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?
Saturday, 25 July 2009
What Makes Us Different?
It's all in the book but this well-written essay on chimp-human differences, by Michael Lemonick in Time Magazine, is a very digestible read.
Restating The case For Human Uniqueness
Helene Guldberg has just re-published her excellent review of NOT A CHIMP in Spiked Online.
Excellent Review In The Guardian
Excellent review for NOT A CHIMP in the Guardian Review section this morning, by Georgina Ferry, who is "impressed by an ascerbic look at primatology". As she says:"Egged on by a tendency to anthropomorphism, some primatologists have argued that the difference between chimpanzee and human cognition is simply a matter of degree. Taylor is having none of it. "To call the difference quantitative between alarm calls, food-specific grunts, whoops and Shakespeare; between night nests and twig-tools and the A380 passenger jet; and between retribution and food-sharing and Aristotle and Mill is, to my mind, stretching a point, and a bit of an insult to human ingenuity and culture".
"Taylor gives no more than a dismissive aside to chimpanzee language studies, most of which he describes as "ridden with wishful thinking, over-exaggeration, and even downright fantasy". Though this does not make for a scrupulously fair presentation of the evidence, his approach is enjoyably combative and certainly succeeds in mapping the biological, behavioural and social landscape that divides us from our next of kin."
"Taylor gives no more than a dismissive aside to chimpanzee language studies, most of which he describes as "ridden with wishful thinking, over-exaggeration, and even downright fantasy". Though this does not make for a scrupulously fair presentation of the evidence, his approach is enjoyably combative and certainly succeeds in mapping the biological, behavioural and social landscape that divides us from our next of kin."
Thursday, 23 July 2009
Apes Imitate But Will Never Innovate
Interesting article from New Scientist on some latest thoughts from comparative psychologists as to whether human powers of cultural transfer of information are indeed unique. See the final chapter in NOT A CHIMP for a long discussion on this. Scientists in Leipzig formulated an experiment where four year-old children and chimps had to try and make a loop out of a piece of string in order to tow a piece of wood with a nail in it toward them for a reward. Neither species managed it on its own but only the children responded to tutoring on the making of loops - such that the majority succeeded. The chimps seemed impervious - concentrating on the outcome rather than the complicated steps needed to achieve it.
"Because apes focused on the outcome, rather than the process of creating a loop and bringing the block closer, they did not – and will never – transcend their inability to discover the solution on their own", the NS reports the lead scientist concluding. Andy Whiten, at the University of St. Andrews thinks the problem is more nuanced than that and it has to do with "over-imitation" - a slavish attention to all the details, relevant or not, in a demonstrator's actions.Chimps' imitation is good enough to allow them to copy very simple techniques but it runs out of steam the more difficult and opaque the technique being demonstrated becomes. As Whiten says: "They didn't get it. They didn't show any kind of cumulative cultural evolution. There's something rather curious going on in these non-human species, where they get stuck on simpler techniques."
The article concludes that such comparative experiments are bringing together once disparate scientific camps into general agreement on the limits to chimpanzee cultural intelligence.
"Because apes focused on the outcome, rather than the process of creating a loop and bringing the block closer, they did not – and will never – transcend their inability to discover the solution on their own", the NS reports the lead scientist concluding. Andy Whiten, at the University of St. Andrews thinks the problem is more nuanced than that and it has to do with "over-imitation" - a slavish attention to all the details, relevant or not, in a demonstrator's actions.Chimps' imitation is good enough to allow them to copy very simple techniques but it runs out of steam the more difficult and opaque the technique being demonstrated becomes. As Whiten says: "They didn't get it. They didn't show any kind of cumulative cultural evolution. There's something rather curious going on in these non-human species, where they get stuck on simpler techniques."
The article concludes that such comparative experiments are bringing together once disparate scientific camps into general agreement on the limits to chimpanzee cultural intelligence.