The chapter talks about the fact that there are no other species in the same genus (homo) as human beings is rather unusual. The authors go on to note that during most of the past million years, there were usually only 1 or two species in the genus at any one time.
The authors implicitly ask the question: is this because of how humanity evolved, or because of how human beings have been classified: are we really that different or have some scientists wanted to show that our species is different from the rest of the animal kingdom?
A bit of evidence is given for both cases. For the notion of adding other species to the same genus there is the observation that the Neanderthal and human genomes indicate more interbreeding than was thought to have occurred before. What's more, the authors note that the fossil record is relatively scant to base classification on.
On the side of differentiation of species, the observation of large brains, certain teeth and some behavior (notably speech) is mentioned.
Then the authors digress into a discussion of eugenics and some observations about why it is wrong and who supported it in the past (surprisingly, this includes Winston Churchill). The authors note that even modern humans do not completely understand how the genome works or what all the pieces do, and what's more cannot define what "better" is.
I found the chapter's points to be rather obtuse: writing up this discussion was as useful in trying to understand the message as reading the material.
Not knowing anything about anything, I'd be inclined to say that scientists are not wanting to connect human beans with the animal kingdom - even in their quest to show that we evolved from monkeys, they want to set us apart from the animals - because we're special... of course, this could just be the misanthropist in me speaking.
ReplyDeleteIt would certainly be ironic :-)
ReplyDeletePeople sometimes forget that scientists are human beings too, prone to whims, prejudice and fancies.