![]() ![]() No, such coarse genetic comparisons will hardly suffice to help us understand the complex similarities and differences that exist between the mental lives of humans and chimpanzees. And so what would it mean, exactly, if we discovered that our minds were 75 percent chimpanzee? But what on earth does it mean to say that we are 50 percent the same as a vegetable? I don’t know about you, but I doubt my mind is 50 percent identical to that of the garden pea. 2 We might, after all, share 50 percent of our nucleotide sequences in common with bananas and broccoli. Furthermore, as the geneticist Jonathan Marks has pointed out in lucid detail, the 98.6 percent statistic has so little grounding in the average mind that confronts it, as to render it essentially meaningless. A single nucleotide difference in a string of four hundred may code for a different allele. We do not share 98.6 percent of our genes in common with chimpanzees we share 98.6 percent of our nucleotide sequence. After all, such biological affinity would appear to be the final nail in the coffin of the notion that there could be any radical mental differences between them and us: if chimpanzees and humans share 98.6 percent of their genetic material, then doesn’t it follow that there ought to be an extraordinarily high degree of mental similarity as well? This idea has been paraded so frequently through the introductory paragraphs of both scholarly journal articles and the popular press alike that it has come to constitute a melody of sorts an anthem that if not sung raises doubts as to one’s allegiance to the cause of defending the chimpanzee’s dignity.īut what does this 98.6 percent statistic really mean? It should be of immediate interest that it is almost invariably misreported. 1 This is reflected in estimates of our genetic similarity: we share, on average, about 98.6 percent of our total nucleotide sequence in common. The best available estimates suggest that humans and chimpanzees originated from a common ancestor about five or six million years ago. For me it has also illuminated the possibility of creating a science that is less contaminated by our deeply anthropocentric intuitions about the nature of other minds. Casting aside these insidious assumptions has been difficult, but it has allowed me to see more clearly that the human mind is not the gold standard against which other minds must be judged. I have come to see that we distort their true nature by conceiving of their minds as smaller, duller, less talkative versions of our own. “I mean, it’s obvious from watching her that we share the same kind of mind.”įaced with the overwhelming similarity in the spontaneous, everyday behavior of humans and chimpanzees, how can someone like me – someone who has dedicated his life to studying these remarkable animals – entertain the possibility that their minds are, in profound respects, radically different from our own? How can I challenge the received wisdom of Darwin – confirmed by my own initial impressions – that the mental life of a chimpanzee is best compared to that of a human child?Īctually, it’s easy: I have learned to have more respect for them than that. “But surely it’s not qualitatively different, either,” you will still insist. Can there be any doubt that behind certain obvious differences in her appearance resides a mind nearly identical to our own? Indeed, is it even possible to spend an afternoon with her and not come to this conclusion? Upon reflection, you will probably acknowledge that her mind is not identical to ours. Not just at her distinctively chimpanzee features – her accentuated brow ridge, her prognathic face, her coarse black hair – but at the totality of her being: her darting eyes, her slow, studied movements, the gestures she makes as her companion, Jadine, passes nearby.
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