Baboons can be your relatives lol. However, I believe I was created in the image of God according to Genesis 1: 27 :)

you cannot make "biological taxonomy" on the basis of "Cultural basis", you have to choose: OR biology OR culture!

you can play intellectually to create a cultural taxonomy, but will it have a scientific meaning? will such an exercise produce new understandings to our own evolution? I suppose that the answer will be negative.

In particular, I suppose that convergent evolution patterns will fake your "taxonomical" tree

Jean-Jacques Itzhak Martinez Dear Prof. Martinez, thank you for your caring, I hope I put my question, even this is a very difficult mission, in a more clear. I am an anthropologist, who came from a philosophical, not scientific background, so I hope I am treated by scientists like you in much tolerance. However, as an anthropologist, I assume I am fully understand with the problems, some time the peril, of the idea of anthropomorphism, but this should not prevent me of thinking, and I believe you would not. All that I am trying to suggest here is to what extent can we find an anthropological and philosophical way to discuss the matter of intelligence in our grand family, Animal family. Of course, when it comes to philosophy, words may fail you, and of course, I do not mean the real meaning of taxonomy, and of course, not the scientific one, but I try to think and discuss in the limits that language allows. Thank you once again. Yours, Ali

How exactly do baboons appear more like us than any other primate species? What similarities did you find between humans and baboons (btw, what species of baboons are you looking at? ) that are not found between, say, humans and chimps or humans and gorillas, or humans and macaques? Once you can answer this question, you will see if your idea makes sense.

good morning Margarita Orlova yes, you did put me in the corner. let us first, discover what I look for from by all of my questions/discussions here. Like what I said above to prof. Jean-Jacques Itzhak Martinez I am an sociologist-anthropologist, who comes from a philosophical background. Should I be limited by your questions and results as scientists, yes of course, and this is one of my goals. Should I stop asking questions, of course, not. Would I aim to push the scientists to go beyond their limitations, this is my job. Should I answer all of the most discipline questions that you asked above before I pose my questions, I think here is the point, my point if you want, to go in cooperation with the scientists. I hope I become more clearer. During my questions, I asked about the philosophical bases on which modern anthropology had been established. The goal I explained above is one of my ways to find it out. Once again, thank you and good morning

You can certainly build a cultural taxonomy but it will not be biological. Yet it might complement the biological taxonomy in some way. Culturally we might be closer to biologically distant species, will depend on what traits you choose to describe the cultures

good morning from here prof. Zaal Kikvidze yes, it is a problem to define traits under, maybe, the most undefined term in our modern days, "Culture". I am still convinced, as I wrote this many times, that culture for me, equals the archetypes of Jung, it is the very ancient intellectual genes/memes that affect today on the level of the unconsciousness, while what affects today directly is not the 'Culture' but the 'Politics'. However, culture is anything that results from the interaction between one (any organism) and the environment around, sex can be a factor, family, dominance, etc. what is your opinion?

Good morning Ali A Moursi ... I cannot opine on such philosophical questions as I did not read Jung and, in fact, I am just an ethnobiologist with a degree in ecology. I only can imagine that human culture could not emerge from nothing and our ancestors, who in their behaviour were closer to today's primates possessed a simple kind of culture from which our culture was derived. If anybody can show this based on anthropological, palaeontological. sociological or any kind of data, I would be just delighted.

I am in favor of Ethology providing data or concrete units of behavior (fixed behavior patterns) associated with physical characters that can help taxonomic construction.

Dr. Moursi has asked a serious question and the rest of you are responding in various degrees of ignorance. What he is really asking is about the Ecological Species Concept: The ecological species concept is a concept of species in which a species is a set of organisms adapted to a particular set of resources, called a niche, in the environment. This is a concept used regularly by Indigenous peoples and by some ecologists.

I see the point made by Dr. Moursi, which is that in some aspects of their social system and ecology, Baboons are more similar to humans than are any of the great apes. I have examined this topic, looking at another species, i.e., Gray Wolves, which are very similar to humans in their social structure and ecology, living in extended family groups and functioning as social hunters. This is explored in my book, The First Domestication, which examines coevolutionary relationships between wolves and humans.

One final request, Creationists, please stay out of serious scientific discourse. You have nothing to add to this topic, because your arguments are based in metaphysical approaches that cannot be evaluated from a scientific perspective.

@raymond pierotti, thanks for understanding and support...

Hello Ali; There is an ecological term that might be useful to you. The "guild" or "functional group" is taken to be groups of species that display similar lifestyles. Here is a good modern paper that might help. Published in Oikos in 2003.

https://doi.org/10.1034/j.1600-0706.2003.12152.x

You suggest that baboons and hunter-gatherer humans are both members of a functional group. Kin-group, omnivorous, diurnal, hunter-gatherers. We might debate the exact boundaries of the guild, but that is what your seem to be working on. What other species might you include is such a guild? Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

James Des Lauriers I really thank you. I am glad that you are here. Now I am finishing some business with Mr. Ardrey, once I finish, I will study (not read) this new Idea (it is new for me of course).

Dear prof A Moursi

in your answer, you write "so I hope I am treated by scientists like you in much tolerance". So, first, I want to apologize if you understood that what I wrote is intolerant! I think that all of us, scientists in all domains, not important if in humanity sciences or natural sciences, we have to be open to new approaches to old problems: this is the only way to advance in the knowledge of the things.

I think that your novel approach is interesting: trying to make a "taxonomy" of social life and culture (in the broad meaning of the word) in primates is interesting. What I wrote was about difficulties and drawbacks of such approach. First about the convergent evolution: that maybe similarity in a cultural trait may have different origins in different species. An other can be imitation: maybe humanoids and baboon, living in sympatry in the same ecosystem (savana), and both species having relatively high "intellectual" capacity, may have copy each the other.

I wish you good success in your research

Jean-Jacques Itzhak Martinez I really appreciate your support. As I told Margarita Orlova there is no way to make any developments in both sociology (the social philosophy) or in anthropology (social study of human and animal-human) without you, the scientists, and your findings, which make an enormous role to keep our eyes and our thoughts not within but at least in an informed conscious with what science says. I emphasize it to you and to all that we did lose much since we ignored the birth of Darwin, and that there is no possibility to establish the new sociology (after the ancient and middle ages stage) without laying on the natural science, in specific, biology, so that, I look for cooperating with all of you to enhance the general social theory, and to enhance anthropology. Thank you once again, for your caring and support. Yours, Ali

Hello Ali; I did a little browsing searching in Google Scholar using the query "Functional Groups, ecology". I'd recommend this paper as a starter.

Assembly Rules and Functional Groups at Global Biogeographical Scales.

The thrust of the paper is ... within a single habitat (community) how do functionally similar species become compatible with each other? Enjoy! Jim Des Lauriers

James Des Lauriers I really thank you prof. I will do the job, and definitely, I will return to you. Once again, thank you

A relevant and valuable open-access source (with a very deep list of references) is available on 'eLife': "Insights into the evolution of social systems and species from baboon studies" by Fischer et al. (2019) -- see:

https://elifesciences.org/articles/50989#:~:text=Baboons%20allow%20us%20to%20study,systems%20(Jolly%2C%202019).

Ian Colquhoun Thank you Ian

Thank you very much for this nice exchange

If we detach science from humanity it becomes very abstract but when we bring it home to end users in the ecosystem (fauna and fora) it sinks in very quickly.

thank you again

Aline

Aline Edith Mekeu Noutcha Dear Aline, I really thank your support, and always look forward to cooperating with the dearest scientists, and theorists, especially from the Mama African. Yes, together we shall make science more artistic, and philosophy, and social science, close to the scientific outcomes. We say in Africa, When You Pray, Move Your Feet, and Sheikh Suhrawardi (d. 1191) -who gave his life defending free speech- taught us through the theory of "Zawq" that: When You Search, Move Your Heart. I am who shall thank you for your connection, Yours, Ali

Your premise that baboons are more like us than any other primate is false regardless of whether you are comparing species at a genetic level or at the level of their overt behavior.

Dr. Greenfield, Dr. Moursi is talking about ecology, a topic about which you don't seem to have much knowledge. The issue is whether species are more similar in their ecology and how that can be used in a phylogeny. At a genetic level there is a clear difference, at a behavioral level ecologically baboons have some similarities, i.e. predation and browsing, which shares some relations to hunter-gatherer systems.

Leonard Greenfield Raymond Pierotti good morning to you and good morning to all, do you know that I am a Muslim, live in the Third World, belong to people who were described by many anthropologists as 'Primitives'. Believe me, some answers from some great scientists remind me of some answers of the extremists (Islamists and from other cultures). I really hope if someone read some questions, to read it. It is so easy. If someone really read my question will find out most easily that the text who said that "baboons are more like us than any other primate" belongs to Ardrey (1961). I did not refuse, I did not accept, I only asked a question! Yes, I know, based on my backwardness society who adopts the extremists and the 'primitives' that some Questions are Haram/forbidden, so I thought it may be accepted if they are asked within a scientific community. I hope it was the right decision. Once again, good morning, and once again, thank you, prof. Raymond Pierotti for your support and understanding.

Baboons provide important analogies for the reconstruction of early hominin behavior. In some respects they are more relevant than other primates, even chimps; for example, with respect to long-term relationships between particular males and females. However, none of this adds up to "taxonomy" in the zoological sense and I think that use of the term for cultural comparisons is confusing.

Dr. Moursi, I am not sure that any of us would be regraded as "Great Scientists", which is sort of an arbitrary concept to begin with. I do think that some of these people are making statements without really thinking about the implications of your question. Ardrey himself was not a scientist, but a playwright and screenwriter, who decided to use his undergraduate degree in Anthropology to discuss the implications of the discoveries of early hominids in Southern Africa.

I agree with Dr. King that the similarities between hominids and baboons are not "taxonomic traits" in the Linnaean sense and they are not close genetic relatives. The point I made was about The ecological species concept, which argues that a species is a set of organisms adapted to a particular set of resources, called a niche, in the environment. According to this concept, populations form the discrete phenetic clusters that we recognize as species because the ecological and evolutionary processes controlling how resources are divided up tend to produce those clusters. It is important to realize that there are a number of species concepts and even scientists cannot decide which one is best, so they use the one that fits their own way of thinking.

Some people like Dr. Greenfield made statements that are technically "correct", but irrelevant to the discussion. The point is, baboons are more ecologically similar to early hominids than are chimpanzees, bonobos or gorillas. We know very little about the social behavior of early hominids.

All I ask is that people who are responding at least have read the thread of discussion and know what they are talking about.

I was responding to the language used in the question which mixed genetic and ecological terms. Ecological definitions of species have never been popular for taxonomic decision making and having taken courses in ecology it would be presumptuous to think that something as dynamic and complex as an ecology could be fully understood by a human observer. Quoting my Ecology professor, “the ecology in a teaspoon of dirt is beyond human understanding. “. As for an ancient ecology, which no longer is available for direct observation, only makes the problem worse. An international well known paleoanthropologist , a member of AAAS told his graduate student who wanted to reconstruct a site’s paleoecology that doing so would be like trying to reconstruct whether Lucy screamed during orgasm.

Regardless of what these great men may have said that revealed their biases, people can, and do, study ecology and, including paleoecology. With no insult intended few groups have handed down more nonsense that paleoanthropologists who study hominids.

I fully agree with that statement

Good morning to all, Leonard Greenfield Raymond Pierotti Glenn E. King , and the rest of the (great) scientists who I succeeded to grasp their distinguished attention.

First of all, I will start with you Prof. Glenn E. King I wanted to answer you first, but I decided to wait until Prof. Leonard Greenfield writes something and thanked prof. Raymond Pierotti completely succeeded in making me feel that the place is not empty, and I can wait. However, I completely agree with you that the term 'Culture' is vague/ambiguous, etc. and of course, you know this is not my own fault. Accordingly, which language should I use to express my idea? Language is very very weak to express Man's ideas, al-alhamdulillah (thank God), there is something in this world our thoughts can outstrip. However, This is why I am here, as I discovered that I cannot work alone, and I repeated this many times above when I answered Aline Edith Mekeu Noutcha Jean-Jacques Itzhak Martinez I read your introduction, knew something about your work and interests, no doubt, that I get envy that you get trained in almost all fields of anthropology, so, I hope we can find a way to cooperate.

prof. Leonard Greenfield I really apologize that I get provoked that quickly, but my friend there is reason to everything, if you asked me to be accurate in everything, to be everything, why then I should not be a God, and I hope you take care as this is something very easy in some environments. Once again, and once again as I told Prof. Jean-Jacques Itzhak Martinez and the rest, I am here to be learned, to discuss, and to cooperate with the (great) scientists. I also read your introduction, and I really look for any sort of learning and cooperation with you.

Prof. Raymond Pierotti you are the real one who I feel envious of him. I am in my fortieth, you seem older, but with an energy that makes me feel that I will not hit the sixtieth. I also, look forward to cooperating and get learned from you. Good morning to you all, and I am proud that I have all of you, and of course, the baboons, here... yours, Ali

Dr. Moursi (and others): I appreciate most of the things that are being said. Dr. Moursi has been careful to suggest that he was talking about cultural similarities, however, I think he can go further and suggest that there are similarities between baboons and early hominids, especially as medium sized social primates in a savannah ecosystem. This probably does not meet most people's criterion for a taxonomic relationship, which is why I suggested the ecological species concept. A similar way of thinking was held by Indigenous America peoples, who held that in America humans and wolves could be considered as close relatives because they were ecologically quite similar, being group hunting predators that often took similar prey and lived in basically monogamous family social units. I come to this Tradition because I was raised to think about the world from an Indigenous perspective. I also think that it would be valuable for more people to consider the nature of such relationships, and that close phylogenetic relatives, like Bonobos and Chimpanzees are very different ecologically and socially. Our environments do shape our evolutionary tendencies, and I think this may be what Dr. Moursi was asking us to consider.

Raymond Pierotti yes, completely yes, with no more details, and I also come to this way of thinking because 'I was raised to think about the world (culture, traditions, development, religion, etc.) from an Indigenous perspective. I thank you, moreover, for your advice, which suggests the ecological species concepts, this was something that directed me, and that is why I am here.