2010 Vol 101.pdf (1.63mb) - Primate Society of Great Britain

governments, researchers and the public to scientific research and activity.
Part three, in contrast, returns readers to the present (with a chapter detailing
the most recent developments in the infanticide controversy) and the
broader viewpoint associated with an evaluation of the role of “Controversy
and Authority, Narrative and Testimony” in primatology and science in
general.
Rees states early on that she is not going to judge the winners of the
infanticide controversy (and indeed, mentions that the open nature of that
controversy helps in that it ensures she cannot view it “knowing who won”),
but nonetheless manages to use her detailed history of this one debate to
shed light on several intriguing aspects of primatology and science. In
particular, my relatively modest knowledge of the history of primatology
was substantially expanded – especially as many of the theoretical and
methodological topics discussed were of relevance to a much wider part of
the field than just the infanticide debates. In addition, a number of puzzling
questions about the philosophy and sociology of science are raised and
discussed. Rees’s “fieldworker’s regress”, the situation in which
observations can never be replicated in field science because of specifics
and uniqueness of place and conditions, is linked to some interesting
debates over the importance of personality to behavioural observations, our
tendency to anthropomorphise the primates, and the role of theory in
developing and testing hypotheses, all of which are ably evaluated in the
book.
At the same time, however, I would question whether the infanticide
debates are really still “open”. As Janson (2000) states, research into
primate infanticide today has largely moved on from questioning whether
the behaviour is adaptive to consider the reproductive consequences on
adult females and the counterstrategies they employ to minimise the
consequences. That said, Rees does note in several places that the
infanticide debates are more important to modern primatology in the USA,
and, indeed, fourteen of her eighteen interviewees are, or were, based in
American institutions. Perhaps, as she notes, the anthropological aspect of
American primatology (which drew more of its early practitioners from
anthropology while European countries drew heavily upon zoology) is
sufficient to explain the difference in opinion and justify the retention of the
debate in that country; alternatively, perhaps there are just a few key players
in the infanticide debates who refuse to accept the majority opinion. Indeed,
The Infanticide Controversy does emphasise the importance of individuality
– not only of place, but also of person – in the conception and design of
primatological research, suggesting that perhaps controversy is not so much
an objective discussion as a conflict between personalities and world-views
in a discipline which cannot, for good or for ill, conduct completely
objective research. While many scientists may consider this an
inconvenience or even a substantial barrier to research, however, Rees’s
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