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Significant Others
In Significant Others , the co-director of the world-famous Jane Goodall Research Center uses our recent knowledge of great ape behavior to examine (and puncture) many myths about humans-about infanticide, mating practices, the origins of human cognition, the human diet, language, and many other subjects. Evolutionary scientists know that the dividing line between humans and other animals has grown increasingly blurry-it's even become a clichéo note that we share 99 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet this knowledge, while superficially accepted, has not really been absorbed by many fields, especially the social sciences. At the same time, the knowledge that all humans are genetically and cognitively modern, no matter how "primitive" we may find them, has left the apes the only true "savages." Thus if we want to learn about human nature and how we came to be as we are, we have to look to the apes to tell us. This is a sweeping, fresh, controversial book on what the science of primates can tell us about our own natures.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
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About the author
Craig Stanford
30 books13 followersA.k.a. Craig B. Stanford: www.goodreads.com/author/show/2248957...
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 24, 2025
okay i actually really liked this book so shoutout to whoever left it in the lab library on the fiction shelf. craig is a proponent of the run on sentence, which when combined with the near constant dog barking echoing around me 24/7 was hard at times. i didn’t like the second part of the book as much because i don’t care about cognition or culture but i can’t rly hold that against him. was obsessed with his takes on cultural anthro and psychology and he actually talked about feminist and japanese primatologists which is rare. also loved the part where he talked about being in the field bc many things were resonating. overall i am tentatively willing to accept him as a man in this field whose work i respect even though i am still scarred by frans de waal
March 25, 2012
Anyone looking for a good, quick-and-dirty introduction to the field of primatology and its relation to anthropology, evolutionary biology, and evolutionary psychology would do well to pick up this book. Much of the important work of the last few decades is summarized here. It also nicely debunks some persistent myths of paleo-archaeology, such as Man the Hunter, Man the Scavenger, the Plains of the Savanna, etc. I can think of a number of people who need to be swatted across the nose with the first chapter of this book.
However, there won't be a whole lot of new information here for anyone familiar with the big names in primatology such as Jane Goodall, Richard Wrangham, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, and Frans de Waal. The coverage of some issues felt a bit superficial at times. He argues that we as humans have mistakenly thought of ourselves as exceptional or "above" nature, being sole possessors of this thing called "culture." A rudimentary form of culture, however, has been discovered among other primates. While I am in complete agreement with his overall argument, he definitely plays up the research in primatology here and there. I find some of the ape-language research, for example, a bit dubious. Stanford also relies on the work of the now-disgraced Marc Hauser in places. He can't be faulted for this, of course, as the book was published nearly a decade before the Hauser scandal broke, though it makes those parts of the book suspect now. (See his Wikipedia page for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Hau...)
Neophytes to primatology could do worse than to check out this book, though. It's written in a concise, accessible, and engaging manner.
However, there won't be a whole lot of new information here for anyone familiar with the big names in primatology such as Jane Goodall, Richard Wrangham, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, and Frans de Waal. The coverage of some issues felt a bit superficial at times. He argues that we as humans have mistakenly thought of ourselves as exceptional or "above" nature, being sole possessors of this thing called "culture." A rudimentary form of culture, however, has been discovered among other primates. While I am in complete agreement with his overall argument, he definitely plays up the research in primatology here and there. I find some of the ape-language research, for example, a bit dubious. Stanford also relies on the work of the now-disgraced Marc Hauser in places. He can't be faulted for this, of course, as the book was published nearly a decade before the Hauser scandal broke, though it makes those parts of the book suspect now. (See his Wikipedia page for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Hau...)
Neophytes to primatology could do worse than to check out this book, though. It's written in a concise, accessible, and engaging manner.
July 7, 2022
Not always coherent mixture of anthropological analysis, commentary, and personal writings. Informative but not always structured.
December 9, 2009
Stanford notes his thesis thus (page xi): "Apes and humans are cut from the same evolutionary cloth; all that fundamentally distinguishes us is posture, we being upright walkers and the apes quadrupeds . . . 'Significant Others' is about the continuum between humanity and the great apes. What was once a bold line dividing us has turned out to be fairly blurry. . . ."
In his Introduction, he sets out by addressing hat he sees as key myths about early humans (they were clumsy bipeds, their hunting defined key aspects of their evolution, etc.). From there, he explores a wide ranging set of issues. Part One examines "Love, Death, and Food." Part Two looks at "Culture, Language, and the Trouble with Evolutionary Psychology." He provocatively entitles Part Three "Islands in the Human Sea."
Chapter after chapter explores the continuum of ape and human. One important issue here is, as he notes (page 206): "The great apes and we form a pint-sized cluster of five species that are the tips of one of the great lineages in Earth's history."
All in all, a very readable and provocative volume.
In his Introduction, he sets out by addressing hat he sees as key myths about early humans (they were clumsy bipeds, their hunting defined key aspects of their evolution, etc.). From there, he explores a wide ranging set of issues. Part One examines "Love, Death, and Food." Part Two looks at "Culture, Language, and the Trouble with Evolutionary Psychology." He provocatively entitles Part Three "Islands in the Human Sea."
Chapter after chapter explores the continuum of ape and human. One important issue here is, as he notes (page 206): "The great apes and we form a pint-sized cluster of five species that are the tips of one of the great lineages in Earth's history."
All in all, a very readable and provocative volume.
August 31, 2019
Flawed, but definitely worthwhile
University of Southern California anthropologist (and primatologist) Craig Stanford's thesis in this attractive but somewhat breezy (and politically considered) book is that the difference between humans and apes is one of degree and not of kind. That is why the word "continuum" is used in the title.
I agree with his thesis, and I think he does a great job of making the case. His prose is readable and his enthusiasm is genuine. However there are some problems. In attempting to walk the tightrope of political correctness while conveying to the reader what he has learned as a scientist, Stanford sometimes slips into a fuzzy and inexplicit expression.
To begin with (p. 16) he contends that if women "crave" men with resources (he is attempting to answer David Buss, et al.) it is "mainly in patriarchal societies in which they must depend on men to obtain resources and power for them." This is gratuitous because, as Stanford himself notes on page 147, "Human societies are, political correctness notwithstanding, universally patriarchal." Whether women would behave differently if the societies were matriarchal (or otherwise) is unknown. Citing an isolated society in special circumstances that is matriarchal really does not prove the general case, although it does point to a range of possibilities, and that is good. However it is ingenuous to pretend that women are not looking for resources in a mate if they can find them. Why would a reasonable woman, given a choice, choose a poor, ineffective, unsuccessful man, to one who has the ability to help her provide for her children?
In the same paragraph, Stanford contends that the "old adage about ‘what women want’ should more accurately be phrased as ‘what women can realistically hope to achieve in their cultural context’." In the first place, it's not an adage, it's a joke or a lament, and it's a question, "What does a woman want?" The original is lost in the prehistory, but Ernest Jones attributed these words to Freud: "The great question...which I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?’" This is probably the source that Stanford had in mind--and, by the way, this is a question that evolutionary psychology has largely answered, much to the dismay of those who would prefer to keep the mystery. In the second place it is not enough to merely say "in their cultural context." There is a biological context as well, exemplified by nine months of being pregnant, and several years of intense maternal responsibility that is fundamental to all cultures that can't be explained away as something from the patriarchy unless you believe that human biology itself is patriarchal.
There is also Stanford's summary dismissal of evolutionary psychology in Chapter 8 to consider, a strange dismissal since part of his title is "the Quest for Human Nature" (from the study of primates), which is one of the ways that evolutionary psychologists work. (He is actually being an evolutionary psychologist himself but apparently doesn't know it.) Evolutionary psychology should be compared with other psychologies, say, psychoanalytical theory, or behaviorism, and not to, e.g., biology.
It's important to add that the work of anthropologists is no more scientific or rigorous (or less so) than the work of evolutionary psychologists, as can be demonstrated from reading this book. For example on page 129 Stanford tells a story of seeing the low-ranking chimp Beethoven make a sexual display through a cluster of chimpanzees. He writes: "This enraged the alpha, Wilkie, who chased Beethoven off into the thickets, whereupon Beethoven circled around and came back to mate with an eager female before Wilkie realized what was happening."
Stanford uses this as an example of planned deceptive behavior in chimps, but whether Beethoven displayed foresight or just got lucky is unclear. To be picky I could also point out that "enraged" and "realized" are anthropomorphic projections of Stanford's lively mind and not something that could be tested scientifically (which is the essence of his criticism of evolutionary psychology on page 134).
Yet, Professor Stanford understands that social scientists today are mightily constrained by a postmodern culture in academia that demands politically correct findings first, and scientifically persuasive findings only if they are in agreement with the PC party line. He writes, "Some of this sentiment [not admitting "essential cultural commonalities"] reflects anthropologists' political burden of favoring the cultural underdog at all costs. Postmodernism's purpose has become a vehicle, in part, to give meaning to identity politics in the battle of the oppressed against the perceived enemy, the white male elite." (p. 146)
There is a lot more worth discussing in this book. (I wish I had more space.) The chapter on what it's like in the field (Chapter 12) is vivid and compelling; and in the concluding chapters we can see that Stanford is a scientist who cares passionately about the great apes and their environments. He is also a man who can communicate what he knows to a general readership as long as he avoids the trap of imagining that there is a political censor sitting on his shoulder as he writes. The truth will out, and the educated public that reads books written by professional scientists is much more sophisticated than is sometimes supposed.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Understanding Evolution and Ourselves”
University of Southern California anthropologist (and primatologist) Craig Stanford's thesis in this attractive but somewhat breezy (and politically considered) book is that the difference between humans and apes is one of degree and not of kind. That is why the word "continuum" is used in the title.
I agree with his thesis, and I think he does a great job of making the case. His prose is readable and his enthusiasm is genuine. However there are some problems. In attempting to walk the tightrope of political correctness while conveying to the reader what he has learned as a scientist, Stanford sometimes slips into a fuzzy and inexplicit expression.
To begin with (p. 16) he contends that if women "crave" men with resources (he is attempting to answer David Buss, et al.) it is "mainly in patriarchal societies in which they must depend on men to obtain resources and power for them." This is gratuitous because, as Stanford himself notes on page 147, "Human societies are, political correctness notwithstanding, universally patriarchal." Whether women would behave differently if the societies were matriarchal (or otherwise) is unknown. Citing an isolated society in special circumstances that is matriarchal really does not prove the general case, although it does point to a range of possibilities, and that is good. However it is ingenuous to pretend that women are not looking for resources in a mate if they can find them. Why would a reasonable woman, given a choice, choose a poor, ineffective, unsuccessful man, to one who has the ability to help her provide for her children?
In the same paragraph, Stanford contends that the "old adage about ‘what women want’ should more accurately be phrased as ‘what women can realistically hope to achieve in their cultural context’." In the first place, it's not an adage, it's a joke or a lament, and it's a question, "What does a woman want?" The original is lost in the prehistory, but Ernest Jones attributed these words to Freud: "The great question...which I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?’" This is probably the source that Stanford had in mind--and, by the way, this is a question that evolutionary psychology has largely answered, much to the dismay of those who would prefer to keep the mystery. In the second place it is not enough to merely say "in their cultural context." There is a biological context as well, exemplified by nine months of being pregnant, and several years of intense maternal responsibility that is fundamental to all cultures that can't be explained away as something from the patriarchy unless you believe that human biology itself is patriarchal.
There is also Stanford's summary dismissal of evolutionary psychology in Chapter 8 to consider, a strange dismissal since part of his title is "the Quest for Human Nature" (from the study of primates), which is one of the ways that evolutionary psychologists work. (He is actually being an evolutionary psychologist himself but apparently doesn't know it.) Evolutionary psychology should be compared with other psychologies, say, psychoanalytical theory, or behaviorism, and not to, e.g., biology.
It's important to add that the work of anthropologists is no more scientific or rigorous (or less so) than the work of evolutionary psychologists, as can be demonstrated from reading this book. For example on page 129 Stanford tells a story of seeing the low-ranking chimp Beethoven make a sexual display through a cluster of chimpanzees. He writes: "This enraged the alpha, Wilkie, who chased Beethoven off into the thickets, whereupon Beethoven circled around and came back to mate with an eager female before Wilkie realized what was happening."
Stanford uses this as an example of planned deceptive behavior in chimps, but whether Beethoven displayed foresight or just got lucky is unclear. To be picky I could also point out that "enraged" and "realized" are anthropomorphic projections of Stanford's lively mind and not something that could be tested scientifically (which is the essence of his criticism of evolutionary psychology on page 134).
Yet, Professor Stanford understands that social scientists today are mightily constrained by a postmodern culture in academia that demands politically correct findings first, and scientifically persuasive findings only if they are in agreement with the PC party line. He writes, "Some of this sentiment [not admitting "essential cultural commonalities"] reflects anthropologists' political burden of favoring the cultural underdog at all costs. Postmodernism's purpose has become a vehicle, in part, to give meaning to identity politics in the battle of the oppressed against the perceived enemy, the white male elite." (p. 146)
There is a lot more worth discussing in this book. (I wish I had more space.) The chapter on what it's like in the field (Chapter 12) is vivid and compelling; and in the concluding chapters we can see that Stanford is a scientist who cares passionately about the great apes and their environments. He is also a man who can communicate what he knows to a general readership as long as he avoids the trap of imagining that there is a political censor sitting on his shoulder as he writes. The truth will out, and the educated public that reads books written by professional scientists is much more sophisticated than is sometimes supposed.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Understanding Evolution and Ourselves”
July 24, 2017
The more I learn about non-human apes the more I think humanity is totally hosed.
November 26, 2007
Very interesting research. My only problem is that I find it difficult to extrapolate what is or is not human nature from research focused on apes.
August 15, 2010
Thirdrate pseudoscience. Basic rule: if you're going to write trashy fake science, you have to at least insert some witty one liners.
June 21, 2011
Stanford makes reading about evolutionary anthropology both fun and easy.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews