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, 27 January 2012
Tame Theory: Did Bonobos Domesticate Themselves?
In NOT A CHIMP I devote a chapter to the idea, first suggested to me by Richard Wrangham, that humans may have self-domesticated. I mention at length Wrangham's work with Brian Hare on the differences between bonobos and chimpanzees and their suggestion that self-domestication processes were very important in deriving those differences. Here, in Scientific American, is a useful article going over that ground, following a scientific paper co-authored by Wrangham, Hare and Wobber.