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?

Monday, 9 March 2015

Researchers map 'switches' that shaped the evolution of the human brain

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-03-evolution-human-brain.html

The main reason - as I pointed out in NOT A CHIMP - for the obvious differences in physiology, morphology and cognition between us and the rest of the higher primates lies not in mutations in genes, or de novo genes, per se (although these can occasionally prove vitally important) but in the differences in the activity of genes - called gene expression. This article shows just how important changes in the regulation of genes has proved in the evolution of the human cerebral cortex.