To theories of the biological instinct that primates have for sexual gratification and reproduction have been added theories of biosocial operations that can explain and/or govern observed patterns of social behavior in nonhuman primates that has a good deal of the complexity found in human societies. The commonplace that social shape and content are fundamental to human life as a highly evolved species and to the psychological and physical well-being of Homo sapiens persists even amid radically materialist conceptions of mind and the perpetual metaphysics of mind-body dualism. There is no equivalent discourse of the role of social organization in nonhuman primate evolution even though social structures have been observed and analyzed in primate populations.
This research argues that the role of social organization and telos in the evolution and survival as well as the functioning and operation of nonhuman high primate species has not been sufficiently appreciated. Biosocial evolutionary theory, plus studies of nonhuman primate reproductive and other modes of social behavior in different social structures inform a hypothesis that these primates are far more likely to further the project of species survival in an ecosystem characterized by both ample genetic diversity and complex social organization, and conversely far less likely to cooperate in the project where the ecosystem lacks genetic diversity and species-specific social complexity. The research suggests methods for testing the hypothesis with the species Gorilla gorilla beringei, commonly called the mountain gorillas of Rwanda.
Structures of social organization have long been known to play a role in behavior patterns of primates. Such studies in that regard focus on the shape of social organization as it exists and functions at the time of research. They focus on species whose very existence in a social structure either in nature or in captivity proves the survival of the...