For thousands of years, men and women have strived to explain the why of their existence. To discover the reasons for how we act the way we do and what this knowledge can do to impact the way we live our lives in this complex society that we have created. One of the ways that science has begun to shed light on the inner workings of the human condition is through Primatology. Built from the words Primate which refers to a group of animals closely related to humans and logos which is a Greek word meaning 'the study of' Primatology's goals include more than simply to amass data on the primate species. Rather a Primatologist observes data about primates in an effort to understand the primate species under their study and to relate that data back to the human condition so that we can learn more about ourselves through our evolutionary cousins. In recent years, Primatologists have done much research on all aspects of the life of the western lowland Gorilla, known scientifically as "gorilla, gorilla, gorilla" (Fay, 1989). In this paper I will compare these primates, more precisely classified as great apes, to humans in an attempt to illuminate both differences and similarities between the two species. More specifically, I will focus on the social structure of the western lowland Gorilla, describing how these predominantly gentle creatures live in a society similar to that of humans in many ways. Finally, in conclusion, I will explore the methods that Primatologists use to study primates such as the western lowland Gorilla and whether those methods are biased towards or against the Gorillas. However, I cannot draw indelible conclusions about these subjects as I have had no time studying these animals in the field and have only the observations and writings of others from which to draw my data and form opinions.
             The most common of the Gorilla species, there are approximately ten thousand to thirty-five thousand western lowland Gorillas in t...