Connect with us
Reality Check: Could "War for the Planet of the Apes" Actually Happen?

Movies

Reality Check: Could “War for the Planet of the Apes” Actually Happen?

Ahead of the franchise finale, biologist Kevin Laland asks, “Why not?”

This weekend, many of us will watch an army of retrovirus-modified apes wage brutal war against humanity. Unquestionably, chimpanzees on horseback, machine gun-wielding gorillas, and tutoring orangutans make spectacular theater, but could War for the Planet of the Apes happen in reality?

In Pierre Boulle’s original 1963 Planet of the Apes novel, space traveler Ulysse Mérou becomes trapped on a terrifying planet where gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees have seized control, having acquired human language, culture, and technology by imitating their former masters. Much of the sinister realism of Boulle’s novel stems from the author’s impressive knowledge of research into animal behavior, and the attention to scientific detail is equally manifest in movie adaptations. Later versions attributed the enhanced intellectual capabilities of “evolved apes” to a retrovirus Simian Flu pandemic, and changed the setting to a post-war apocalyptic wasteland.

Yet, at least here on planet Earth, other apes could not actually acquire major features of human culture solely through imitation, and sleeping apes certainly couldn’t be rendered highly intelligent overnight through breathing in a brain-enhancing drug. Infections can lead to behavioral changes (e.g. increased aggression in rabies sufferers), but they can’t “give” a species language. Complex culture requires an underlying biological capability fashioned through long periods of evolution.

Reality Check: Could "War for the Planet of the Apes" Actually Happen?

Talking the Talk

A romance exists around the notion that animals, such as chimpanzees or dolphins, covertly harbor complex communication systems unfathomed by humans. We like the idea that arrogant scientists have prematurely concluded that other animals can’t talk after failing to decode their calls. Sadly, animal communication has been subject to intense scientific investigation for over a century, with few hints of such complexity.

Outside the movies, chimpanzee vocal control and physiology is incapable of speech production. This much was established in the 1940s by researchers who raised a chimpanzee called Viki in their home. Disappointingly, Viki learned just four words—”mama,” “papa,” “cup,” and “up”. That was at least more successful than an earlier attempt to rear a chimpanzee and child together — the exercise had to be abandoned with the chimpanzee failing to learn a single word, but the child imitating chimpanzee sounds!

Much excitement was generated by studies teaching apes sign language, yet claims that apes had produced language did not stand up to close scrutiny – a point on which virtually all linguists concurred. The animals could learn the meaning of signs, but failed to acquire the rules of grammar.

Revealingly, “talking-ape” utterances proved devastatingly egocentric. Given the means to talk through signing, apes say “Gimme food” or other expressions of their desires. The longest recorded statement of any “talking ape” – produced by a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky, after famous linguist Noam Chomsky – was give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you. Outside of the movies, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas make poor conversationalists.

Reality Check: Could "War for the Planet of the Apes" Actually Happen?

Researcher Herb Terrace, Nim Chimpsky, and his caretaker, Stephanie LaFarge

By contrast, months after uttering their first words, two-year-old children produce complex sentences, comprising verbs, nouns, prepositions, and determiners in the correct grammatical relations and on diverse topics. Humans have minds uniquely fashioned by evolution to comprehend and produce language.

Many scholars believe that language began with the creation and use of meaningful signs, and that being immersed in this symbol-rich world generated evolutionary feedback which caused a reorganization of the human brain. We’ve seen extensive evidence for these kinds of recurring cycles. Take milk-drinking, for instance, which began with early Neolithic humans, who were consequently exposed to strong selection favoring genes that break down the energy-rich sugar, lactose. Co-evolution has shaped human biology.

The same holds for warfare. War is much more than scaled-up aggression — it requires extensive cooperation regulated by complex institutions specifying strict behavioral codes. To wage war, individuals must coordinate with allies in organized and often distinctive roles. Research suggests that this type of cooperation could not evolve in a species that lacked complex culture — stabilizing forces such as institutionalized punishment, or socially sanctioned retaliation (like beating of deserters), are required for such cooperative norms to persist. Most norms are far from obvious, and youngsters must be taught both the nature of the norms and the need to conform to them.

Other apes are proficient imitators, but there is little compelling evidence that they actively teach and, correspondingly, their cooperation largely entails helping relatives. The scale of human cooperation, which involves huge numbers of unrelated individuals working together, is unprecedented in large part because it is uniquely built upon learned and socially transmitted norms. These norms are the glue that ties individuals together into cooperating teams.

Reality Check: Could "War for the Planet of the Apes" Actually Happen?

Uniquely human?

Walking the Walk

So in a way, Boulle was prophetic in his suggestion that imitation played a central role in the emergence of culture. Through copying the fear responses of other individuals, our ancestors learned to identity predators and circumvent dangers. This helped to shape the empathy and emotional contagion that makes War for the Planet of the Apes a heartfelt experience. In the absence of these abilities, we would all watch movies like sociopaths, equally unmoved by the Psycho shower scene or by Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara’s kiss in Gone with the Wind.

By copying, our forebears learned how to make digging tools, spears, and fish hooks; how to butcher carcasses or build fires. These, and countless others skills, were what shaped the polished, imitative capabilities of our lineage, leaving it supremely adapted to translate visual information about the movements of others’ bodies into matching action from their own muscles, tendons, and joints.

[amazon_link asins=’0691151180′ template=’BottomAdAIPT’ store=’aiptcomics-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’0c12156b-67e6-11e7-91e4-7594b5b30e24′]

Eons later, today’s movie stars can direct this aptitude to imitating the movements of other primates, with a precision no other species could match. Human culture is not something that another species can easily pick up – it’s reliant on evolved propensities millennia in the making. There will be no inter-primate war on Earth until such a time as other species have undertaken a prolonged evolutionary journey – one that the only real-life warmongering ape currently appears hell-bent on preventing.

Kevin Laland is Professor of Behavioral and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom, and the author of Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind (Princeton, 2017), from which this article draws.

Join the AIPT Patreon

Want to take our relationship to the next level? Become a patron today to gain access to exclusive perks, such as:

  • ❌ Remove all ads on the website
  • 💬 Join our Discord community, where we chat about the latest news and releases from everything we cover on AIPT
  • 📗 Access to our monthly book club
  • 📦 Get a physical trade paperback shipped to you every month
  • 💥 And more!
Sign up today
Comments

In Case You Missed It

WWE SmackDown preview, full card: March 1, 2024 WWE SmackDown preview, full card: March 1, 2024

WWE SmackDown preview, full card: March 1, 2024

Pro Wrestling

AEW Dynamite preview, full card: February 28, 2024 AEW Dynamite preview, full card: February 28, 2024

AEW Dynamite preview, full card: February 28, 2024

Pro Wrestling

AEW Rampage preview, full card: March 1, 2024 AEW Rampage preview, full card: March 1, 2024

AEW Rampage preview, full card: March 1, 2024

Pro Wrestling

Marvel unveils the new villains Bloodcoven appearing in 'Blood Hunt' Marvel unveils the new villains Bloodcoven appearing in 'Blood Hunt'

Marvel unveils the new villains Bloodcoven appearing in ‘Blood Hunt’

Comic Books

Connect
Newsletter Signup