Skip to main content

Not a Chimp – Jeremy Taylor ****

Jeremy Taylor’s aim in this book is to show how a fashionable idea among scientists and science communicators – that the gap between human and chimpanzee cognition and behaviour is almost negligible – is in fact hugely mistaken.
The belief that there is little difference between humans and chimpanzees in terms of cognition and behaviour is significantly based on genetic studies of recent years which have appeared to show that the human and chimpanzee genomes are roughly 98.4% identical. But as Taylor points out in the earlier sections of the book, genetic similarities don’t necessarily entail cognitive and behavioural similarities, especially when only a small handful of genes can have the ability to make one species dramatically different from another. In any case, these earlier sections explain, there is good reason to believe that the 98.4% figure is misleading: when we study more closely the two species’ genomes, we notice, for example, that many of the genes we share with chimpanzees are active in chimps but are no longer active in humans; that identical genes are expressed differently in humans and chimps; and that some of the genes we share with chimps have been duplicated in human beings, increasing the effects of these genes in humans.
Added to this, we find out later in the book that there is no clear evidence that chimps possess a theory of mind like the human capability. This enables us to appreciate the hidden intentions, beliefs and desires of somebody else by merely observing their actions. We find, indeed, that crows are in many respects more cognitively advanced than chimps. All of these fascinating insights go to show how far we are set apart from chimps, and they mean that it is not difficult for us to account for unique traits in humans like artistic creativity and the ability to develop complex languages.
Throughout the book, Taylor presents the material in a way that is accessible to the general reader, and the amount of research he describes and brings together makes his arguments, by and large, very convincing, and means the book is likely to be appealing even to experienced primatologists.
There is one respect in which the book could have been a little stronger, and this is where the focus moves away from the science and on to the question of whether we should extend certain human rights to chimpanzees – the right to life and to protection from torture, for example – as some, like the philosopher Peter Singer, have suggested. Taylor criticises this view given the differences between the species mentioned above but, at times, gives the impression that people like Singer want us simply to view chimpanzees as fully human, which no one is suggesting. Ultimately, here, there is a slight tendency here not to appreciate the arguments and positions of the other side and to oversimplify the issues.
Only a small portion of the book is dedicated to that discussion, however, and Taylor’s clear and comprehensive coverage of the science more than makes up for any shortcomings elsewhere. There is much in the book we need to bear in mind when thinking about our relationship with chimpanzees and the rest of the animal kingdom, and I would recommend it.

Paperback:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Matt Chorley
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Meteorite Hunters - Joshua Howgego *****

This is an extremely engaging read on a subject that everyone is aware of, but few of us know much detail about. Usually, if I'm honest, geology tends to be one of the least entertaining scientific subjects but here (I suppose, given that geo- refers to the Earth it ought to be astrology... but that might be a touch misleading). Here, though, there is plenty of opportunity to capture our interest. The first part of the book takes us both to see meteorites and to hear stories of meteorite hunters, whose exploits vary from erudite science trips to something more like an Indiana Jones outing. Joshua Howgego takes us back to the earliest observations and discoveries of meteorites and the initial doubt that they could have extraterrestrial sources, through to explorations of deserts and the Antarctic - both locations where it tends to be easier to find them. I, certainly, had no idea about the use of camera networks to track incoming meteors, which not only try to estimate where they wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Against the Odds - John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin ****

The number of women working in STEM subjects has expanded dramatically, but as John and Mary Gribbin make clear, in the history of science this is a very recent occurrence. Here, they bring us the stories of 12 women, from Eunice Newton Foote, born in 1819, to Vera Rubin, born in 1928 - effectively covering nearly 200 years in that Rubin died as recently as 2016. There are some names that will already be familiar from popular science histories (and deservedly so). You will find, for instance, Dorothy Hodgkin and Rosalind Franklin represented. But there are plenty like Foote that few will have come across, including Inge Lehmann, Chien-Sung Wu and Lucy Slater. While arguably Foote is there primarily to demonstrate the difficulties she faced (her discovery of an aspect of greenhouse gas behaviour was independently bettered within weeks), the rest have all made significant discoveries or developments against the odds and often missed out the recognition the deserved. The most prominent ob...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pagans (SF) - James Alistair Henry *****

There's a fascinating sub-genre of science fiction known as alternate history. The idea is that at some point in the past, history diverged from reality, resulting in a different present. Perhaps the most acclaimed of these books is Kingsley Amis's The Alteration , set in a modern England where there had not been a reformation - but James Alistair Henry arguably does even better by giving us a present where Britain is a third world country, still divided between Celts in the west and Saxons in the East. Neither the Normans nor Christianity have any significant impact. In itself this is a clever idea, but what makes it absolutely excellent is mixing in a police procedural murder mystery, where the investigation is being undertaken by a Celtic DI, Drustan, who has to work in London alongside Aedith, a Saxon reeve of equivalent rank, who also happens to be daughter of the Earl of Mercia. While you could argue about a few historical aspects, it's effectively done and has a plot...
Post a Comment
Read more