JUST ANOTHER APE

In response to the question is the human being Just Another Ape? Helene Guldberg, an Open University developmental psychologist answers no, on many counts. In this short book we are taken on a tour of what can very broadly be defined as the field of contemporary primatology. Guldberg makes extensive use of quotations from the literature that comprise a significant portion of the book. These however are relevant and slot into her six chapter framework in an orderly way, and the book is easily readable despite rather glaring errors in the type-setting of the contents page.

The book aims to give "a good shake up" to the distorted understandings of the similarities and differences" between humans and apes. Genetically we may be 98-99% similar to chimps but, [as I like to tell students], culturally we are 99% dissimilar. Is the banana half-human on the basis of 50% shared genes or is the goldfish 2/3 Homo sapiens? We think not! Such oft-quoted focus on genes has elevated apes to quasi-human status, in turn leading to exaggerated inferences about their cognitive abilities. This decidedly post-modern and politically-correct mind set seems intent on collapsing the distance between ape and human. Another side effect is to elevate the sagacity of apes while demeaning that of humans. In short, for many, human uniqueness has become a "shameful idea." Most of the meat of the book deals with the weakness of arguments that seek to equate ape and human cognition. Guldberg holds that despite claims to the contrary apes don't use tools either very extensively, or innovatively, nor do they have a large tool kit. They don't imitate or learn so much as 'emulate,' meaning that they repeat behaviors of humans, or their own species, in the hope of obtaining observed results, but without understanding 'why' they do what they are doing. In short, they don't learn to build on experience, and so repeat ineffectual, even stupid actions. Raising apes and human infants together leads to alarming results because infants are capable of learning from apes, but not vice versa. Researcher parents have had to abort such 'experiments' in order not to compromise (retard) the child's developmental linguistic integrity by imprinting too much 'grunting,' simian biology. [Here Guldberg could have cited cases feral children]. Just as apes appear deficient in their ability to 'understand' the potential of tools, so they also lack the ability to 'think about' or understand the intentions of others. Thus, they are unsuitable subjects for any "Theory of Mind" approach: they cannot to react to anything more that "surface level behaviour" they can actually "see." In contrast Guldberg says that humans understand the expression of unseen or hidden "forces" such as desires and intention. Human infants, between 14 and 18 months, develop the remarkable ability to recognise the desires of others and will even offer adults food items that said adults pretend to like, rather than ones they pretend to dislike. Apes evidently lack these nuanced dimensions of social psychology, which in humans blossom into ever-more complex culture. Apes are not completely unselfconscious. Most chimps and orangutans, but not many gorillas, recognize marks on their faces, just as most humans do between 15 and 21 months. But this seems to be as far as it goes, and ape linguistic ability is equally limited. While some apes have been taught rudimentary sign language they use it to gain food rewards and attention, mostly at the urging of their teachers, and despite indulgent interpretations by some researchers they really cannot construct coherent grammatical sentences. In my opinion, this all boils down to the conclusion that apes lack anything more than a glimmering of human self-consciousness and linguistic potential. Thus, Queen Victoria's 1842 reaction to an orangutan as "frightful and painfully and disagreeably human" remains a wistfully and anthropologically poignant projection of our own cognitive isolation as a species. Guldberg's final conclusions on Evolution and Consciousness are rather tentative and weak. Despite quoting William James on the 'material,' 'social' and 'spiritual self' she does not discuss these domains equally. Despite emphasis on how, unlike apes, humans "participate in collective culture," she finds it hard to fathom how something as "elusive" as "participation in collective culture" came about. [Surely here the main distinction is between conscious participation in human culture and instinctive, unconscious participation in animal society and community ecology- not to mention the collective unconscious- which is deep-rooted in evolutionary history]. She therefore states that "there must be genetic basis to our uniqueness" attributed to a genetic mutation occurring "we don't know where or when." Such mysterious yet materialistic 'hand of God' intervention explanations are unsatisfying, especially given that Guldberg downplayed genetics in chapter 1. Oddly, she cites one opinion that the cause cannot be that "something magical invaded our skull during the Pleistocene." [Surely the evolutionary emergence of human self-consciousness is a fascinating psycho-spiritual phenomenon, in ontogeny and phylogeny, that creates and enhances our collective culture, and our awareness of it. Thus, we need neither genetic or magic skull invasion 'mechanisms' to appreciate that the evolutionary 'process' involves a complex dynamic of 'material,' 'social' and 'spiritual' change]. Given Guldberg's 'explanation' for human uniqueness, she could presumably have evoked a genetic basis for the uniqueness of every ape and every living species. But this does not get us very far, as we can equally evoke anatomical and behavioral evidence for uniqueness in every case. It seems Guldberg misses the opportunity to develop the notion that it is our unique human self consciousness that makes us aware of other species and their emotional and cognitive faculties in the first place. It is our projections that create chimp theories of mind, and debates about similarities and differences, just as it is these same projections that generate theories of Gaia consciousness and the universal, mathematically intricate mind of God. It is almost humorous to reflect so earnestly on why apes are (or are not) nearly as self-conscious as humans, without reflecting on our own self-conscious role in creating the debate, and worrying about our place, and theirs, in the biosphere. Guldberg is right to conclude that we should cherish our unique abilities to build a better future, and could equally well have said that, unlike apes, we are evidently capable of "conscious evolution." If she implies therefore that humans are a (the) uniquely conscious organ of the biosphere 'creating' a culture, that though imperfect (her term) takes evolution to a new level, I am inclined to agree. But, again, it is precisely our uniqueness and abilities that allow us, on the one hand to question and even denigrate our role, while on the other hand we can be unselfishly conscious of other species as part of the long-standing collective unity of the biosphere, which we wish to protect. Despite my reservations about the final chapter, this book is well worth reading. We can and perhaps 'should' embrace being a 'uniquely human ape.'