What it Means to be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and their Genes [Hardcover]

Jonathan Marks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 2002

An `iconoclastic, witty and extremely readable' study of how science can uncover the mysteries of the relationship between humans and animals, and how much we take for granted in terms of what genetics can tell us about the evolutionary development of the human species. Using the human-ape debate, Jonathan Marks explores various issues including racism, animal rights, and cloning, through an approach that lies somewhere between genetics and holistic anthropology - molecular anthropology. `Marks demolishes the pretensions of scientists who try to use genetics to answer questions about the kinship of nations, the rights of animals, the racial identity of Kennewick Man, the hereditary Jewish priesthood, and the existence of God. Marks has a lot of fun with all this - and so will his readers' - Matt Cartmill, author of A View to a Death in the Morning.

Editorial Reviews

From The New England Journal of Medicine

Do not be deceived by the title of this book. It takes just five pages to figure out that for Jonathan Marks, being 98 percent chimpanzee means nothing: despite all similarities, chimps are chimps, and humans are humans. No suspense here. So why should one venture through the 307 remaining pages of this book, if the main message is obvious from the start? I can see two good reasons. First of all, because it is fun. I have been a fan of Marks since his 1982 letter to Nature (295:276) entitled "All in the Book." His style is provocative and often amusing, and his arguments are interesting even when there is room for disagreement (as there sometimes is). The second reason is that the subject of this book is extraordinarily important. Many scientists and physicians deal daily, in one way or another, with human variation and its consequences. However, only seldom do we have the time to reflect on the assumptions underlying many concepts, even apparently simple ones, in this area. Marks does a remarkable job of placing those concepts in the historical and cultural contexts in which they were developed, reviews a large body of results, and examines their implications. To what extent are our intellectual and physical skills determined by our genes, and are we sure we have enough good data to answer that question in the first place? Is there any biologic basis for sexual preferences or for the tendency to commit crimes? What is culture, and can we use that word to refer to the transmission of learned behavior in apes? Chapters 3 and 4, in particular, deal with a crucial issue: the existence of human races. As the author aptly remarks, it is probably as difficult to convince people today that races exist in certain species but not in ours as it was to convince people in the 17th century that the earth rotated around the sun and not vice versa. Still, current genetic data are not ambiguous. Everybody can tell a Nigerian from a Dane, but human diversity is distributed continuously, and the identification of discrete clusters of human genotypes (which one could then legitimately call races) has so far proved to be impossible. It is important to stress this notion, because many, including many scientists, still think that although racial distinctions may not be obvious, some sort of racial classification is useful for practical purposes, such as diagnosis or, in the future, the tailoring of race-specific drugs. Marks's book and two later studies (Wilson JF, et al. "Population Genetic Structure of Variable Drug Response." Nature Genetics 2001;29:265-9; Romualdi C, et al. "Patterns of Human Diversity, within and among Continents, Inferred from Biallelic DNA Polymorphisms." Genome Research 2002;12:602-12) show clearly that even for those practical purposes, what matters is the individual genotype and not the largely arbitrary, and hence potentially misleading, racial labels attached to people. The aspect of this book that I fail to understand is its frontal attack on science as a whole, as well as on specific disciplines -- genetics enjoying particularly harsh treatment in chapters 6 and 11. Does the author really believe that many scientists would subscribe to statements such as the following: "Science has explained many things about the universe. Your life has no meaning"? Is he really convinced that studying the diversity of the human genome is useless because human history "is difficult to extract from genetic differences" anyway, and that the standpoint of science is held by scientists to be superior to all rivals? Personally, I am among those who consider the scientist's viewpoint superior for addressing scientific questions but neither better nor worse than others for addressing questions in the realms of, say, music, ethics, or football (in both the U.S. and the European senses). I wonder why Marks has felt the need to create (and then, predictably, to triumph over) such a grotesque fictitious character as the Evil Geneticist. We know that science has had some shameful moments. Eugenics, for instance, is part of the history of genetics (as well as of the history of anthropology), and it is good to be reminded of its theoretical inconsistencies and horrendous consequences. But it is possible to say that humans do not come in neat racial clusters only because geneticists cared to measure the differences among continental groups and showed that they account for but a small fraction of our global genomic diversity. Sometimes Marks seems to miss the difference between reflecting critically on science and rejecting it en bloc because its "numbers" only confirm what he already knew anyway. He is right in remarking that numerical analyses of data require assumptions and therefore cannot be considered to be objective. He is wrong when he pushes that argument so far as to suggest that quantitative science is just an exercise in arbitrariness. It is not, of course; experiments can be repeated, and wrong conclusions may eventually be modified. Shortly after this book hit the stores, Enard et al. ("Intra- and Interspecific Variation in Primate Gene Expression Patterns." Science 2002;296:340-3) demonstrated that differences in gene expression between humans and chimps are much higher in the brain than in the liver. We have largely the same genes as chimpanzees, and these genes do the same things in much of our bodies, but in the brain, the patterns of gene expression diverge dramatically. That and future similar studies can help us understand our evolutionary relationships a little bit better, although, ultimately, what it means to be human is a fantastically complex question and one that science can only contribute to addressing. Guido Barbujani
Copyright © 2002 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.

From Booklist

Humans share about 98 percent of our genetic makeup with chimps, which would be impressive, biological anthropologist Marks says, if we could figure out what it means. We also share about half our genes with fish and about a third with daffodils, but almost no one argues that anything can be learned from fish and flowers about human behavior or that fish and flowers should have human rights. Both are advocated for chimps and the other great apes, from what, Marks demonstrates, are pretty spongy grounds, since we know hardly anything about how genes form bodies. We are also told that genes for homosexuality have been found, but, as Marks shows, the studies said to have found them aren't genetic studies, can't be replicated, are faultily grounded, and characteristically approach homosexuality as if it were a disease. Furthermore, scientists who should know better waste their time, our money, and lots of goodwill on research shaped by racialism and other forms of what Marks calls folk heredity, which may be culturally interesting but is scientifically worthless. Don't think, however, that Marks wants science segregated from culture, as his withering refutations of some of the most highly touted research of recent years might imply. He wants science to be humbler and more sociable, more connected to the rest of society. With plenty of entertaining sarcasm as well as scientific argument and moral indignation, Marks blasts the pretensions of grandiose geneticists pretty thoroughly out of the water. This may be the science book to read this year. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (December 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520226151
• ISBN-13: 978-0520226159
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #427,893 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jonathan Marks is Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he has taught since the beginning of the present millennium, after stretches at Yale and Berkeley. He is the author of "What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee" (2002) and "Why I Am Not a Scientist" (2009), both published by the University of California Press. Paradoxically, however, he is about 98% scientist, and not a chimpanzee.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Post-modernist persiflage, September 18, 2003

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What it Means to be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and their Genes (Hardcover)

Accepting the fallacy of Marks' title, let us start on a positive note. Marks wants to keep apes and humans separate. Fair enough. I don't want to live on termites on a stick, and it's doubtful chimps want to worry about traffic congestion, tax rates or political corruption. Marks wants scientists to do their job well. Who can argue? Marks has courage - he has the temerity to assault the venerable E. O. Wilson, the articulate Richard Dawkins and the revered Jane Goodall. Marks is against racism. Hardly debatable. Marks seems a pretty upstanding fellow. Why then, is this book such an insult to the intelligence?

Mostly because it is a froth of misleading statements, misdirected wrath, misconceptions and mistaken views of science. Marks goes to unusual lengths in dismissing the research achievements of many scientists in both field and laboratory. He blithely dismisses the disclosure that chimpanzee and human genes are nearly identical as "the most overly exposed factoid in modern science." It's not significant because it confuses precision with accuracy. From there, Marks goes on to castigate a legion of scientists for their failure to "get it right" the first time around. Few escape his lash - even Linneaus, who virtually invented classifying life, is a victim, and perpetrator, of cultural artifacts in naming species. This from a man who finds culture an unbridgeable chasm between humans and animals!

Marks spends much of the remainder of the book discussing racial/cultural undercurrents in science. He finds far too much of it in current anthropology. He's correct in this, but his case is "overblown"- a favourite phrase of his. In a welter of complaints, he finds but two scientists to exonerate of the charge: Richard Leowntin and - himself. He doesn't want any cultural or behavioural relationship between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom, a favourite plaint of Lewontin's. Any hint of sociobiology, which he incorrectly defines as the study of human behaviour, must be rejected. This attitude ignores the wealth of research published during the past generation.

Marks' shots against sociobiology would be amusing except that so many will accept them uncritically. Like his mentor, Marks wants humanity to evolve without any evolutionary baggage. Behavioural studies of modern animals are irrelevant according to Marks. Thus is cast aside the whole realm of Darwin's evolution by natural selection. At least as far as it concerns humans. This attitude fits adroitly with Marks' intended reader community. He blames science for many social attitudes, delving deeply into the history of science to build his case. His brief runs from Plato onward, ending with the efforts to map the human genome. Science has long suffered from its cultural roots. The case is flawed by Marks failure to recognize that all through history, science has sought to reveal natures' secrets. It's a process of fits and starts, each gain a limited success. That inability to "get it all right the first time" is inherent in the process. It accomplishes little to portray the process as invalid. If some people have not performed to his expectations doesn't mean science should give up trying.

The area that Marks clearly wants abandoned is understanding of what drives human beings. That some scientists want to look more deeply into the human genome he perceives as a wasted effort. Along with Lewontin, Marks rails against "genes for" this or that aspect of life - particularly human life. Are we to assume then that we should stop looking? Because faulty genes have been shown to invoke certain disorders but haven't been found for others, is the list now complete? He inveighs against looking for genes for criminal behaviour. We don't know enough about how DNA works to decide one way or another. Do we give up analysing how genes perform? And what exactly is criminal behaviour? Even Marks uses statistics of prison populations to build his case. But none of the Enron executives are in prison, nor are likely to be. Do we exclude them from genetic analysis to unravel what genes lead us to do?

This book will go far in inflaming the already anti-scientific attitude prevalent in North American schools. Statements such as "science is not generally accurate" and "scientific statements are routinely falsified" [p. 279] aren't likely to entice anyone into the scientific fold. Students will not be encouraged to enter science disciplines when they're told "it is no easier to get the average scientist to accept responsibility than it is to get the average four-year-old to accept responsibility. After all, Marks is a scientist himself, his statements must be valid. We must assume, it is supposed, that he and Lewontin stand alone by having donned the mantle of responsibility. Yet his book is permeated with complaints that statements made by other scientists have been uncritically accepted. Marks owes the scientific community an apology. More importantly, he owes every young person interested in science an apology for describing them as likely to become irresponsible children instead of aspiring grown-ups. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

30 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to Dismiss, but very Important, October 29, 2003

By 

Alan Wilder (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What it Means to be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and their Genes (Hardcover)

The easiest thing to do about Marks' work is to dismiss it. Maybe we can simply state that herein lies that 'lefty pinko commie propaganda' that tries hopelessly to be 'PC.' And that's all she wrote! But I am afraid it is not so simple...

Jonathan Marks is writing about _my_ field. I have done some similar work. He is fighting against a popular old force, which tries to ignore not only cultural influence, but also ecological and political, and other influences.

Marks is an expert in his field, and this is very evident. It is interesting that one of the reviewers of this book, Mr. Haines, cites research from past ten years as diminishing to this book. I would like to see this research, not published in a newspaper, please. Genetic determinism, for all its promises, has _failed_ to live up to its expectations. It tries to solve _grand_ answers, and this is pretty hard. Marks is right to question evolutionary psychology, as the field has brought almost _nothing_ but the so-called 'just-so' stories. This is not science, this is myth. And Marks exposes it, as he should. I am also at a loss to observe how Marks wants no Darwinist baggage. This is false; he notes in his work that these explanations can contribute--but again, grand theories based on this kind of 'science' avoid about 150 years of anthropology, which has gone through many of the same pitfalls, by the way.

He is right to question the silliness of invoking the 98% chimpanzee argument, as it is a ridiculous one. He is right to note that folk knowledge manages to mingle in with what is supposed to be science. This is easily the best part of the book, and the dripping sarcasm and the molten anger with which Marks writes is immensely entertaining. However, it is also tragic to observe.

While I do not usually attack a particular Amazon review, I will point that Mr. Haines would benefit from a second reading of the book. Science is generally inaccurate in behavioral sciences (but also elsewhere): this is a simple truth, not an extreme claim. It is also _not_ an attack on science. As a matter of fact, as Marks points out rightly, science is accurate _OVER TIME_, but may be hopelessly misguided sometimes even in the long term. IF this was not the case, there would be no need for new paradigms; but, these do happen, I am afraid. This book is in no way trying to disparage science. If this was the case, Marks would not continue his work. But let me stress this: Marks simply notes that scientists should not put their noses where there is no place for them, or where scientific truth cannot be derived. I do not quite understand why this is a preposterous claim.

Linneus is demonized?! No, Marks simply notes the amount of folk knowledge inherited in this supposedly natural classifying system--what is found 'out there,' in nature. This is a clear point, not demonization. He is showing the arbitrary nature of classification. EVERY biologist should know this, but doesn't. Nor did I, before I got my MA in Physical Anthropology after studying Biology as an undergrad

Particularly, I would like to reply to this comment: "[i]nability to 'get it all right the first time' is inherent in the process. It accomplishes little to portray the process as invalid." Marks _does not_ expect science to get it right the first time. As a matter of fact, a careful reading of his book will indicate that he does not want genetics to fall into the same trap for the _SECOND_ time. Furthermore, far from arguing for abandonment of genetics as a whole, Marks asks geneticists to stop making grand claims when small results are observed: if that is not reasonable I am not sure what is.

Overall, Marks has presented an immensely readable work. Not everyone is going to like it, especially sociobiologists. There is actually nothing terribly revolutionary here. However, Marks' prose and his dripping sarcasm make this a book to read. I have yet to see how it is post-Modern or deconstructionist, for that matter. Marks is interested in science, but wants to see that it does not make mistakes it has so often made in the past. Is that really so controversial?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging read, useful tools, some loopholes, awkward style, July 13, 2008

By 

mountain viewer (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What it Means to be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and their Genes (Paperback)

If you're interested in what can and cannot be learned from the new advances in genetics technology--particularly the applications of that technology to the social sciences, history, psychology, political theory, and so on--then 98% Chimp won't disappoint. Marks is clearly conversant with the details of this rapidly advancing field as well as with the wildly unscientific claims made by many of its practitioners--to say nothing of those made by the technocratic/futurist know-nothings in the media or politics who make hay with research findings--and his outrage about how all this is being conveyed to/understood by the public is infectious. The topic is such that some of Marks' specific case studies are already outdated (published in 2002, revised in 2003, and at the time I'm writing this review, in 2008, the field has already changed quite a bit), but the underlying fallacies that he identifies are just as present and as pernicious as ever. The book is most valuable in providing sympathetic readers with the detailed tools necessary for arguing against genetic fundamentalists, socio-biologists and other extremists. It may not convince those on the other side, but if it doesn't give them at least some second thoughts then they aren't really paying attention.

That said, Marks doesn't always seal his arguments in an air-tight manner. I'm essentially 100% in agreement with him. But I kept imagining using his book to debate an intelligent, determined science fundamentalist, and I found on virtually every page an overly facile generalization, a straw-man argument, or an attempt to dodge thornier issues, all of which would be jumped on by an attentive opponent. In most cases I could see how to close the loophole myself, but I shouldn't have to work that hard to do what I take to be the author's job.

Lastly, I found Marks' style really distracting. The constant shifts in register are obviously intended to mark moves in and out of his "sarcastic voice," but listening to an author sneer all the time, even when you agree with him, is a bit unsettling. Especially when the author is writing about such an important subject and one where his opponents are likely to already be on the defensive.
And the short paragraphs.
Don't even get me started on the short paragraphs.
Or the loose structure, in which dozens of such short paragraphs could be moved virtually anywhere else in a given chapter without affecting the meaning.
It often feels as if Marks simply grouped his notecards together and hit "print."
I kept wondering how California's editors let this pass unrevised.
It will do little to instill good writing habits in you or your students.
You get the point.

So all-in-all a useful book, if not quite the slam-dunk this topic desperately needs.