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Musing on Sydney's news
23 June 2003
Monkey Business
Today's chat is just monkey business.
When I talk about monkeying around I'm not talking about the shananigans of our politicans, business or union leaders. Given their various transgressions, my topic today is something to bring shivers of horror to right-thinking chimpanzees everywhere.
You see, Morris Goodman, a scientist from the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, has said that chimpanzees and humans should be classed in the same taxonomic group. That is, their genus should be classed as "homo", along with humans (George Pell would certainly have something to say about that - next they'll be wanting to ordain them). Apparently there's a 99.4% genetic similarity between humans and chimps.
That's one profound 0.06%. In fact, it's downright insulting.
How can a distinguished and ancient race of rare intelligence that is so capable of beauty and grace be compared with those barbaric, ugly critters? Why, it's enough to make you choke your banana!
Ok, I admit that chimps sometimes eat their young. But then again humans molest them (at least ministers and priests do). Chimps, to their credit, don't declare pre-emptive strikes by making out that the guys on the other side of the ravine are collecting boulders with which to attack them when they are really just messing around with pebbles.
Chimps don't destroy the trees that sustain them either. Nor do they waste their time with lame sitcoms or talkback radio. They don't moralise about who has sex with whom, claiming that some things just ain't natural - they just do what comes naturally. They don't have McDonald's or KFC outlets. Nor gaming machines. They take personal responsibility if they fall off a cracked branch and won't sue Mother Nature for damages.
Of course, humans have a few things to crow about too. We have nicer bums than chimps do (most of us, anyway) rather than those horrid little pink ... things ... that look like infected hemorrhoids. And we make better music (if you don't include doof-doof techno, country & western, Cliff Richard and Barry Manilow).
And we are better than chimps at art, museums, the internet, science, photography, tennis, yoga, sci-fi, cappuccinos, restaurants, comedy, charity, education and arthouse movies..
However, before we get too smug we should look at what else we've offered the planet.
War, religion, politics (ok, these three could be said to be synonymous), insurance, cartels, car parks, spam, computer viruses, porn, gyms, aerobics, Brandivino, Fosters Lager, rugby, Starbucks, sitcoms, nuclear weapons, stilettos, real estate agents, climate change, Hollywood, prejudice, non-biodegradable plastic bags and the Royal Family.
Still, why focus on our differences? Chimps and humans have many similarities. After all, just about everything we do seems to be driven by the desire for shelter, food, sex, and jostling for a higher position in the group.
One can't help wondering if there's no real difference between we supremely evolved creatures [sic] and other animals - be they chimps, fish, cockroaches, armadillos ... you name it. We just put a bit of window dressing over our base instincts and then claim superiority.
Just a bit of trivia to put the issue beyond doubt. The scientific name for chimps is pan troglodytes. Now, doesn't that name immediately bring Jerry Springer and his audiences to mind?
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