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, 28 January 2011
Was The Fox Man's First Best friend?
In NOT A CHIMP I deal at some length with the domestication of wolf-like species into the domestic dog, and the earliest archaeological evidence for the importance of dogs to humans comes from opened Natufian tombs dating back well over 10,000 years. However, this article suggests, from a comparative finding of fox and human remains originally buried together, that the fox pre-dated the dog as a favoured, and important, companion - even if it might have been a short-lived relationship. This is interesting because the evidence from Siberia - noted in my book - is that Arctic foxes can be rapidly selected for tameness - and then behave just like dogs.
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
If You Knew Susie...The First Orang-Utan Genome Sequenced
In tomorrow's NATURE this consortium will publish their research to sequence the orang-utan genome. It is to be hoped they offer more insights to human evolution than this publicity blurb.....