Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding overview of what makes humans different from chimps, October 11, 2009
This review is from: Not a Chimp: The Hunt to Find the Genes that Make Us Human (Hardcover)
In 2005 Moe, a chimpanzee, turned 19. The couple who had raised him when he was young brought him a sheet cake with raspberry filling. As the couple stood outside his cage, two other nearby chimpanzees attacked the man. "He sustained severe facial injuries and his testicles and a foot were also severed" (p 7).
Taylor was interested enough to investigate just how close the ape family is to humans. He thought the story of man who had been attacked "graphically demonstrates the ambivalent world of chimpanzee-human relationiships: huge emotional attachment of human to chimp; bizarre levels of anthropomorphizing; an animal species capable of thrilling us with its human-like behavior on the one hand and horrifying us with its brutal aggression on the other" (P 8).
This is a very timely book. Many people have proposed that since we are so close genetically to the great apes, they should be granted full human rights. Spain recently voted down such a law; New Zealand passed one.
Taylor wanted to learn the truth. And the result is this very thorough book. He appears to have included every single study over the last 20 years on the subject. And, while he leans slightly against the chimpanzees as being the equal of humans, even from the start, he gives a thorough, and apparently unbiased, investigation.
I found his chapter on "Clever Corvids" especially interesting. Corvids, which includes such birds as ravens and crows, perform quite well on tests designed to reveal their ability to use tools--and yes, they do use tools. Animal lovers will enjoy anecdotes and research that shows humor, cooperating at tasks, and planning.
Dog lovers will also be captured by his history of a "backwater Russian research institute (which) has not only succeeded in producing foxes so tame they behave just like dogs, they have also bred Norwegian rats, otters, and mink" (p 262). The domesticated foxes respond, like dogs, to the way people gaze at them, and they notice what people are pointing at. Wild foxes don't.
Taylor makes an exhaustive investigation of all aspects of human and chimp cognition. He talks about everything, from how variations in serotonin transporters and MAO-A activity affect behavior, from brain size ( humans have a brain about "four times larger than you would expect for a typical anthropoid primate of our body size" (p 221), to research by Povinelli that casts doubt on ape intelligence.
Then there are the television documentaries on apes like Washoe and Koko who 'learned' language. And in the end he concludes most of these documentaries show a "long and sorry history--almost a pathology of science--ridden with wishful thing, over-exaggeration, and even downright fantasy" (p 295)
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rich overview, fascinating read, not particularly bitter., February 8, 2010
This review is from: Not a Chimp: The Hunt to Find the Genes that Make Us Human (Hardcover)
"Not a Chimp" is a polemic of sorts, but the Publisher's Weekly critique (posted on this Amazon page) of its "bitter sentiments" is an exaggeration. I suggest the prospective reader take it with a grain of salt. It is fair to say that Taylor disagrees stongly with the anthropomorphizing scholarship and is mildly contemptuous of the political efforts to evelate chimpanzees, and perhaps other apes, to human status. Less than ideal, maybe, but I didn't find any of this "hard to swallow." I am not as interested in the uniqueness of humans as Taylor is - I take that as obvious and am more interested in the "animalness" of humans - but I do share his suspicion of anthropomorphizing and even more of the application of international human rights law to non-human primates. Since he is critical of such renowned and somewhat romantically venerated figures as Jane Goodall and Franz de Waal in this respect, it is perhaps not surprising that some might find his tone somewhat harsh.
Aside from the polemic, though, there are many more concrete pleasures here for the layman interested in human/primate evolution. Most of the book describes the methodology and results of a wide range of experiments attempting to test the similarities/differences between humans and chimps (or sometimes other animals) with respect to genetics, brain size, language, social behavior, etc. For those who have seen "The Human Spark" on PBS, you will find a lot of the same issues and experiments discussed here, although in greater detail and with more context of course. In fact, if that program appealed to you, I would strongly recommend you pick up this book for its broader and deeper treatment of the issues. The results of these experiments are fascinating, but other armchair students of human evolution like me might also be impressed with the ingenuity and limits of the types of experiments designed by scientists in this field. Taylor himself is careful to note that this work is still in its early stages, and while impressed with many of the experiments, I also often felt that many of these findings may be nuanced (perhaps in some cases overturned) in the near future as more, and more sophisticated, experiments are developed. That said, the work presented by Taylor in this book is compelling. As another reviewer noted, the chapter on corvids is quite good and rather surprising to the general reader who has heard so much about the experiments with chimps and other primates in the press. For me, the final discussion of the evolution of the genes implicated in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (and their possible beneficial contributions to those not stricken with mental illness) was an extra treat I was not expecting, and I'm anxious to read more on that subject.
If you are a fan of science books for the general public, you will find that Taylor does a good job of periodically summing up complicated information to allow you to synthesize what you've read. However, there are a few dicussions of genetics that left me flailing a bit - no one's fault but my own, of course. Also, many of the experiments described in the book involve gadgets of various sorts. Written descriptions of these are sometimes tedious when a chart would have provided the necessary insight immediately.
All in all, I recommend this book highly. I certainly have a different view the genetic/evolutionary relationship between humans and other primates/animals after reading it. It has the additional benefit of introducing the reader to some of the political issues related to animal rights activism, albeit from a critical persepctive.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Solid review of the latest science, April 10, 2011
The book covers a number of topics, from genetics, to behavior, to brain anatomy and physiology, all the time exploring the differences between humans and chimps. Tailor is good at bringing out the stories behind the discoveries. I felt that the parts on genetics were better than later parts of the book, where the subject becomes fuzzy with unclear definitions of intelligence, emotions etc, but partly this is the fault of the corresponding scientific fields, not of Tailor.
Overall, it's a good book, pick it up if you are interested in science.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
