Are we humans simply remodelled apes? Chimps with a tweak? Is the difference between our genomes so minuscule it justifies the argument that our cognition and behaviour must also differ from chimps by barely a whisker? If “chimps are us” should we grant them human rights? Or is this one of the biggest fallacies in the study of evolution? NOT A CHIMP argues that these similarities have been grossly over-exaggerated - we should keep chimps at arm’s length. Are humans cognitively unique after all?
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Does Culture Prevent Or Drive Human Evolution?
In the penultimate chapter of NOT A CHIMP I argue the case for accelerated recent human evolution, including the claim, from genome-wide trawls for signatures of selection, that as much as 10% of the human genome has undergone evolution within the last 40,000 years or less. In other words, that human demographic and cultural movement into new latitudes and geographical parts of the earth, allied to innovations such as villages and, eventually, conurbations; agriculture; and technology, have imposed a totally new set of selection pressures on human populations. A scenario in which gene-culture interactions become predominant. Here, molecular anthropologist Mark Stoneking, debates the idea, sympathetically, in a recent essay. The comments that follow are also essential reading.
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