A brilliant new book cuts through all the media-oriented research
about 'clever chimps' using tools, doing maths and feeling emotions,
and reminds us that, in truth, there is nothing remotely human about primates.
Not a Chimp: The Hunt to Find the Genes That Make Us Human is a
refreshing defence of human uniqueness. 'We are a truly exceptional
primate with minds that are genuinely discontinuous to other
animals', Jeremy Taylor writes.
The first half of Not a Chimp challenges 'the basis of a 40-year-old
concept of human genetic chimp proximity'. Taylor does admit that
'over very appreciable lengths of their respective genomes, humans
and chimpanzees are very similar indeed'. He writes: 'This is where
the oft-quoted "1.6 per cent that makes us human" comes from. Despite
12 million years of evolutionary separation, six million for each
species since the split from the common ancestor, we are surprisingly
similar in our genes.'
<http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/7087>Link
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Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/08/16-per-cent-restating-case-for-human.htm>monochrom
at 8/08/2009 08:49:00 PM
