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?
Thursday, 18 February 2010
New Phineas Gage Photo Released
In my chapter INSIDE THE BRAIN I mention the case of the railroad foreman, Phineas Gage, who, in the 19th century, had a hole blown through his skull when he accidentally received a huge metal tamping iron in the face. The iron shot straight through his skull damaging his left orbitofrontal cortex as it went. Received wisdom to date on Phineas's fate has it that he underwent marked personality change after the accident and turned into a profane boor who constantly made disastrous decisions in his social life. All this matches with what we now think we know about the role of this part of the brain in advanced social intelligence. However this article, containing the reversed daguarreotype of a new portrait of Gage, contains suggestions from the Australian expert on Gage, Malcolm Macmillan, that he must have recovered from his injuries and the personality changes they caused, because it shows a confident young man posing with the tamping iron that caused the injury. Hmmm.....
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