The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee

 The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee: Evolution and Human Life 

Jared Mason Diamond  

 

Preview 

We tend to see apes, monkeys, dogs and squirrels as members of a group called animals while we look at ourselves differently and place ourselves in a sophisticated sphere as humans. We believe that language, arts, and, certain self-destructive traits like chemical abuse are our hallmarks that make us incomparable with animals. But science has revealed that we have more in common with some of these animals than we thought. Those behavioral traits which we earlier considered as our unique possessions have been discovered to have animal origins. This book examines both our genetic and cultural history to understand how we became the conquerors as well as destroyers of earth.  

 

About the Author 

Jared Mason Diamond is an American ecologist, geographer, biologist, anthropologist and author best known for his science books The Third Chimpanzee (1991) and Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997). Originally specialized in salt absorption in the gall bladder, he has published scholarly works in the fields of ecology and ornithology. He is a professor of geography at the University of California.  

 

The Big Idea: Human behavior has animal origins 

Human beings share 98.4 percent of their genes with the chimps, which indicates greater genetic closeness than between some related pairs of the same species. This fact leaves us with complex ethical questions as we are required to explain the logic of subjecting apes to experiments forbidden on human beings.  

A surprising discovery of the 1970s was the real precursor to human language we traced in the calls produced by an African monkey known as Vervet. As studies on animal behavior became more focused and detailed, we could find animal precursors to several human behaviors which were initially thought as uniquely human. These include language, art, agriculture, xenophobia, and some self-destructive traits.  

Thus, a thorough examination of animal evolution helps us to locate the origins of several of our traits. A study of our anthropological evolution can help us to understand the consequences of overexploitation of resources.  

In this book, you will learn:  

• About the animal precursors of the supposedly unique human traits 

• Why Europeans conquered the Americas and Australia, instead of being conquered themselves 

 

A tiny fraction of genetic material has made all the difference.  

Until the 1970s, the common tendency among biologists was to view gorillas and chimpanzees as sharing more genes than either of them share with human beings. This is because the basis of grouping was the anatomical characters they considered important.  

With the discovery of DNA in 1956 by James Watson and Francis Crick, it was possible to determine the genetic similarity between two organisms in laboratory by a process known as DNA- DNA hybridization. In this process, the DNA of two organisms is mixed to form a hybrid, and then heated to note its melting point. This is compared with the melting point of one of the DNA samples used, and the difference between the two is used to assess the similarity in their genetic material. This technique in molecular biology can also determine the approximate genetic distance between two species, that is, when did two species split apart. 

The genetic composition of a Gorilla differs from a Chimpanzee by 3.6 percent, while human beings differ from chimpanzees by only 1.6 percent! The most similar DNA samples belonged to two kinds of chimpanzees— the common chimp and the pygmy chimp— who differ from each other by only 0.7 percent. Thus, the surprising conclusion is that the genetic similarity between human beings and chimpanzees is just twice the genetic similarity between two different kinds of chimps. Therefore, a human being could be recognized as a ‘third chimpanzee’. All the great human accomplishments in art, architecture, and inventions are due to that small percentage of genes that make us human.  

The discovery that we share more than 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees demands us to re-examine the logic of keeping these apes caged for medical experiments while it is unethical to do this to humans. Remember that the experiments conducted on humans in Nazi concentration camps, are recognized as the most chilling of all the Nazi atrocities. Then, the only justification we can offer for subjecting apes to all the lethal experiments forbidden on human beings, is supported neither by logic or ethics, but by pure selfishness.  

  

 

Creoles and animal languages help to find the missing links in the evolution of human language.  

Until the 1960s, animal sounds were considered as some instinctive expressions they unconsciously make, similar to the human utterances and cries in situations of panic and fear. It was only in the 1970s that animal noises began to be recognized as ‘languages’ they have developed for communication among themselves. This turning point in the study of animal vocalization was made possible with the use of modern tape recorders to record animal sounds, which could then be played back to them to observe their response.  

The strongest evidence of an animal language has come from a cat-sized African monkey, called the Vervet. Observations of their behavior have revealed that they make different sounds to warn about different predators. For example, when the tape of a sound they previously made in a supposed dangerous situation was played back to them, they ran up a tree suggesting it was a ‘leopard’ call. Their responses to supposed ‘eagle call’ and ‘snake call’ were the expected behavior under such natural conditions.  

An interesting thing is that when an infant vervet cries, all other vervets in the group look at its mother. This suggests that they have different names for individual members of their group. Therefore, the sounds they make serve the purpose of words in human language!  

The modern languages we use are too sophisticated to resemble the undeveloped animal languages and cannot hope to give us hints about the evolution of human language from animal sounds. The most fruitful method would be to study the verbal exchanges between modern day humans who lack a common language to communicate in. 

In a study, it was revealed that the language children evolved when surrounded by adults speaking in a childlike language, is much more advanced than the Vervet language but much simpler than normal human languages. Such language varieties known as pidgins and creoles evolved in experiments in South America, Africa, China, and New Guinea, share many similarities. These similarities led the linguist Derek Bickerton to suggest a human genetic blueprint for language.  

With more experiments, linguists have concluded that we as ‘third chimpanzees’, share a universal language programmed in our brains, though we speak its culturally appropriated versions as social beings.  

  

 

Art serves an evolutionary purpose  

Art has widely been understood as a pleasure pursuit serving no biological purpose. However, observing the forerunners of arts in other organisms should give us insights into the biological function of art. An excellent example would be the nest of the bower bird which is found in New Guinea and Australia.  

The bower is large enough to accommodate a child and has a variety of natural objects ranging from flowers to butterfly wings meant as decorations. These beautiful bowers are made by the male birds to attract the females who inspect each bower in the neighborhood, before picking one to mate in. 

The female bird actually assesses the fitness of the potential mating partners by examining the quality of the bowers they make. The bower building test is appropriate to assess the male birds’ genes, because he must have gathered objects weighing more than his own weight to weave the nest. He must have successfully kept invaders and competitors away from his bower, and hence proved superior to the other males. This whole bower building criterion could be compared to women testing their suitors in their weight lifting, sewing, and, boxing capabilities.  

The inference is that art brings advantage to the owner in sexual competition. It makes perfect evolutionary sense to view art as serving a biological function, since the struggle is to spread one’s genes through mating and reproduction. We, as individuals, might pursue the arts for various reasons, and none of them might have obvious sexual benefits. But, the insight we get from the bower analogy, satisfactorily explains the origin of human art.  

A common objection raised against associating arts with sexual advantages is that it rules out private satisfaction as a reason to pursue arts. But, this is not so, since evolutionary biologists do accept that some features get used for fulfilling needs other than what they were meant for. Agriculture and tools have made of the laborious task of finding food easy for us, leaving us with a lot of leisure hours. Thus, we engage in the pleasurable activity of making art.  The reason why chimpanzees make sketches in cages when provided with brushes and palette but not naturally in forests, is that their days are spent with the serious task of finding food and fighting enemies for their survival.   

 

Animal signaling explains the evolutionary paradox of self-destructive traits 

According to the theory of evolution, each of us is engaged in a struggle for survival which demands us to preserve ourselves by outsmarting others in the competition for resources and mates. If evolution favours only the fittest organisms, it is ironic that we engage in self-destructive activities at the cost of our health and fitness. 

The practices of drug abuse, alcohol consumption, and, certain peculiar customs like kerosene drinking by Indonesian kung-fu experts, defy the logic of fitness-maximisation. These risky human behaviours can however be compared with the display of costly signals by other birds and animals.  

For example, when chased by a predator like a lion, a running gazelle would repeatedly spring into the air keeping all four limbs stiff and off the ground simultaneously. This behavior known as stotting, looks suicidal, since it drains the gazelle of both the energy and time required to escape the lion. Interestingly, stotting is a risky signal the gazelle gives its predator to claim superiority. The giver of the signal is in fact demonstrating its competence by overcoming self-imposed risks. The lion gives up the chase convinced that the gazelle would eventually win.   

The logic of animal signalling explains the paradox of self-harming traits in humans. Most people begin using alcohol or drugs in their early youth when they are asserting their status. We might unconsciously hope to prove our fitness by showing that we survived the disturbing sensations that follow chemical abuse. However, in our living conditions, the self-destructive practices do not earn us the rewards as they do in the case of animals and birds. In fact, these are counter-productive in the case of human beings, since we don’t generally look at drug addicts or habitual alcohol consumers favorably. 

 

Agriculture has been a mixed blessing  

We, the Homo Sapiens, branched off from chimpanzees nearly seven million years ago. But we started the practice of agriculture only 10,000 years ago. For the longest period of human history, we were hunter-gatherers and we made the revolutionary decision to begin farming towards the end of the Ice Age. This has been widely appreciated as the biggest boon in human history, since it resulted in time for leisure and the progress of civilization.  

However, archaeologists have discovered that agriculture didn’t spread across the world as rapidly as we thought. It reached Greece only 6000 years ago and Scandinavia only 2500 years ago. How can we explain this terribly slow pace if farming had been such a great idea with zero disadvantages?  

The budding science of paleopathology which explores the health conditions of ancient people and animals from their remnants, offers us insights. It was discovered that mortality rates amongst American Indians increased after introduction of Corn in their food habits. Several skeletons discovered in Greece indicate that the average height of the people had decreased over a period of time in the transition from a hunter gatherer society to a farming one. While hunter gatherers enjoyed a balanced diet consisting of different nutrients, farmers consumed limited types cultivated nutrients in surplus quantities. Also, starvation due to crop failure was experienced only by farmers while hunter gatherers could obtain food unconditionally.  

Finally, just as smallpox and plague appeared with the rise of cities, diseases like tuberculosis, leprosy, and, cholera, arose with agriculture because the pathogens causing these diseases, persist in malnourished and crowded societies.  

In addition to health hazards, farming brought the evils of class division and reinforced the already existing gender- inequality. The absence of farmland and cattle in a hunter-gatherer society, had avoided class divisions into owners and laborers. It also worsened women’s conditions as they were now required to carry heavy loads and had poorer health. Increased food production resulted in increased population, since an acre of cultivated land yielded more food to feed more mouths than an acre of forest.  Thus, agriculture is a mixed blessing that ensured us more food, more leisure, and, more development, while simultaneously introducing new health threats and social evils.  

 

Europe's conquest of Americas and Australia was due to its geographical advantage 

History tells us technological and political developments were faster in Eurasia than in the Americas and Australia. But, why? The nineteenth century Europeans felt satisfied with the conclusion that their cultural progress was because they were more intelligent and were destined to overpower ‘inferior’ races.  This explanation fed by their racial supremacy and prejudices was not only detestable but also wrong. An accurate reason would be the geographical advantages Eurasia had over the geographically challenged people in the Americas and Australia.  

We all know that cultural and technological progresses were the direct benefits of our transition to farming. When a section of society focused on growing and storing food, enough for the whole society, another section could concentrate on metallurgy, manufacturing, and writing. However, a prerequisite to farming is the availability of domesticable plants and animals. Animals not only provided milk and meat, but also wool to clothe, and means of transportation. 

Western Eurasia was blessed with five important domesticable animals, that is. sheep, goats, pigs, cows, and horses as early as 4000 BC. The American mammal species and Australian kangaroos didn’t possess the characteristics favorable for domestication and explains their political and technological stagnation. Thus, geographical rather than biological differences made the European conquest of the Americas and Australia possible.  

 

Environmental exploitation is a legacy from our past 

While most of us are nostalgic about a past wherein our ancestors lived in perfect harmony with nature, how many of us have actually bothered to find out if this Golden Age actually existed? We cherish an assumed past of environmentalism, just as future generations living in more polluted conditions would possibly cherish the 21st century.  

The strongest evidence for past exploitation of resources leading to their exhaustion comes from New Zealand. Colonists have found the remains of an extinct bird which the Maori, the early settlers of New Zealand, called moa. From its skeleton, it has been inferred that it resembled a big deer, or antelope, in physique. 

 Fossils have revealed that moas whose ancestors reached the island millions of years ago suddenly became extinct in the years following the Maoris exploration of the island around 1000 AD. Maoris undoubtedly slaughtered moas for its meat, skin and bones finally leading to its extermination. But, they could be excused, since they hadn’t foreseen the consequences of ecological imbalances. However, it would a terrible sin if we don’t learn from the mistakes of our ancestors, despite the lessons they have left us. 

Final Summary 

The book takes us through our evolution not just as a species but also as a civilized people. While we learn that many of our traits that we are proud of, are not uniquely human, we also get an enchanting view that we might be unique and the only technologically advanced civilization in the entire universe. We can start re-examining the logic and ethics of experimentation using animals. Equally important is our duty to not repeat the mistake of our ancestors by destroying our habitat.