So, if humans evolved from apes... sorry, ancient non-human apes, then why didn't all the other non-human apes evolve into humans?
They didn't, for the same reason that not all fish went on land and became quadrupeds, not all unicellular became multicellular, not all animals became vertebrates, not all archosaurs became birds. For the same reason why not all flowers become daisies, not all insects become ants, not all mushrooms become porcini, not all viruses become flu viruses. Each type of living creature is unique and appears only once. The evolutionary history of each species is determined by many causes and depends on innumerable accidents. It is quite unbelievable that two evolving species (for example, two different species of monkeys) have exactly the same fate and come to the same result (for example, both turned into a man). It is as incredible as the fact that two writers will write two identical novels without agreeing, or that two identical peoples speaking the same language will independently arise on two different continents.
It seems to me that this question is often asked simply because they think: well, how can it be, because being a person is more fun than jumping through branches without pants. The question is based on at least two errors. First, he suggests that evolution has some goal to which it is striving relentlessly, or at least some "main direction." Some people think that evolution always moves from the simple to the complex. The movement from simple to complex in biology is called progress. But evolutionary progress is not a general rule; it is not typical for all living beings, but only for a small part of them. Many animals and plants in the course of evolution do not become more complicated, but, on the contrary, are simplified - and at the same time they feel great. In addition, in the history of the development of life on earth, it happened much more often that a new species did not replace the old ones, but was added to them. As a result, the total number of species on the planet gradually increased. Many species died out, but even more new ones appeared. So is man - added to the primates, to other monkeys, and did not replace them.
Secondly, many people mistakenly believe that man is precisely the goal towards which evolution has always striven. But biologists have not found any evidence for this assumption. Of course, if we look at our family tree, we will see something very similar to the movement towards a predetermined goal - from unicellular to the first animals, then to the first chordates, the first fish, the first quadrupeds, then to the ancient synapsids, the animal-toothed lizards, the first mammals , placental, primates, monkeys, anthropoid and, finally, to humans. But if we look at the pedigree of any other species - for example, a mosquito or a dolphin - we will see exactly the same "purposeful" movement, but not towards a person, but towards a mosquito or a dolphin.
By the way, our genealogies with the mosquito coincide all the way from unicellular to primitive worm-like animals and only then diverge. With the dolphin, we have more common ancestors: our pedigree begins to differ from the dolphin only at the level of ancient placental mammals, and our more and more ancient ancestors are at the same time the ancestors of the dolphin. We are pleased to consider ourselves "the pinnacle of evolution", but the mosquito and the dolphin have no less reason to consider themselves the pinnacle of evolution, and not us. Each of the living species is the same peak of evolution as we are. Each of them has the same long evolutionary history, each boasting many diverse and amazing ancestors.
How scientific is the Darwinian theory of the origin of species?
Fight for non-existence
Russian schoolchildren once again celebrated the Day of Knowledge. From this very day, they will begin to study the same unreformed Soviet school curriculum, which, if it has changed in some way, is only in terms of the humanities ... As for the natural sciences, there is a truly amazing constancy. Schoolchildren who started seventh grade in September 2000 will pound Darwin's theory of evolution just as much as their parents, the very ancestors from whom they descended.
For God's sake, get us right. No one calls for the Law of God to be returned to school (although such and such attempts have just been made) or for students to be presented with all sorts of pseudo-scientific hypotheses, which modern home-grown occultism offers us in such abundance. From Blavatsky and the Roerichs, from any charlatanism, the school must be cleansed in the most ruthless way. But Darwin's evolutionary theory (although to call this working hypothesis a theory means overpaying it quite a lot) has long been no longer considered the only one. Moreover, the last hundred years have shaken it like no other fashionable hypothesis of those times. Darwin got even more from history than Marx. However, all this is not the same trouble, and you never know nonsense was driven into children's heads during the Soviet era - but, firstly, at the next change of course, this nonsense was burned out with a red-hot iron. No mention of Trofim Lysenko and a minimum of information about Michurin - this is the result of the Khrushchev "thaw"; but then, before the formation, someone else cared and the program was timely relieved of rudiments and atavisms. And secondly, Darwin's evolutionary theory is a stage not only in the history of science, but, alas, in the history of ethics as well. The struggle for existence as the main engine of progress is a bloodthirsty and dangerous delusion. Darwin was strongly objected to by his contemporary, the famous Russian anarchist Kropotkin, who, on the basis of vast factual material, concluded that in the animal world mutual assistance is no less than the notorious struggle. This skirmish - by no means only scientific - shook the world for more than one decade, in Alexander Melikhov's recent novel "Humpbacked Atlanteans" it is described with almost detective fascination. The notorious Russian philosopher Nikolai Lossky, based on the facts collected by Kropotkin, built a whole alternative theory, according to which the only engine of progress was good. In general, Soviet journalism squealed in vain something about the fiercest struggle for survival in capitalist countries. Darwinism was adopted precisely by the Soviet government - as a justification for its countless atrocities. This is where the fittest truly survived! However, of course, not the strongest. Fittest.
Darwin's theory, which declared adaptation to be the main condition for survival, the most necessary virtue, was generally ideal for Soviet pedagogy. In Darwin, man looked like an exceptionally cruel, cunning crawling creature, which feature of evolutionary theory was recently illustrated by Victor Pelevin in his elegant story "The Origin of Species". There, Darwin, in the hold of the Beagle, on which he made his famous journey, kills a giant monkey with his bare hands in order to prove his species superiority over it and substantiate the theory of the struggle for existence. Long then spitting wool. However, facts are a stubborn thing, and if Darwin's theory were at least somewhat conclusive, one would have to come to terms with just such an idea of human nature. Meanwhile, it is precisely the actual confirmation of the main Darwinian conclusions that have successfully collapsed in recent years. This does not mean that the hypothesis has been completely refuted. In the end, nothing more harmonious (except for the creationist myth - the hypothesis of creation) has not yet been invented. It only means that presenting Darwinism as the final truth is no longer possible today. It is necessary, finally, to explain to the children that they did not descend from a monkey. Perhaps this will keep them from some next muck.
Let us recall in general terms the main provisions of this theory, which for so long was presented to our schoolchildren as the only and all-explaining one. First, matter tends to self-organize and self-complex under the influence of external forces, which is why more complex organisms develop from less complex ones. Secondly, inanimate matter tends to become alive and further self-complex already in an animated form. Finally, thirdly, living organisms have the ability to adapt to the conditions of life. For the first time, this bright thought dawned on Darwin when he observed the evolution of the beak of the Galapagos dives.
Everything would be fine, but here's the problem: the species of living organisms that exist now are completely isolated. That is, with significant variability within a species, they still never change enough to move from one species to another. Therefore, the main postulate of evolutionary theory - the variability of species - is not experimentally verified in any way. But, perhaps, something similar could happen in previous historical eras, under the influence of cataclysms, and who knows what else? Then archeology could help out the Darwinists, but it is in no hurry to help them. All one hundred and forty years that have passed since the publication of the theory (1859), archaeologists dug like moles, day and night, without a lunch break, but did not find anything that could console Darwin. The British compatriots were especially let down: the London Geological Society and the Paleontological Association of England undertook a broad study of modern archaeological data, and this is what the head of this project, John Moore (by the way, is also a professor at the University of Michigan), said: “About 120 specialists prepared 30 chapters of monumental work. .. Fossil plants and animals are divided into about 2500 groups. Each major form or species has been shown to have a distinct, distinct history. Groups of plants and animals SUDDENLY appeared in the fossil record. Whales, bats, elephants, squirrels, ground squirrels are as different at their first appearance as they are now. There is no trace of a common ancestor, even less visibility of a transitional link with reptiles.
The enlightened reader, if he has not completely forgotten the school curriculum, will certainly be amazed. But what about the transitional forms, the ape-men walking around the pages of Soviet (and basically unchanged) anatomy textbooks? What to do with all these eoanthropes, hesperopithecines, who generally turned out to be a pig, because they were reconstructed from a pig's tooth, Australopithecus? Sinanthropus, finally?
Yes, they do not need to go anywhere. Because they were not in nature. There is no transitional link between ape and man, just as we do not have any rudiments. Here, science has dug up a lot of things since Darwin's time: almost all organs that Darwin considered rudimentary, that is, those that had lost their functions, were successfully found these functions. The appendix also has them, and even the Darwinian tubercle, which we have, if you remember, on the ear.
The pithecanthropus, invented by the zoologist Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel, a professor at the University of Jena, laid the groundwork for a long line of "monkey-like ancestors". To discover Pithecanthropus, a scientist with a long name did not need to leave his native places: he simply invented him together with the “eoanthrope” (“man of the dawn” - which arose at the dawn of time, therefore). The scientific world did not appreciate Haeckel, his scientific career ended ingloriously, and he devoted the rest of his life to preaching social Darwinism in the workers' quarters. But a young Dutch doctor with a courageous and inspired face, not in the least like a monkey, caught fire with Haeckel's theory and decided to find Pithecanthropus. The young scientist's name was Dubois, and his task was extremely simple: to find suitable remains and correctly interpret them. Which he did, going to Indonesia as a civilian surgeon for the colonial troops. In principle, such self-sacrifice, which had nothing to do with mercenary motives, should have alerted Dubois himself, made him assume that man does not live by bread alone, and even more so by more than one struggle for survival ... but Darwinism turned and not such heads.
Our hero arrived in the Malay Archipelago and started searching. There was nothing suitable in Sumatra. Soon Dubois hears a rumor about a human skull found on the island of Java. He moves there, finds another petrified skull in Java - but he is interested in the missing link, and he removes the skulls for a while, while he continues to study the deposits. Soon he discovers a petrified monkey tooth, and after digging for another month, he stumbles upon the skull cap of a gibbon.
Note that Dubois understood from the very beginning that the lid belongs to the gibbon. But in his dreams, he had already planted it on the skull of a Pithecanthropus. True, he stumbled upon the bones of other representatives of the animal world, but this worried him the least. The monkey part of the ape-man had already been found, it remained to find the human, preferably the lower one. Only a year later, when Dubois himself began to doubt the success of the enterprise, a tibia was found fifteen (!) meters from the previously found skull cap. Human. Pithecanthropus was strongly swept away - it was blown up. The owner of the bone was a woman, moreover, full and suffering from a serious bone disease, with which the animal would not last long - and the fossil aunt lived a long life. This just testified to her belonging to the human race, showing non-Darwinian care for their feeble members. Dubois, however, was not embarrassed by all this: with a gigantic effort of will, he combined a tooth, a skull cap and a tibia - and he got the famous “Javanese man”. Hiding four more human tibia, discovered right there, Dubois waits a year and finally sends a telegram to the mainland informing his colleagues about the great discovery. The conservatives did not understand anything and began to pester with questions: after all, bones of crocodiles, hyenas, rhinos, pigs and even stegodons were found at the same excavation site. Why was it not possible to attach a human tibia to a hyena's skull? The luminary of comparative anatomy, Professor Rudolf Virchow, spoke categorically about the skull cap: "This animal is most likely a giant gibbon, and the tibia has nothing to do with it." Of course, if the scientific world had known about the hidden human skulls, Dubois would not have been taken seriously at all. After all, this would indicate that the ancient man peacefully coexisted with his giant ancestor. But Dubois hid all the other fossils safely. And yet, despite all the measures he took, he never achieved scientific and public recognition. Then the ambitious man took refuge from "ignorant colleagues" and only occasionally snapped in response to the accusations. In a voluntary retreat, he sat until 1920, until Professor Smith announced that he had discovered the remains of the most ancient people in Australia. Here Dubois could not stand it - after all, he dreamed of going down in history as a discoverer! He found the most ancient skulls, not some Smith! It was then that Dubois presented to the stunned public the rest of the skulls and other tibias. Nobody expected this! The discoverer of the "Javanese Man" led the public by the nose! So the myth of the "Javanese man" burst with a bang to be reborn on the pages of the works of Soviet scientists. Open the textbook of 1993, but not simple, but for grades 10-11, for schools with IN-DEPTH study of biology, and you will find out that “the Dutch anthropologist Eugene Dubois (1858-1940) INCREDIBLY PROVED the correctness of Charles Darwin’s theory of the origin man from animals related to the higher apes. We don't know about Dubois, but the textbook irrefutably proved that someone still really wants to see only monkeys around him ... 1Let's take an eoanthrope. It was strangely discovered at all: all the evidence of his belonging to the glorious tribe of ape-men was dug up in Piltdowne. As needed, the missing details of the jaw were torn off until they were accumulated on a full-fledged exhibit. Oxford experts surprisingly quickly recognized the authenticity of the find, the staff of the British Museum with suspicious haste took it all for safekeeping, and anthropologists who studied the phenomenon of "Piltdown Man" were given only plaster casts of the remains. For forty years the scientific world lived as an eoanthrope, breathed and dreamed as an eoanthrope - until one fine day in 1953 everything collapsed. Anthropologists were provided with authentic Eoanthrope bones for analysis for fluorine. The British Museum simply relaxed, and the Piltdown find was immediately exposed as a fake! An almost modern orangutan jaw with “false”, slightly tinted teeth was attached to an ancient human skull! The scientific world was tearing its hair out. Hundreds of monographs, thousands of dissertations went to waste! That would be when Soviet scientists talk about the venality of bourgeois science. But Darwin was dearer to us. A similar story happened with the Sinanthropus found by Chinese comrades. Fourteen skulls with holes without a single bone of the skeleton were interpreted as the remains of ape-like ancestors. At the same time, not a word was said about the fact that they were found in an ancient lime-burning factory. Who would, I wonder, burned her there? Grasshoppers? Eared owl? Hardly. Most likely, ordinary Homo sapiens worked at the factory, who feasted on the brains of the Sinanthropus during their lunch break. And not a single bone of it was found because monkey meat is unsuitable for food because of its rigidity - but their brain is considered a delicacy in many cultures. Holes in the backs of the "Synanthropes" are by no means evidence that their comrades dealt with them to the full extent of the revolutionary time. It was just the way monkey brains were taken out. Realizing that it would not be possible to carry out a similar operation with the scientific world, the synanthropological lobby considered it good to lose the famous remains under unclear circumstances. So there are no traces of Sinanthropus anywhere else, except in Russian biology textbooks. In general, there is not a single scientifically proven fact of the transition from ape to man. But the textbooks are silent about this - defending the evolutionary theory long ago acquired a religious character. Darwin himself would envy the stubbornness of his current followers: “I am sure that there is hardly a single point in this book to which it is impossible to pick up facts leading to directly opposite conclusions,” he wrote in the preface to the first edition of his On the Origin of Species. . Most soberly, it seems, the current state of minds in Russian biology was assessed by I.L. Cohen, Leading Scientist, National Archaeological Institute, USA:
“It is not the task of science to defend the theory of evolution. If, in the process of impartial scientific discussion, it turns out that the hypothesis of creation by an external superintelligence is the solution to our problem, let's cut the umbilical cord that linked us to Darwin for so long. It suffocates and delays us."
And if the external superintelligence has nothing to do with it? So please. Present facts, argue, prove. But for God's sake, do not present to the student as the final truth the rather controversial and insulting hypothesis that he descended from a monkey, and that, in turn, from a ciliate shoe. And then the student, perhaps, will think three times before participating in the persecution of the smartest in the class. He even reads a book in his spare time. And he will finally see in himself the likeness of some more merciful creature than a giant gibbon...
Magazine "Spark"
September 2000
(given in abbreviation)
Recent studies have proven that the gap between animal and human is not as great as it seemed before. It turned out that the ability for languages and logical thinking is by no means a monopoly of people; even a monkey can learn to speak. However, these discoveries do not answer the question: what is the uniqueness of our mind? As old ideas are being destroyed, this question becomes more and more complex.
Dahl's dictionary considers the mind to be "a spiritual force that can remember, think, apply, compare and conclude." And also, that it is "the ability of a true, consistent connection of thoughts ...". But today it is already obvious that in most of these points some animals do not differ much from humans. This seriously shook the previously existing ideas about the limits of the human mind.
Back in the early twentieth century, the experiments of the German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler clearly proved that animals are not just living automatons, completely subordinate to the instincts-programs embedded in them. When the experimental monkey was unable to knock down a banana with a stick or just reach for it, she thought for a while, and then put one on top of the boxes scattered around and climbed up on them. It turned out that animals can solve problems in their minds and develop new behaviors. Later, it was also proved that animals have a good memory - for example, house mice can remember the location of objects in a room.
But an even bigger breakthrough came in the seventies, when the work of the spouses Alain and Beatrice Gardner, who taught the animal to talk, became a real scientific sensation. In the forty-three years of her life, their chimpanzee Washoe learned about 250 words in Amslen, the American language of the deaf and dumb. Moreover, the monkey not only repeated the gestures after the people, but also thought them up, composing their own phrases. So, one of the workers on the farm where she lived, Washoe called "dirty Jack", independently guessing to use the adjective "dirty" as an insult. In fact, she showed the rudiments of creative abilities.
Subsequently, it turned out that the monkeys are able to master up to two thousand words, they can play on the computer and even take care of pets. Gorilla Koko solves intelligence tests and shows a high level of solution, comparable to that of an average person.
At the same time, observations have shown that in nature, monkeys communicate with each other using their own means of communication, and dolphins not only exchange complex signals, but also “invent” unique call signs for each other.
And although monkeys brought up with people, mastering a simplified version of the human language, did not rise above the level of three-year-old children, the main thing was shown - the ability to master languages and logically comprehend reality are not a unique feature of a person.
“All animals adapt to the environment they enter,” says Varvara Meshik, PhD in Biology, head of the Primates Department at the Moscow Zoo. - Experiments have shown that monkeys can really master a primitive language and even learn to play on a computer, but only on condition that their communication with a person was sufficiently dense and began at an early age. And at the same time, we have reverse examples, the so-called Mowgli. All their stories ended tragically - none of them managed to become a full-fledged person. The development of the mental abilities of both man and many animals, at least higher mammals, is greatly influenced by the external environment. If a child has not heard human speech before the age of three, he will not learn to speak and will not be able to live independently in human society. Anthropoids reveal their potential "conversational" abilities in a special environment of communication with a person, and in nature they can easily do without them. The basis of thinking is the activity of neurons, which are similarly arranged and work in a similar way in humans and animals. Man matures and develops twice as long as an ape, because his brain is more complex and he needs to master much more.
It turns out that there is no fundamental difference between the intellect of man and monkey?
“Modern science is far from drawing such radical conclusions,” says Elena Neprintseva, Ph.D., a specialist in animal behavior. - Of course, in higher animals one can find the prerequisites for the formation of many of those abilities that a person possesses. And perhaps the difference here is in the degree of their development. But still, although most of the behavioral mechanisms that animals have can be found in humans, in humans they are under the control of higher brain functions. It is probably this higher control that distinguishes human behavior from that of animals.”
So what is this mysterious “higher control” that guides our existence? Why did he awaken in us the abilities that are “dormant” in animals, why did he inspire us to create science, art and philosophy?
Modern science does not answer these questions. Indeed, for this it is necessary at least to clearly understand the psychology and train of thought of animals, and this is not so easy to do.
“Some scientists believe that it is impossible to study the psyche of animals, since a person can get information about the sensations and “thoughts” of animals only indirectly, because a dog cannot be interviewed,” says Elena Neprintseva. “We don’t understand the logic of other living beings yet.”
Arguing about exactly how an animal thinks, we are trying to apply to it, in one way or another, a tracing paper of our own human logic. To what extent is the desire of an animal to conform to the order of the pack comparable to the desire of a person to live according to the laws of his society? The attachment of a dog to a person is obvious, but can it be called “love” or is it just submission to the leader in the pack? Are animals aware of their own mortality? One thing is clear: such questions arise only in humans. A monkey may ask a man for a banana, but even a talking monkey will not experiment on a man out of a pure desire for truth. Our genuine interest in understanding our smaller brothers is one of the evidences of our legitimate seniority.
Alexey SOKOLOV
Perhaps this question will seem childish, but in fact, the biggest scientific figures have been breaking their heads over it for many decades now. Nobody expects other primates to instantly compose and read a poem, but why doesn't the informational level of their sound expressions at least come close to human?
Or rather, why are the sounds of our closest relatives no closer to human speech than the communication methods of a number of species far more distant from us?
Some creatures, including those as exotic as parrots and elephants, can learn to imitate human speech. Primates, on the other hand, even hominids, after years of training, are only capable of a few whispered attempts.
Over time, two competing theories have taken hold to explain the "non-speaking primate" paradox. Either their brain is to blame, which is not developed enough to cope with complex communication close to human, or the structure of the vocal cords, larynx and oral cavity of monkeys does not allow to reproduce the wide range of sounds that the human throat is capable of.
Context
The implant put the monkey on its feet
The New York Times November 10, 2016Don't be afraid, we won't turn into monkeys
Haykakan zhamanak 16.11.2012Who was Bigfoot?
Daily Mail 07.04.2015To the cat we are just monkeys
Wired Magazine 03.11.2014Of course, the explanation could be somewhere in between. Perhaps primates have excellent organs for producing sounds, but their brains are not able to control them. Let's simplify the situation to two extremes for the purposes of this article.
Charles Darwin was also an ardent supporter of the first theory. Most scientists were confident in this theory up to the end of the 60s of the last century. The other side outweighed after the publication of a famous article by the American researcher F. H. Lieberman and his colleagues, who carefully examined the oral cavity and larynx of a dead macaque and made a plaster model of it. It was measured and the resulting data entered into a computer to find out how wide a range of sounds a monkey can make.
The result surprised everyone: the sound capabilities of macaques are extremely limited and do not even come close to human ones. Even if the monkey brain were sufficient for complex speech, for purely mechanical reasons, macaques would not be able to cope with it. The results of experiments with other methods of communication, such as signs, have also shown that hominids are able to communicate quite well. So the second theory entered the textbooks.
There are mechanical possibilities, the problem is different
But the most recent research by a group of European and American biologists proves that F. H. Lieberman "miscalculated" significantly. A team led by a professor named William Tecumseh Fitch (if his name seems strange to you, then know that his full name is William Tecumseh Sherman Fitch the Third and he is a direct descendant of the famous general during the war of the North and South), instead of the corpse of a monkey and a plaster model, they studied a live macaque and used advanced x-rays.
First, the scientists taught the monkey to sit during the scan, and then, with the help of X-rays, photographed its throat during various activities: while screaming, while eating, and a variety of facial expressions. In total, 99 different positions of the vocal cords, muscles and tissues were identified in the macaque. The resulting spectrum of sounds corresponding to human vowels practically did not differ from human capabilities. The computer even gave scientists the ability to synthesize certain sentences the way a monkey's throat would pronounce them.
By clicking on this link, for example, you can listen to the sentence "Will you marry me?" (“Will you marry me?”) and independently assess how understandable the hypothetical monkey speech is. According to most English-speaking observers, the sentence is as intelligible as if it were spoken by a person with a foreign accent.
In a slightly more detailed experiment, the scientists asked a computer model of a monkey's throat to synthesize five of the most diverse vowels it could possibly produce (they roughly corresponded to our i, e, a, u, o). Independent observers were then asked which of these sounds seemed to them to be different vowels.
The results did not differ from the perception of human languages. Moreover, five different vowels is the norm, and in some languages three is enough. It turned out to be more difficult to perceive the consonants pronounced by the monkey. However, she could almost say p, b, k, and g, as well as h, m, and v, almost 100%.
So it is practically proved that from a purely mechanical point of view, nothing prevents hominids from correctly imitating human speech. Although their abilities do not completely match ours (for example, macaques would not be able to pronounce i), but people would understand their speech without any problems. Moreover, macaques' ability estimates are very conservative, and if they were trained, they would easily reach human "heights". So the explanation for the lack of at least some form of speech in monkeys is connected, apparently, with their brain.
Is it possible to create thinking creatures from primates? Recently, fans of science fiction have appreciated the next film adaptation of the cult novel by French science fiction writer Pierre Boulle Planet of the Apes. In the new Hollywood movie version of Planet of the Apes: War, retrovirus-modified primates wage war against the remnants of humanity. Scattered tribes of feral people are opposed by riding chimpanzees, gorilla submachine gunners and orangutan engineers.
Meanwhile, it is well known that in history there were attempts to cross a monkey and a man in order to get a thinking creature with colossal physical capabilities, a kind of "universal soldier". Scientists are still discussing the ambiguous results of these strange experiments and are wondering: can something described by Boole happen in reality?
Sinister dystopian realism
The idea of the “kingdom of intelligent primates” was suggested to Boole by his compatriot novelist and philosopher Jean Marcel Brüller (Vercors). In 1952, his artistic and philosophical novel “People or Animals?” was published, which told about the discovery somewhere in Southeast Asia of a fictional living “intermediate link” between a monkey and a man. After 11 years, Buhl's novel saw the light of day, in which Vercor's moral reflections were replaced by the dizzying adventures of the cosmonaut Ulysses Meru, who fell into a "time loop". "Chronoclasm" threw him into the distant future, where the Earth experienced a terrible catastrophe and it was ruled by gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees, copying everything that remained in their memory from the culture of their former masters. Meanwhile, people have turned into stone age savages.
High marks for the sinister realism of Boole's dystopia are explained by his deep interest in scientific work on the behavior of higher primates. In his book one finds the original but completely unscientific idea that higher mammals like chimpanzees and dolphins have a "secret language of sounds and signs" hidden from humans.
Nevertheless, it is well known that all urban legends about intelligent animals have long been refuted by science and there are indisputable reasons why the same primates cannot assimilate human culture.
The evolution of speech and language
In reality, the culture of communication requires speech, and the appearance of the speech apparatus requires millions of years of evolution. Once upon a time, the ancestors of man and modern anthropoids diverged forever, and today their physiology is in no way suitable for articulate speech.
In an impasse with "intelligent" primates, the "Bule retrovirus" would hardly have helped either. The fact is that in modern primates it is impossible to “inflate the spark of the mind” without a developed speech apparatus, which no viral infection can create.
All this is confirmed by experiments with animals. So, in the 40s of the last century, a family of physiologists raised chimpanzees. But no matter how hard the scientists tried, the monkey learned only four monosyllabic words - mum (“mother”), dad (“daddy”), sir (“cup”) and up (“up”). At the same time, she was brought up in the same way as the child of physiologists. The experiment had to be urgently stopped when the mental development of the chimpanzee reached its peak and stopped, but the child began to copy the sounds made by the monkey and its antics.
Subsequently, several scientists tried to teach primates the sign language of the deaf and dumb. However, even in these experiments, the monkeys did not show knowledge of the language. They could only remember the meaning of individual characters, but were completely unable to learn the rules of grammar. The highest and still unsurpassed achievement of the “hand-speaking monkeys” is the phrase of the chimpanzee Nick: “Give me an orange, give me an orange, eat an orange, give me an orange, give me you.”
War Craft
All of this applies directly to the very complex "social" behavior of monkeys in Boole's novel and especially as presented in the latest Hollywood blockbuster. As its name suggests, the primates mostly fight there, and war is never just a massive aggression. During the war, tactics and strategy are very important, not to mention the discipline in the army.
According to research, this level of cooperation and mutual understanding is completely absent in higher animals, including primates.
Even when it comes to mimic monkeys, there is no evidence that they can learn new behaviors in the same way that barbarians successfully adopted Roman military tactics.
Therefore, it is understandable why Boole in his novel paid so much attention to the principle of imitation. If you look at it, we are all descendants of the longest chain of imitators who, thanks to the art of copying useful knowledge, were able to survive among the dangers of the primitive world and avoid danger. Today, this ability is manifested in empathy - empathy, thanks to which the same film about the planet of the apes evokes so many emotions. Without these abilities, we would watch films like sociopaths, equally indifferent to both good and bad characters.
It turns out that it was thanks to imitation that our ancestors learned how to butcher meat, kindle a fire, and make tools for labor and hunting. And now, hundreds of thousands of years later, movie actors demonstrate the same abilities, brilliantly imitating the movements of primates in a blockbuster about a planet occupied by intelligent primates.
The great secret of evolution
So, it turns out that Vercors and Boule were fundamentally wrong. Human culture, which has been created bit by bit for many millennia, is an insurmountable stumbling block for the development of any terrestrial animals. Very interesting conclusions follow from this.
Firstly, the death of mankind will mean the disappearance of reason not only on Earth, but also in the solar system, and perhaps in our entire galactic sector.
Secondly, there will be no war between primates on Earth. In order for it to start, other animal species must go through an equally long process of evolution.
Thirdly, all fantasy about intelligent macaques, not to mention amoebas and insects, will forever remain fiction.
And here the “great evolutionary question” arises: why does the informational level of primate sounds in no way approach human speech?
However, some creatures, such as parrots and elephants, can learn to imitate human speech. Primates, on the contrary, even after many years of training, are only capable of a few monosyllabic “words”, which they use purely “selfishly” and not always correctly.
Over time, two competing theories have taken hold to explain the "non-speaking primate" paradox. Either their brain is to blame, which is not developed enough to cope with complex communication close to human, or the structure of the vocal cords, larynx and oral cavity of monkeys does not allow to reproduce the wide range of sounds that the human throat is capable of.
Charles Darwin's hypothesis
However, it is possible that primates have excellent organs for producing sounds, but their brain is not able to control them. Charles Darwin was also a supporter of this idea. Most scientists were confident in this theory up to the end of the 60s of the last century.
Another group of physiologists, led by the famous American professor F. X. Lieberman, carefully examined the oral cavity and larynx of the macaque, creating its exact plaster model. It was measured and the resulting data was entered into a computer to find out what sounds the monkey could, in principle, make.
The most recent studies by a group of European and American biologists prove that F. X. Lieberman "miscalculated" significantly. The team, led by Professor William Fitch, instead of using a plaster model, examined a live macaque under x-rays. Then an electronic model of the monkey's larynx was created.
In total, 99 different positions of the vocal cords and laryngeal muscles were identified in the macaque. The range of sounds that could be reproduced with the help of such a voice apparatus was practically no different from those that a person reproduces. The computer even gave scientists the ability to synthesize certain sentences the way an ape would pronounce them. According to experts, in the role of Oxford and Cambridge philology students, the computer “monkey phrases” were as clear as if they were spoken by a foreigner.
