What do similarities between human and chimpanzee`s behavior say about our past?

 

Many of us have probably gone to the zoo and seen  chimpanzee’s human behavior;  the way they wonder about their surroundings, the way they interact with each other and many other behaviors which leave us wondering whether we(humans) did really originate from apes . This has been a research subject to many groups of anthropologists who for many years have been searching for answers to why chimps act so much like humans.  Aside from having 98% of their DNA similar to human`s, chimps also have culture in their groups where certain rules and regulations control how they live, mate and reproduce which resembles human societies. In human societies there are rules and regulations as well and punishments that you receive as a result of committing a crime which could vary based on the severity of the crime. Also we have leaders and those who make laws to ensure our society is being controlled and stabilized. We all have to fight to reach the top and become powerful and sometimes we do fail and have to give up and let the winners take the power. Although we do fight over land and territory, which in many cases results in wars and even world wars, we do have compassion towards one another and help those in need. These are characteristics of human race which separate us from other species.  Although there are animals that we share some of these behaviors with, our closest animal relative( chimps) amaze us a lot more by their many  human-like behaviors. Chimps too form societies where they have to fight to become leaders and have different levels of power that they assign to one another based on their physical strength. Chimps are amazingly intelligent, understand their individuality and are able to imitate one another`s behavior.  The following video shows how a chimps solves a problem by imitation.

I remember in one of the lectures my professor explained how in a zoo there was an old chimp who had lost his sight and could not find the door to get out of the cage and needed someone to hold his hand and direct him to the door. So every play time when all chimps went out, one of the zoo keepers would hold the old chimps hand and take him outside. One day no one came to  assist the him and so one of young chimps grabs his hand just like how the zoo keeper did and directed him towards outside. The following video shows a similar behavior of a young chimp helping an old one walk.

After watching this video and also other videos of chimps human-like behavior I kept on asking myself if chimps are able to learn skills like us, have compassion towards one another, understand their individuality and accept different levels of power in their society assigned to certain individuals then how much are they really different from us. I think many people would argue that with all that’s said, there is still a great amount of difference that separate us from chimps. I agree that there are differences between us but just the fact that they are able to adapt to different cultures,  learn so quickly and copy human`s behavior is what keeps me wondering whether one day they could actually become us which takes us back to the first question of whether evolution is what made us who we are today.

Where do anthropologists think different races came from??

My last blog basically went over some of the things  I learn about the physical evidence anthropologists had to prove Darwin`s theory of evolution and natural selection. The physical changes that occurred as a result of early human migration and change of living environment can still be seen in various locations in the world. As we see today there are many different races in the world which can be recognized by their unique demographic physics. Some races like Europeans are usually blond, tall, have blue eyes and bony faces verses Africans who have darker skin color, dark eyes, dark hair, chubbier face and are usually shorter than Europeans. The picture below shows some of existing races in the world. 

some of human races

But where do these different races come from and why do these demographic differences exist if we all originated from Africa (where people have only dark skin)?? I used to ask this question a lot when I was little and surprisingly the answers  I got from different people didn’t really make any sense to me. In fact I got some really strange answers like “ we come in different colors and shapes because some races are better than others and God loves some races better than others” and things of that sort. It might seem really racist to a lot of people to hear someone say that but believe it or not I heard answers as such mainly from religious people around me.  So I guess thank God I took this biological anthropology class that talked about different theories about human origin and the reasons for having multiple races in the world.

“Out of Africa”  theory suggests that we all started off from the great land of Africa, where our ancestors lived for a long time and evolved into homo sapiens who later migrated to other parts of the world to replace other hominid species, including homo erectus. after Homo erectus migrated out of Africa the different populations became reproductively isolated, evolving independently, and in some cases like the Neanderthals, into separate species. This theory suggests that homo sapiens arose only in Africa which geographically could also include Middle east and that interbreeding had no role in producing new races and claims that modern human variation is a relatively recent phenomenon. The picture below is a map of “Out of Africa” theory. 

out of Africa model

Another theory called “Multiregional Continuity Model” suggests that although we did come from Africa when Homo erectus dispersed into other portions of the Old World, regional populations slowly evolved into modern humans.   According to this theory  some level of gene flow existed between geographically separated populations and that  all living humans derive from the species Homo erectus that left Africa nearly two million-years-ago. This theory unlike “out of Africa” theory suggests that the emergence of Homo sapiens was not restricted to any one area, but was a phenomenon that occurred throughout the entire geographic range where humans lived. The diagram below displays the "“Multiregional Continuity Model” and the other one compares it to the "Out of Africa model".

multiregional continuity model

multiregional continuity model vs. out of africa model

Doubting my religion as evolution made more sense

As I mentioned in my previous blog I was raised in an extremely religious family which made sure I was a true believer of God. I did in fact believe in God and never thought there would be a way for me to even doubt what I had learn at home about God and his intellectual creation of earth and mankind. Anthropology was truly a challenging course not because it required some memorization, which I was terrible at, but because it was the only time in my life that I questioned my faith and my beliefs about God.  Although I was a very confused person at that time, the theory of  human evolution forced me to seriously look into sciences that rejected the idea of intelligent creator and find out what they had to offer as evidence to their claim.

What biological anthropology had as evidence was the result of years of research, fossil discoveries and other anthropological work. It was amazing how they explained the evolution of mankind and presented theories that actually made a lot of sense. 

According to the anthropologists who have studied and researched early humans for many years, one and the most important causes of physical changes in early humans was migration and change of habitat. As early humans migrated from Africa, where they were originally located at, exposure to new living conditions resulted in major changes in their bodies. For example when humans moved to forests and hunting became difficult an urge for bipedalism emerged. Bipedalism became increasingly important as it allowed for a greater ability to carry young ones and it provide a better vision for those hunters who had to look out for animals. This of course is a theory which explains how early humans became bipedal as they were not at the beginning.

Early hominids dwelling in forest became bipedal

Also another study of human evolution found that as early humans became more depend on hand-made tools and developed more advanced tools , the shape of their fingers and toes changed. Because they used to climb the trees they needed larger fingers and toes with arc shape to help them with grasping the branches. Also the location of eyes changed and moved closer to each other in front of the face since humans started relying on their vision a lot more than before and the olfactory sense became less and less sensitive because of less reliance on it.

early hunting and gathering tools

A study done by a group of anthropologists on the survival of Neanderthals ( an extinct member of homo genus ) is a great example of evolution and physical changes due to the change of environment. Neanderthals lived in high attitude area where breathing was pretty difficult for species not used to it and as a result of that Neanderthal developed larger and wider chests as it would make it easier for them to get oxygen in their longs and also their noses got bigger. the pictures below are reconstructed images of Neanderthals. 

reconstructed image of a young Neanderthal

Neanderthals hunting

 After learning all about these theories and studies, the idea of God and his intelligent design became more and more complicated for me but at the same time it motivated me to discover and search more. I think that many nonbelievers would look at evolution as a theory that religious-less people developed in order to make their disbelief in God more accountable and to have a reason to question different religions. Although it is true that many evolution believers do not believe in existence of superpower or God, evolution is certainly a strong theory which has based its ideas and claims on solid evidence left from early humans such as their skeletons found in different locations.

Evolution or intellectual creator

I never really thought about the conflict between Darwin’s natural selection theory and the idea of intellectual creator (God). Being raised in an extremely religious family, I was told since I was very little that the aim of this life is to do what God ordered us to do (known as good actions) and to believe in what the holy book says. Many things from the holy book or religion didn’t make sense to me and I often questioned how we could actually trust a book and live our lives based on the things that’s written in there. Although I questioned many things that came from the holy book, I actually never questioned the existence of God. I believed that the idea of intellectual creator was a fact and that God had created this whole world for a reason. Although I never succeeded in finding out what that reason was, I still believed that there was a purpose for why we all ended up here and that we are all being watched by God every moment of our lives.

My belief in God was never shaken by any means and I strongly believe that there is definitely a God out there until I took a Biological anthology class which talked about Darwin and his theories about human origin.
 The idea of humans evolving from apes was amazingly interesting and the evidence presented by anthropologists and scientists was engaging. As I mentioned in my previous post I loved this class patiently and went to class excited to learn more and more as the idea of evolution opened my mind to other possibilities about our origin and the creation of this whole world. For the first time in my entire life I started doubting God and questioned whether there really is an intellectual creator who designed this world for a specific purpose. I had actually been really confused about life and death since they both used to have actual meanings when I believed in God but started to fade away as I went deeper into learning about evidence that supported the idea of evolution of humans. While there were many evidence linked to the existence of non-modern humans in the past and the discoveries of more skeletons belonging to human ancestors added up to my doubts about God and religion, I did not loose my faith. I feel like deep down I still believed in God and that the creation of this world had a purpose. Till this day I still question many things about the creation of this world and our origin. I think that many people have these questions in mind and I believe that being exposed to different ideas and theories about how we became the species that we are today can open our mind and be an encouragement to search for answers. Although taking a biological anthropology class made me doubt my faith and old beliefs, I think that it made me learn even more about my religion by forcing me to go back to the source and search for answers.

Discovering Biological Anthropology

As a student of mechanical engineering I have been taking all science classes related to my major and didn’t really have to take any biology related classes which makes me feel incredibly lucky since I have a pretty bad memory. Last summer I was informed by my academic adviser that I wasn’t all that lucky and that in order to graduate from sixth college I had to take at least one course in biological sciences area. I had taken one biology class before and despite my enormous amount of effort to get a passing grade I had failed the class and so taking a biology class was not an option for me. I decided to take a psychology class because my friend who had taken it before told me that it was a pretty easy class and so I went ahead and took that class expecting an A + or in worst case scenario a B+.  Two weeks into the class I changed my grading option to pass/no pass realizing that psychology was not something that I could get a good looking grade in. About halfway through class I just really wasn’t so sure if I would be able to pass the class and at the end I ended up not getting a passing grade. Having failed both  biology and psychology classes, I had no other option but taking my chances with anthropology class which I expected to be as horrible as those two other classes. The first thing I did after enrolling in anthropology course was changing my grading option to pass/no pas fearing and expecting to have a hard time memorizing all those long and difficult scientific names.

Evolution of human

The first day of class I was very much surprised that I actually loved what biological anthropology was all about. I was so interested in the topics covered that memorizing those scientific names was not a pain any more.  What was amazing about this class was that although I had previously heard about Darwin and his evolution theory, I had never actually read about the scientific evidence that back this theory up.  The word “Evolution” as many of you already know refers to changes that occur over time in proportion of individual organisms differing in one or more inherited traits. Evolution explains how a specific specie can physically change over time and what causes these changes to occur. In 1858 the theory of natural selection  as a driving mechanism of such changes was first proposed  by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. Natural selection is a process in which some traits become either more common or uncommon due to environmental effects and is key to species survival especially when dramatic changes occur in habitats of those species.  

 As you can see in the pictures below, people living in central part of Africa are tall and thin verses Eskimos who are much shorter and have more body fat to protect them from cold. The differences that exist between these two populations demonstrates how natural selection helps species to adapt to their environment and survive in harsh conditions that others will definitely not be able to survive in.

Native Africans

Eskimos

I'm absolutely glad that I ended up taking this class since it stimulated a lot of thinking and doubting which I benefited from. I feel like I grew as a person by exposing myself to something that was way off my mind at the time and learned so much about human evolution and as a person who was a nonbeliever of evolution I suggest other nonbelievers to look into the evidence, ask questions and search for the answers to find out more about evolution.