I was watching a gorilla documentary the other day.  The wrap-up included a comment that a gorilla's success is measured by the number of his offspring who survive.  Really?  I know the world has grown more comfortable with anthropomorphizing apes since Jane Goodall began her Gombe chimpanzee studies, but I thought it a bit much to claim that apes measure their success genetically. 

I know, I was choosing not to understand that the writer meant that humans measure gorilla success by number of offspring.  But I started thinking about success measures and what they mean and who decides what they are.  What if it isn't about the number of offspring a gorilla sires?  What if the number of seeds that successfully take root after being evacuated by a particular gorilla measured his success?  There may be a bachelor out there sitting around all day making far more success than any human would care to measure.    read more »