I am in the interlibrary loans department at my university’s main library complex, including the biology library. As such, I have occasion to glance at many scientific papers in zoological journals.
I know that the usual people you call to study humans are anthropologists and physicians. But do primatologists ever study humans? Are there scientific articles that begin “We decided to compare the chimpanzee Pan troglodytes, the orang utan Pongo pygmaeus, and the human Homo sapiens”?
The study of humans as animals is known as Anthroplogy.
Actuall this dicipline is a bit more wide spread and is by definition the study of the anthropoid apes, but most anthroplogists concentrate on humans.
Anthroplogy includes such area as sociology, archaelogy and evolutionary science, both behaviorial and pysical.
Desmond Morris, author of The Human Animal (there was a series of TV programs by the same name based on his work), is by training a zoologist. He got interested in studying human behavior from an animal perspective. Very interesting stuff; I highly recommend it.
I second that – though Morris does occassionally spin a wild tale to fir some animal behavior into his pet theory, on the whole his books are interesting and thought-provoking.
Do primatologists ever include humans in the course of their general studies of primates? We are, after all, primates too.
sure…when piecing together evolutionary branches, H. sapiens are considered along with everything else.