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?
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Chimpcam Movie Tonight 8 p.m. BBC 2
Here's the rubbish primatology story of the decade. Betsy Herrelko spent 18 months acclimatising a group of chimps at Edinburgh zoo in the viewing of and operation of a specially reinforced chimp cam. The first chimp movie airs tonight and you can see a taster for it on this website. Hugo van Lawick it ain't. Decades of comparative cognitive psychology scream at us that chimps lack both the intelligence and particularly social intelligence to even begin to grasp the point of making a movie about themselves, never mind the lack of technical prowess to even begin to get a handle on effective use of a camera. The results look just like the sorry evidence that you or I have wandered around, camera dangling from our wrist, oblivious to the fact that we have inadvertently left it running. This mis-appliance of science is a prime candidate for the Ignobel Science prize this year. Spin in your grave Mr. DeMille!!
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