Transcript: Humans vs. Chimps

MICHAEL TOMASELLO No, he’s a gentle giant.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) In addition to the apes at the zoo, Tomasello and his colleagues at Leipzig’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have as their most important research subjects, human children.

The team is making direct comparisons between the skills of young children and apes at a wide range of tasks. Some, like this one, assess the ability to deal with the world of objects.

ALAN ALDA This is really tracking his ability to imagine things moving in space?

MICHAEL TOMASELLO Yes, even when you can’t see them. So if you can imagine in evolution knowing where a predator is going when he leaves in a certain direction, or knowing where your mom is going when she’s heading is a certain direction, and all mammals are really good with space, so humans probably have very few if any unique and special skills in the spatial domain.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) When chimpanzees are tested with the same task, they do at least as well as children. In fact, in a battery of similar tests of their ability to deal with the physical world of objects, children and apes were little different.

But the Max Planck team also tested children and apes for their social skills.

ALAN ALDA Let’s see, I’ll just put this one here, then I’ll just put this one… oh!

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) The help the kids gave was entirely spontaneous.

ALAN ALDA Thank you. Danke schön. OK, All done.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) The surprise was that chimps also volunteer when an object is out of reach.

FELIX WARNEKEN So this suggests that potential altruistic motivation to act on behalf of others is something that is shared among chimpanzees and humans and therefore something that maybe was already a characteristic of our common ancestor. ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Pointing is such simple and natural human gesture that it’s hard to see it as a foundation for human cooperation.

ALAN ALDA It doesn’t look like much of a test, because you point to something and there it is. So it doesn’t seem so hard for us, right?

MICHAEL TOMASELLO It’s obvious to us but what happens is the child follows the point and all they see is a boring cup and it looks just like the other cup. So what’s special about this cup? And then they make the inference, “Oh, you must be trying to help me find the toy.” And so there’s an inference of helping, that you’re helping me find it.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Of all the experiments we’ve seen comparing chimps’ skills to human’s, this is the simplest and perhaps the most startling. When the human points to the cup hiding the food, chimps just don’t get that the human is trying to help.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Now it’s my turn to get into the act. With Apollo looking meaner than ever, I certainly hope Anthony’s tightened those bolts.

ALAN ALDA OK, very light box. Who-ho, so light. This is for you. Now, here comes a really heavy box.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) All Apollo has to do is choose which rope to pull. As always, he only gets one try.

ALAN ALDA Maybe I didn’t show him that was light enough.

ALAN ALDA OK, let’s get this down here.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) This time we have a panel of kids.

DANIEL POVINELLI Can you go get the Play-Doh? Good job. Go get one. Good job, Gracie.

Go ahead, Camille. Oh, she’s like, this is nothing.