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?
Friday, 22 January 2010
Precarious Human Pre-History
Nice piece in physorg about the evidence of the rather narrow genetic base of extant human populations today. We know of the Toba "bottle-neck", when volcanic action reduced human populations to around 10,000 individuals some 70,000 years ago. This research shows how human populations have wobbled on the knife-edge before that - being reduced down to the population levels of gorillas and chimpanzees today, around 20,000 individuals or less, about 1 million years ago.
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