NOT A CHIMP

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, 26 September 2013

A Foxy View of Human Beauty: Implications of the Farm Fox Experiment for Understanding the Origins of Structural and Experiential Aspects of Facial Attractiveness

An independent scholar from Cambridge University Uk has just published this fascinating take on the Belyaev farm fox experiment I reported in Not A Chimp. The effects on the HPA axis in the foxes, the range of neotenic traits revealed by simply selecting for friendliness and approachability, he believes tells us important things about the evolved human appreciation of beauty and the psychological traits we associate it with.

www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/671486