What separates us from the chimps? For starters, that we are formulating such a question (big brains), voicing the question (speech), and investigating its answer using computers (tool manipulation).
99% of our DNA is identical to chimp DNA (in sequence, let’s not forget epigenetics and post-transcriptional control, the up-and-coming underdogs of biology). Your first thoughts might be that key genetic differences underly appearance (e.g. standing upright) and memory (e.g. remembering an entire spoken language). But researchers in several groups across the U.S. found much more.
Genes undergoing positive selection change more rapidly than those undergoing random (neither-beneficial nor harmful) mutations. So by comparing genomes across several species, scientists identified human genes highly divergent from chimp. The functions of these genes are not fully understood, as always is the case with science.
List of key genes identified:
1. Gene that is turned on during development, the product of which (called a protein) helps to sculpt the thumb from the rest of the hand. This gene helps to explain humans’ increased dexterity over chimps, and thereby the construction of more complex tools and the manipulation of the external world. (Can a chimp tie a shoe-lace? Doubtful.)
2. Two genes in diet: one that breaks down lactose and one that aids with starch digestion in the mouth. A flexible diet means a flexible lifestyle. Nature favors the flexible.
3. Gene involved in the production of speech, on the anatomical level. As an analogy, the violin can’t make music without strings (its anatomy), we can’t say words without our speech anatomy (certain bones and things, I won’t go into details). This one interests me particularly. When I think of language, I think of advanced mental faculty. I think of writing poetry that elevates the soul and composing song that crushes our proverbial fragile frames, not the height of the hyoid bone. Fascinates me to bits.
“Man is the symbol-using inventor of the negative separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy, and rotten with perfection” is the definition of us I give students when I teach communication courses (it’s from Kenneth Burke and slightly resembles the second sentence of your post), but, as the definition itself provides, you’re free to rot with scientific perfection and dwell instead on brain and testes RNA.
Luv the pastiche.
http://www.greatapetrust.org/
Tie a shoelace, no, but you should watch some of the videos they’ve posted about what the apes can learn and do. Abstract thought, communication in sentences, not just isolated words, tool usage. Every time I see one of these videos it makes me consider abandoning my study of history and go back for a degree in primatology.
That chimp is in a perfect Shotokan back stance.