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, 30 December 2011
I know something you don’t know – and I will tell you!
The battle in comparative cognitive psychology has raged for years about what chimpanzees, and other species, do and don't know about the minds of other con-specifics. In NOT A CHIMP I took a dismal view of a chimp's ability to "mind-read" but evidence continues to be offered which is much more optimistic about the contents of a chimpanzee's mind and its ability to get some inkling of the state of mind of others - that their knowledge or ignorance of a situation, for instance, may differ from their own. In this report, from 30-odd chimps in the wild, researchers from the University of St. Andrews and Leipzig present evidence that chimps who know about a potential source of danger - a snake in the grass for instance - will preferentially warning-call to other chimps in the immediate neighbourhood if they think they are ignorant of the presence of the danger.
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