Today, I posted on the Travis chimpanzee story – the gruesome results of imagining that chimpanzees are just people like us, only furry – a common theme in pop science mags.
In a comment, tsmith notes that Travis’s mother Suzy had also died after a rampage, in 2001.
That story by Rick Schapiro in New York Daily News (February 21, 2009) is here. More reports here.
Just like us, only furry? – It is an odd belief, when you think of it. But hre is a Times article that fronts the idea.
If we assume that chimps and humans are related on a Tree of Life, it makes no more sense to assume that we can live with chimps than to assume that we can just as safely live with a rattlesnake as with a ribbon snake*.
The assumption that rattlesnakes and ribbon snakes descended from a common ancestor says nothing whatever about the comparative degree of danger that either would represent if you brought one into your home.
You and I are descended from the same common ancestor as many serial killers, which should warn us that common descent is obviously a poor predictor of psychology and behaviour.
So the “chimp champs” have no business relying on arguments from the Tree of Life theory to bolster their case, whether the theory is true or false.
However, last I heard, Darwinian evolutionists were trying to get humans and chimps classified in the same genus.
Such a grossly irresponsible move would only give the chimp crazies a boost – about the last thing that is needed.
A responsible move on the part of biological science societies would be to make clear to the chimp crazies that chimps are not people, and living with people does not change them into people.
Viewing a chimp as a child does not make it one.
However, I fear crickets will be chirping Sweet Adeline before the societies do anything like that. They are fronting too much false knowledge about human origins to risk the obvious questions that would be asked.
(Ribbon snake – small, neither venomous nor a constrictor – lives mainly on frogs)