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The Chimp-Human Connection
| Article
# : |
13617 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1988 |
3,376 Words |
| Author
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Adrienne L. Zihlman and Jerold M. Lowenstein
Adrienne L. Zihlman, professor of anthropology at the
University of California at Santa Cruz, does research on ape
and human evolution. Jerold M. Lowenstein, clinical professor
of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco,
does research on molecular evolution. |
Of all living species, which is the closest relative of humans? Is it an African ape or are we equally related to chimpanzees and gorillas, or to chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, or to some kind of monkey? In recent times respected scientists have offered these and other contradictory opinions. It took a scientific revolution to provide consistent evidence that our closest kin is the chimpanzee. In fact, we seem to be more closely related to the chimpanzee than chimpanzees and gorillas are to each other, an outcome that none of the experts had imagined.
In this century, each generation has seen a scientific revolution that unites seemingly unrelated phenomena. Einstein's theory of relativity in 1905 united space and time. Quantum mechanics in 1926 united physics and chemistry. Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helical structure of DNA in 1953 united chemistry and biology--and launched the molecular biology revolution. Molecular biology has also provided a unified approach to the study of life on earth, for all life forms share the same "genetic language" of DNA, RNA, and protein, no matter how much they may vary in size, physical appearance, and behavior.
Before Charles Darwin (1809-1882), the subject of human origins was an exclusively religious issue. Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) treated human origins for the first time as a topic of scientific inquiry, based on observable phenomena. Evolution, with its concepts of common descent and natural selection, provided a unifying principle for the organic world, just as Newton's gravitation had provided a unifying principle for the physical world. If humans were descended from some earlier form of life, as Darwin hypothesized, discovery of the human ancestor and "man's place in nature" would be a valid pursuit; indeed, this idea has become a preeminent problem for scientific investigation.
For Darwin and Huxley, the evidence for evolution was the observable similarities between different species, and their method was comparative anatomy. Huxley's comparison of bones, teeth, muscles, and brains of various primates led him to conclude that our closest living relatives were the Africans apes. Consequently, Darwin deduced more than a hundred years ago that Africa was the site of human origins.
Hominoid relationships
The hominoids, the group that includes humans and apes, are united in contrast with the other primates by a number of features: long upper limbs, a
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