Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.latimes.misc From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: TIMES BOOK PRIZES 1992 On 'The Third Chimpanzee' Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 07:02:32 EST Message-ID: HEADLINE: TIMES BOOK PRIZES 1992 On 'The Third Chimpanzee' Publication Date: Sunday November 8, 1992 BYLINE: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas Once upon a time science was faced with a choice. Possibly human beings were unique in the universe, or possibly not. Lacking evidence either way, science chose the first possibility, probably because it echoed the religious fundamentalism whence it sprang, and therefore seemed safer and more conservative than its alternative. Never mind that Darwinism would suggest the second possibility as the best guess. According to the venerable theory, we are what we are because of intellect and reason. Animals, whether gorillas and elephants or mosquitoes and oysters, are what they are because of instinct and lust. Sociobiology has sought to change all that, and amazingly enough has met with considerable resistance, not only from laymen but also from certain scientists, most conspicuously those in the so-called soft sciences such as anthropology and psychology but also some in some very hard sciences such as physics and molecular biology. "What? Mankind not unique in the universe? Prove it!" they say. While no one could have the slightest objection to the desire for proof of any theory, the position taken by the skeptics--that their picture of our species can safely be taken as a given--is a collapse of both reason and scholarship. Meanwhile, the skeptics level charges of anthropomorphization at anyone who believes that non-human animals are anything more than animate machines. For instance, incredible as it seems, after two captive gorillas tried but failed to mate, a recently published statement about possible emotional difficulties as the cause of their failure was met with derisive jeers of anthropomorphization, as if the gorillas were merely malfunctioning automatons and anyone suggesting that their emotions could affect their sexual performance was soft in the head. Similarly, a veterinarian claiming that a captive Asian elephant experienced stress and also painful urination was faulted for his inappropriate language. The terms stress and painful seemed anthropomorphic to his critic. Unfortunately for those who would keep our species on a pedestal, recent DNA studies indicate that far from being unique in the universe, we are probably not even unique in our genus but are in fact a kind of chimp. And it is thus that Jared Diamond considers us in his wonderful book about our kind, "The Third Chimpanzee." Not for Diamond the creationist approach so favored by the skeptics. Closing his visor and fixing his lance, he charges at them. "Such skeptics consider it simpler to assume that humans are unique and that the burden of proof should be borne by anyone who thinks otherwise," he writes. "Yet the alternative hypotheses by which the skeptics instead attempt to explain animal behaviors sometimes strike me as more complicated than the simple and often plausible explanation that humans are not unique." Yes! And as if Diamond's point of view were not reward enough for his legion of enthusiastic readers, the aspects of humanity that he chooses to examine involve for the most part subjects that are endlessly fascinating, just what many people would have been reading about anyway if left to themselves. Why as a species do we favor premarital and extramarital sex? When we marry, who attracts us? And what have our preferences to do with race? (The theory addressing the question of race, formerly considered too hot to handle, is as convincing as it is beguiling, but to learn it, you'll have to read the book.) Even more intriguing, if possible, is why we have sex in private. This question is usually taken as a human birthright, the result of civilization and good upbringing, something that separates our lofty species from the crude beasts. Yet the fact that all over the world everyone seems to favor private sex should suggest that we have behavioral programming for the notion, and so we do, just like the orangutans, who share our modesty. Sex in privacy has evolutionary value for us and for the orangutans, but not, it seems, for gorillas and the other chimpanzees. The down side of life has questions too. Why do we eventually grow infirm, losing our memories along with our immunities? And considering that we are constantly in the presence of fallout from nuclear testing and toxic industrial pollution, why do we also smoke and drink? Are we as sapient as we believe ourselves to be? The answer, of course, is that we are not. Programmed for survival no more and no less than the other species which our advanced technology is rapidly decimating, we seem almost helpless in the face of our own ability to devastate the globe. Diamond reminds us that generic eradication, not only of our own species but of many, many others, is becoming our specialty so quickly that to learn what lies in store for us if we proceed unchecked, we need only to look at the paradigms for disaster that litter our past. He asks us to consider, for instance, what happened on Easter Island after our species got through with the ecosystem. Having cut down all the trees, the islanders no longer could make boats, which meant that they could no longer go fishing, which meant, eventually, that they were more or less forced to make up the protein deficiency by eating each other. Cannibalism flourished, and despite the fact that people took refuge from each other in caves, the population dropped. One cannot help but wonder if some people on Easter Island were trying to persuade others to save at least a few of the trees--people whom George Bush would have called "the spotted-owl crowd." Is there hope for the future? Diamond thinks so, which is very encouraging. After all, as Diamond points out, we alone are causing the destruction, and are not the victims of anyone except ourselves, so it is quite within our power to reverse the process. By no means the least valuable information provided by Diamond's wonderful book--information that should appeal to the third chimp, the only primate with money--is a list of conservation organizations trying to save the Earth. On very low budgets, these organizations have already accomplished a great deal. With their legions of supporters, they have, for instance, already gone far toward saving the whales, an effort that cost much less than virtually any major political campaign. If we succeed in saving the third chimpanzee, we will not only save the planet but will, after all, prove ourselves unique. SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY THE THIRD CHIMPANZEEL: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, by Jared Diamond (HarperCollins) FINALISTS THE LEFT-HANDER SYNDROME: The Causes and Consequences of Left-Handedness, by Stanley Coren (The Free Press) CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED, by Daniel C. Dennett (Little, Brown) BLINDED BY THE LIGHT: New Theories About the Sun and the Search for Dark Matter, by John Gribbin (Harmony Books) ARTIFICIAL LIFE: The Quest for a New Creation, by Steven Levy (Pantheon/Schocken) This article is copyright 1992 The Los Angeles Times Home Edition. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM