Primate studies are pursued for two purposes--to increase our knowledge of primates as such, and to increase our knowledge of ourselves as we derive information from primate studies that are applicable to human communities. Such studies are seen as valid because of the similarities humans have with other primates. In addition, many primate studies are used to develop ideas about how primitive human communities behaved and evolved, with researchers extrapolating from what they see among primate populations today to develop ideas about primitive human societies early in human history.
Different biological theorists have answered questions raised about human behavior and human evolution according to their view of human evolution and of how that is reflected in human culture. Much of what they have to say begins with a consideration of the past, of how humankind has evolved to date and of what we know about the origins of human culture. In recent years, there has been more attention given to these questions. In the 1960s, a number of ethnologists analyzed our biological thinking about humankind and human social life, and Konrad Lorenz is cited in particular: "There was, we were told, a basic biological individual, man; he was compounded of the same sort of ingredients as other forms of life; drives, behavioral tendencies and so on" (Renolds 3). The mind was seen as essentially a rationalizing organ that gave meaning to what was otherwise a meaningless biological existence. Society and the institutions of society were not the cause so much as the outcome of interactions between individuals. Renolds sees Lorenz, Ardrey, and Morris as theorists standing at a point in the history of ideas that represents something of an extreme biological watershed, following other writers who were preoccupied with the utility of biological thinking in the quest for an ethic. Earlier writers had argued that biology can and does provide an ethic, ...