Talk:Monkey

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Old World/New World

Why use such informal, unacademic terms? Why not Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere? The terms Old World/New World are American-centric, and really don't need to be in a Wikipedia article. Certainly, as a Briton, I don't consider myself to be living in an Old World. Neither would the majority of Chinese and Indians whose nations are amongst the most upcoming, emerging societies.

I'll leave you a week to do the necessary corrections yourself before I do it myself.

As a Briton myself, I'd personally much rather be part of the cultured and historic Old World than the shiny yet culturally empty New one. --86.135.217.213 00:10, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Old World monkey" (or "Old World primate") and "New World monkey" are well established terms. Nearly every scientific article or journal discussing primates will use these terms as the common language description of the simian groupings. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem with these terms either. They're an accident of history - not particularly derogatory in either direction. Imran1985 13:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

confusing text

From the article:

A monkey is any haplorrhine primate not belonging to the family Tarsiidae, Hylobatidae, Pongidae, or Hominidae.

I think this is a pretty bad definition. First, it mainly tells you what monkeys are not, instead of what they are, which is always a bad idea if you can avoid it. Secondly, haplorrhine (half nose?!) is a pretty obscure word, so we immediately follow the link and discover that:

The haplorrhines are the clade comprised of the prosimian tarsiers and all of the true simians: the monkeys and the apes, including humans.

Oops. Haplorrhines are tarsiers, monkeys, apes and humans, and monkeys are haplorrhines less tarsiers, apes and humans. These definitions are circular!

Thirdly, this definition is incomprehensible! Imagine some twelve year old kid trying to use Wikipedia to research a project and finding this stuff. Come on, primatologists, please fix this up or I might be forced to write something you won't like, like "monkeys are mischievous little furry humanoids with tails". 8^) --Securiger 09:48, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that the term "monkey" is a bad term. It doesn't describe one easily identifiable group of critters. the smallest group that includes all the monkeys is the Haplorrhini suborder. On that page, you get your second quote. when you look down to the classification, you see how the monkeys are related to the rest of the haplorrhines. Nonetheless, I'll see what I can work up. - UtherSRG 14:24, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I like the article as it is. The majority of the article goes on to disambiguate the circular definition you are complaining about. - UtherSRG 15:13, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I do not like the article as it is. It contains practically no useful information at all, and the same goes for Haplorrhini. Except for the photograph, to a person not already understanding all the terms these articles could just as well be about some type of plant, or families of (rather heavy) subatomic particles. When I look down to the classification, I don't "see how monkeys are related to the rest...", I see a tree diagram with little meaning to the non-specialist. What does it mean to say that Old World monkeys are a family, but New World monkeys are a superfamily? And the rest of the monkey article does nothing to disambiguate; it subdivides monkeys into two undefined families, and leaves it at that. If we drill down into Old World monkeys and New World monkeys we finally start to get a few snippets of facts, but even after heading off four layers deep in three directions, the reader is none the wiser about why tarsiers and gibbons are not monkeys but Golden Lion Tamarins are - never mind what monkeys eat, where they are found, or whether or not they have fur. '"Monkey" is a bad term' is not really a useful response. People are going to be coming to Wikipedia to look up "monkey", and that want to know what it means. Only a very few people are going to be looking for "Haplorrhini". May I suggest the ape article for comparison? Securiger 16:50, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Incidentally, while doing all that drilling down, I found another teensy problem - although maybe I'm just confused because we didn't worry about monophyletic taxons when I was at school. Monkey refers to Pongidae, and Catarrhini and Hominidae says that's ok because of orang-utans and Gigantopithecus, but both the Haplorrhini and Catarrhini trees omit it. It's confusing. Securiger 16:50, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Even Merriam-Webster uses an exclusive and general definition of monkey: 1 : a nonhuman primate mammal with the exception usually of the lemurs and tarsiers; especially : any of the smaller longer-tailed primates as contrasted with the apes

However, M-W's definition is both broader and less accurate than the one we currently offer. (It doesn't exclude enough of the prosimians, and the broadest view can also include the apes.) 'What do monkeys eat? Where do they live?' aren't questions that can be easily answered because monkeys aren't one group, and the general answers you get does not distinguish them at all from the other primates any better than "they aren't apes or tarsiers, etc". You seem to want an answer that will accurately and simply distinguish a monkey from other primates, or from other creatures in general. The general answer is that it is a kind of primate. The more specific one is that it is a creature from one of two groups: Old World and New World. At that point, any feature which distinguishes a monkey from the other primates is unique to one of those two groupings.

As for Pongidae, that classification is defunct and needs to be removed from all the articles (except in a way that shows it is defunct).

- UtherSRG 17:22, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I went and looked at the ape article. It is a great article. But 'ape' refers to one easy classification of creatures that gets subdivided. The distinctive commonalities of apes excludes all non-apes. The distinctive commonalities of monkeys includes some non-monkeys. I agree that a more expansive monkey article would be good. I'm just not the guy to do it. - UtherSRG 17:45, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've tried to improve this difficult situation by giving a more ordinary language version of the technical definition first, and explaining why things are difficult. I know the same could be said of many other common-name groups, but I know from experience that this one is particularly likely to cause confusion. seglea 00:07, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think you did a fabulous job! - UtherSRG 05:11, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The links to the smallest and largest monkeys provide different information on their sizes than the monkey page does. I don't know which is correct, but they should match up.

vandalism

I've protected this page because it is a frequent target for dynamic IP anon vandalism. Please feel free to contact me or another admin if you wish to make (real) edits. - UtherSRG 14:03, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Unprotecting after four days to see if the vandal has given up. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:29, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

He hasn't. Reprotected and blocked his latest IP indefinitely as it's never been used for anything other than vandalism. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:32, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that this page seems to atypically attract more random vandals than other pages. It's not just one user who is coming back time and time again, but a bunch of random vandals appearing sporadically over time. - UtherSRG 17:54, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Monkeys are a commonly used in jokes and considered funny. So this is article is a good target for vandalism.

--J7 22:18, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hartlepool Monkey

There should be a link to the Hartlepool Monkey storey on the page. When the page is unprotected again, the link should be added. - 219.78.68.64

558 Google links? I don't think so. - UtherSRG 15:45, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

It's a fairly famous local legend but is much more appropriate on Hartlepool than here. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:32, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

linkage

the word "prehensile" on the Monkey page should be a link. - Brassrat

Good call. Please sign your name with [[User:Brassrat|Brassrat]] or ~~~~ next time. People like to know who is saying what. - UtherSRG 14:53, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Words: chimpanzee(s), gibbon(s), and gorilla(s) could also be links. - Anonymous

vandalism redux

I've once again protected this article so that the vandals can be thwarted. Let me know if y'all have any changes here and I'll make 'em. - UtherSRG 19:58, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree in protecting this page. So, it gets vandalised alot, but so does many other pages. It's something we have to live with, and it's not like it stays vandalised for long. Kids wanting to test the system here and deface articles will do so anyway, and having them do it in this article is as good as any other. We want everyone to contribute and improve on this article as any others, and asking them to message you or me or any other admin is not how it should be done. Shanes 20:05, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And to add to that: I actually find this page usefull for catching vandalism on other pages. I have this one in my watchlist, and when I see it being vandalised, the history of those doing it usually shows other more remote articles that they have vandalised undiscovered as well. And then I can fix them. Shanes 20:09, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If you look up this talk you'll see the vandalism is an ongoing event. I too have this page on a watchlist. While I agree that catching vandals in one place sometimes helps find other incidents of vandalism, I would much prefer a stable article that folks can deal with. When vandalism & reversion is happening as often as it does here, it increases the chance of an edit conflict - which I believe serves to dissuade newbie editors more than having to place the change request here on that talk page does. - UtherSRG 20:19, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, and I have fixed vandalism on this page more than once. But I don't see it as such a big problem. I guess I'm a very big fan of keeping stuff editable as much as possible. Having a wikipedia that Everyone can edit is sort of an important, uhm, mantra. And for every page where we give in to vandalism, protect it and reduce people's oportunity to edit, we move away from that. Shanes 20:25, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I know. But let it sit for a few days or a week, and the vandalism will decrease for a few weeks. It's just a few kids with dynamic IPs. Once they get bored hitting their heads against the protection, they go away for awhile. - UtherSRG 20:33, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Ok. Shanes 20:35, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've unprotected this page. Let's see how long until the vandals return.... - UtherSRG 14:20, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

3 hours, 47 minutes. *sigh* - UtherSRG 18:29, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

What kind of vandalism are we discussing here? It's certainly an odd choice to target. - AWF

Look at the edit history. Garbage. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Page protection

Sorry, I edited the page before noticing that it was protected, so I reverted my own edits. Is there any chance of it being unprotected soon? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:09, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Dont sweat it. The page is protected against vandalism, not due to content conflicts. I've un-reverted your changes. - UtherSRG 03:26, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Stacey. I appreciate it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:36, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

There is a link to savannah (placename). It should be changed to link to the grassland savanna.

I've unprotected the page, and made your correction. Thanks! - UtherSRG 21:32, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Zodiac

I added the next time the monkey will appear in the zodiac calendar. -64.231.70.46 20:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Experimentation

I do not disagree with everything said in the "In laboratories" section, but I think that it is excessively polemical and that more information on the potential positive aspects of these experiments should be included. -Arsene 23:27, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agree - it's a long way from neutral POV. I suspect the picture of the lab monkey was also placed by someone with a similar agenda - it's designed to be emotive rather than informative and so is inappropriate.

I totally agree. The information regarding monkeys in medical expirimentation only states that monkeys are, in fact, used for expiriments, and in what numbers. It says nothing about WHY they are used, nor the benefits of doing so. Furthermore, it only cites the numbers for one variety of monkey, and in only 2 locales, the EU and the US. This section needs some serious revision, as well as a new photograph: the one being used, as mentioned above, plays right into the bias expressed in the article. -Jackmont Nov 3, 2005

Agree. The generalizations of the lab environment are clearly intended to be evocative.Serf 16:36, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The section only states the facts. If you start writing about the benefits of the research, we'll have to include something about the drawbacks, and this isn't what the article is about. The section is simply there to say something about monkeys in captivity. There are more in laboratories than are kept as pets, yet no one objected to that, and the image is entirely reflective of their situation. If the image was intended to promote the POV that using monkeys is laboratories is wrong, a far more powerful image could have been found very easily. As for the EU and the U.S. being cited, these are where the reliable figures are, but it should probably be expanded to include the numbers for all monkeys, not just macaques. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I see none of the three objectors edits regularly, and one has edited almost entirely to make this objection and similar ones at Animal testing. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"The section only states the facts" (SlimVirgin, above) SlimVirgin, since you are calling the contents of this section "facts", I'd like you to provide documentation of these "facts. Places to start:

"barren cages, with no perch, no bedding, and nothing to stimulate them" <-- In the U.S., this has not been the case for many years.

"the monkeys in the lower tiers spend their lives in the dark" <-- A statement like this needs to supported by evidence. I doubt if any laboratory primates spend their lives in the dark.

The U.S. NIH environmental enrichment rules state, "research facilities must develop, document, and follow an appropriate plan for environment enhancement adequate to promote the psychological well-being of nonhuman primates. The plan must be in accordance with the currently accepted professional standards as cited in appropriateas directed by the attending veterinarian." (source, PDF file)
Additional information --JWSchmidt 13:51, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm aware of that, but it isn't adhered to, for a number of reasons. But you're welcome to add that to the section. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:42, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"their individual interests are therefore not protected" <-- Example of individulaized treatment for a laboratory monkey. --JWSchmidt 03:06, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not entirely sure of your point here, JWS. The sentence says: "Their individual interests aren't protected" (protected in law). Do you have a source showing that they are? Also, I'm not sure that giving a monkey in captivity a toy necklace, as opposed to releasing them, is exactly what's meant by protection of interests. ;-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:26, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

U.S. Animal Welfare Act and Its Regulations for Biomedical Research Institutions and The Improved Standards for Laboratory Animals Act: see. In 1985 the U.S. Congress instructed the Secretary of Agriculture to produce new relations so that research facilities would provide "a physical environment adequate to promote the psychological well-being of nonhuman primates". The new rules were ready in 1991. In particular, see Part D, Section 3.81, Environment enhancement to promote psychological well-being.
- Recent reviews of enrichment for laboratory primates: Institute for Laboratory Animal Research; Enrichment and nonhuman primates: "first, do no harm", Environmental enrichment for nonhuman primates: theory and application. Istituto Superiore di Sanita; Environmental enrichment techniques in non-human primates. The case of Callitrichids.
  - Environmental enrichment at a specific institution: University of Pittsburgh Division of Laboratory Animal Resources, Proactive compliance-the team program approach to revitalizing primate enrichment. --JWSchmidt 03:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree too. I had similar issues with SlimVirgin on SHAC, which is generally quite biased. There is an image of a monkey in a cage there, which was objected to by some users a few months ago, and then by me. SlimVirgin is the sole dissenting voice, but he continually reverts my attempts to remove the image. See talk page: Talk:Stop_Huntingdon_Animal_Cruelty.

Anyway, I have removed the most blatant and unsourced pieces of propaganda from this page:

Unlike human primates, non-human primates are not regarded as persons in law, and their individual interests are therefore not protected.

This is a clear attempt to compare monkeys with people, implying they should be treated like people, and as having 'individual interests', which is another classic piece of animal rights propaganda that you will find from all these AR groups. Plus:

Highly sociable animals, monkeys are caged separately in barren cages, with no perch, no bedding, and nothing to stimulate them. Their cages are arranged in double tiers to save space, which means the monkeys in the lower tiers spend their lives in the dark.

This is was a generalisation and impossible to prove, because there are many monkeys in many different environments. Anyway, my edits have been reverted three times by SlimVirgin, so these statements may return.

I don't think the last comment is appropriate here either, as it's basically a single view on the captivity of monkeys that implies that it is bad. You could of course find a scientist to say how useful monkeys are for experiments, but fundamentally I don't think this content belongs here, on a page about monkeys: it is for a wider animal testing, and casual throwaway comments like this should be guarded against. 87.74.12.83 01:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to argue at length with you, because you're an anon editing from multiple IP addresses, and engaged in serial reverting in several areas, against me and a number of other editors. I will say that human beings and monkeys are both animals, and to say that is not a POV. I did not create the monkeys-in-captivity section, I merely added to it. The material is directly relevant to that section and correctly referenced. You seem to believe that your POV is NPOV (i.e. isn't really a POV), but my POV is just that, and not only that, but an unacceptable one. That monkeys in labs are housed in cages with no bedding etc in double tiers is not a generalization that's impossible to prove: it is standard laboratory housing. You've shown elsewhere with your posts that you know little or nothing about animal testing, yet you seem determined to delete other people's work about it. From now, I have to tell you that I'm not going to engage in any more debate with you. I've tried elsewhere and it's fruitless. You've clearly arrived at Wikipedia to edit war, not to edit. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You added the entire monkeys in laboratories section in fact. Nobody else: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Monkey&diff=22686010&oldid=22660010 Once again, it's clear that you have a biased AR viewpoint, and instead of properly responding you revert me on sight, accuse me of unspecified issues relating to IP addresses (wow, I edit from work and home, big deal!!!). 87.74.12.83 07:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC) 87.74.12.83 07:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

proposal for additions to the section on Monkeys in captivity, In laboratories

I think this section would benefit from an historical outline of attempts to improve conditions for monkeys in laboratories. I think this recent review article: USDA Perspective on Environmental Enrichment for Animals along with the others that I listed above provide useful information, some of which should be added to Wikipedia. I think that the Monkey article should describe the role of the animal welfare movement in identifying problems in how laboratories have handled monkeys and in promoting more government action to regulate laboratories and how they house and handle non-human primates. It would be useful to describe the current system of inspections of facilities and what happens when violations of existing animal care laws are found. It would also be useful if additional references could be found to document regulations/inspections for laboratories outside of the United States. I am reluctant to start editing this article because I wonder if the Monkey article is the best place to put a discussion of regulations for the care of laboratory primates. Yes, most non-human primates used in laboratory research are monkeys, but maybe there should be one wikipedia page about regulations for the care of laboratory primates and all wikipedia non-human primate articles could point to that one central page. I have been looking in Category:Animal welfare and Category:Animal experimentation in an attempt to learn the structure of Wikipedia articles that deal with these topics. --JWSchmidt 15:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like a valid solution to the problem. For now, I say just start writing the article with whatever name seems most appropriate at the time. As it gets editted over time, the article can be moved to a more fitting title, it can be added to whichever categories make sense, and pointers to it from other articles can be added. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:13, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, the best information about the regulation of animal use for laboratory research that has been placed in wikipedia so far is at: Animal testing#Regulation. My personal experience is limited to the United States, for which I think it is essential to explain the role of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees. According to the references at this webpage, the United States uses the largest number of primates in research. I think I am going to start an article called Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, explain the central role of IACUCs in U.S. research and describe how the laws for animal use impact on IACUCs, including the government inspection system. It should be possible to do this from an historical perspective and show the important role of the animal welfare movement in pushing for better conditions for laboratory animals, including primates. A large number of wikipedia articles including Monkey will then be able to link to that page. --JWSchmidt 23:31, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think that following after a looong discussion of why monkeys shouldn't be kept as pets - need social interaction constantly, can't adjust to new surroundings, shouldn't switch owners, that the experimentation section was pretty neutral. If you include information about the benefits of experimenting on monkeys, please also include information on experimenting on other primates, notable humans in the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and how that was of great benefit to humanity as a whole. - brian

You could certainly mention that, in accordance with FDA regulations, all drugs must go through clinical trials after completing the mandatory animal test phase of the approval process. These clinical trials are always carried out on humans. That way, you're comparing two instances that are far more similar in that both are legal, both are regulated, both take place with oversight, and both test the effects of medication, not disease, on different classes of primates. In general, if you must resort to bad analogies that rely on negative emotive impact to make a rhetorical point, you might want to reconsider your point. 71.103.148.199 04:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quite apart from the "blacks = monkeys" cheap shot, why should information on other primates be in an article entitled "monkey"?

RFD "See Also"

Can we take this section out? Neither ref here seems relevant nor notable enough to be here. Ned Scotland 22:08, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed/wangi 00:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism

This article suffers greatly from vandalism [1]. I suggest a semi-protection. RexNL 00:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

World Map & Laboratories

The world map does not show monkey populations in North Africa. Also, I have tried to fix the laboratories section: does anybody still have objections?

Monkey-baiting

As much as we might not like to remember the monkey being used in baiting it is certainly an historical fact. You might want to vote here:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Monkey-baiting