one sitting.

  8. Chimps also cooperatively hunted Baboon’s ( Goodall was the first to observe this). • She was also the first to reveal that a large minority of the standard Chimpanzee diet was meat.

  9. Power believed that it was not just the provision of the bananas but the limited amounts of the bananas and the limited time they were available that had transitioned the Chimpanzees from cooperation to competition. • A critique in turn could be made of Power(1992) because she has not elaborated why fruit provision, given its abundance in nature, should so alter behavior.

  10. Even though fruit was abundant in nature the characteristics of fruit in the forest is very different to that of fruit resulting from horticulture. • The sugar content of horticultural bananas is a multiple of their wild cousins which are mostly seeds. • Chimpanzees were actively competing for a product which was not available in their habitat.

  11. The chimps had an abundant source of food in the forest with their daily calorific requirements being met with only a couple of hours of group foraging • Actively hanging around the Banana provisioning machines was more boring and saved little time. • The chimps actively spent more energy fighting each other and vandalizing the machines.

  12. Whilst there are essential amino acids and fats there are no essential carbohydrates. • The chimps in coveting the bananas were not seeking a food source whose components were not available from their home range • It is my conjecture that they were not competing for a food source at all.

  13. In pain medicine amongst children the use of oral fructose can reduce the need for opioids. (Stevens et al (2004)) • This is an established clinical practice in pain Medicine. • Fructose receptors are in some ways similar to opioid receptors.Rada et al(2005)

  14. The chimps chaotic behavior and their high level of competitiveness for a non essential resource can best be explained as dependent behavior, in their case to the fructose in bananas. • Indeed authors such as Gillespie(2008) and Ludwig(2001) have suggested that human's obesity epidemic can be explained as an addiction to sugar. • Sugar not being something extant in our natural environment.

  15. What of the chimps continuation of warlike behavior with the abandonment of intermittent provisioning?

  16. Genetically the Chantam Island Moriori people were identical to the NZ Maori but whilst the Moriori were pacifist egalitarian the Maori were tribal competitive and warlike. Davis and Solomon ( 2012)

  17. This led in 1835 to the destruction of the Moriori on the Chatham islands when the Maori invaded. • Environment rather than just genetics has a strong influence on behavior.

  18. Why did the de-criminilsation of Narcotics for personal use lead to a reduction of opioid use in Portugal? • We are aware that intermittent reinforcement is the most effective method to reinforce behavior.

  19. I suggest that the decriminalization of opiates in Portugal increased their availability and thus decreased the amount of intermittent dose interruption thereby impairing reinforcement which thus led to a less long term dependence. • It is the counter intuitiveness of this argument unfortunately that has led to current Australian and US drug policy which is analogous to the intermittent banana feeding of Dame Goodall.

  20. The most celebrated primate researcher in History created the Chimp Wars when she abandoned the methodology of ethnographic research which saw her awarded her PHD. • Her intermittent providoring was for the sake of expediency. • The war on drugs analogously has helped foster the dependency which it has sought to eradicate

  21. Comment:As Nutt and many others have suggested the time has come for a drug policy based on evidence rather than interdiction as a paramount principle.

  22. References • Denise Davis and Māui Solomon. 'Moriori', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 9-Nov-12 
URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/moriori • Ludwig DS, Peterson KE, Gortmaker SL. Relationbetween consumptionof sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity: A prospective, observational analysis. Lancet 2001;357:505-508 • Gillespie D(2008)Sweet Poison:Why Sugar makes us fat. Penguin Books Australia • Lustig R “Fructose its alcohol without the buzz” retrieved from http://advances.nutrition.org/content/4/2/226.full.pdf • Power M(1991) The Egalitarians—Human and Chimpanzee. Cambridge University press. 1991 290 ppISBN 0-521-40016-3 • .RadaPI,, AvenaNM.Dailybingeing on sugar repeatedly releases dopamine in the accumbens shell. Neuroscience. 2005;134(3):737-44. • . Stevens B, Yamada J, Ohlsson A. Sucrose for analgesia in newborn infants undergoing painful procedures. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2004 (CD001069). • Van Lawick-Goodall J. The Behaviour of free living chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve. Page 116-311 Accessed at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00661856/1/supp/P3

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