What's fair is fair, even to a monkey.

• Author: Wade, Nicholas
• Position: Science

Do children learn morality from their parents and teachers, or is ethical behavior wired into their genes? Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta reported in September that capuchin monkeys, which are found in South America, display at least some sense of fairness, a key criterion for judging right from wrong. They trained the monkeys to trade pebbles for food. If a monkey saw a researcher giving her neighbor a grape in return for a pebble, but she herself received only a cucumber slice, she would signal displeasure by slamming down the pebble or refusing...