From “Chimpanzees and Culture Change.” This is an excerpt of remarks presented at SolFest 2006, a sustainable living and environmental education festival at the Solar Living Institute in Hopland, California, August 19-20. They were published as my column for Truthout.org on August 24, 2006.
It all started back about ten years ago when I was reading reports of our genetic closeness to the chimpanzees and learning that we share 98-99% of the same genetic material. Jared Diamond and others say we are so close to the chimps that taxonomically we should be put in the same genus - humans are actually the third chimpanzee. The common chimp is called Pan troglodytes, the bonobo chimp is called Pan paniscus, and so the human chimp would be called Pan sapiens. Or we could induct our chimp cousins into the Homo genus, in which case the names would be Homo troglodytes, Homo paniscus and Homo sapiens.
I was motivated to write this book because in my work to save ancient forests I constantly ran into the human chauvinist attitude that we are superior to - not just different from but superior to - all other species on this planet earth. This attitude is embodied in the Great Chain of Being, where humans occupy a special level below the angels but above the beasts.
The Great Chain of Being was a medieval construct that seems to be based on the Bible, on the Genesis story of the Creation, in which God gives Adam and Eve "dominion" over the beasts and "every living thing that moves on the earth." The idea is deeply ingrained in our culture.
But what if we could prove that humans are not a separate rung on the ladder? Here's where the idea for Primal Tears came from. Reading those figures for genetic closeness, I realized that the gap between humans and chimps was no greater than the gap between a horse and a donkey, or a lion and a tiger, and yet those species have interbred and produced offspring. Doing a little further research, I found that Carl Sagan had also speculated about this. "For all we know," Sagan said in Dragons of Eden, "occasional viable crosses between humans and chimpanzees are possible ..."
To read the entire speech, go to http://www.truthout.org/article/chimpanzees-and-culture-change
It all started back about ten years ago when I was reading reports of our genetic closeness to the chimpanzees and learning that we share 98-99% of the same genetic material. Jared Diamond and others say we are so close to the chimps that taxonomically we should be put in the same genus - humans are actually the third chimpanzee. The common chimp is called Pan troglodytes, the bonobo chimp is called Pan paniscus, and so the human chimp would be called Pan sapiens. Or we could induct our chimp cousins into the Homo genus, in which case the names would be Homo troglodytes, Homo paniscus and Homo sapiens.
I was motivated to write this book because in my work to save ancient forests I constantly ran into the human chauvinist attitude that we are superior to - not just different from but superior to - all other species on this planet earth. This attitude is embodied in the Great Chain of Being, where humans occupy a special level below the angels but above the beasts.
The Great Chain of Being was a medieval construct that seems to be based on the Bible, on the Genesis story of the Creation, in which God gives Adam and Eve "dominion" over the beasts and "every living thing that moves on the earth." The idea is deeply ingrained in our culture.
But what if we could prove that humans are not a separate rung on the ladder? Here's where the idea for Primal Tears came from. Reading those figures for genetic closeness, I realized that the gap between humans and chimps was no greater than the gap between a horse and a donkey, or a lion and a tiger, and yet those species have interbred and produced offspring. Doing a little further research, I found that Carl Sagan had also speculated about this. "For all we know," Sagan said in Dragons of Eden, "occasional viable crosses between humans and chimpanzees are possible ..."
To read the entire speech, go to http://www.truthout.org/article/chimpanzees-and-culture-change
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