Killer Apes
We humans, by and large, have a tendency (and an
extreme tendency at that) to separate ourselves from the rest of the animal world. There
is the "human" by which we mean us, and there is the "animal," by which we mean all other
creatures on the planet other than ourselves. Anthropologists, biologists, zoologists,
and most geneticists do not do this, however. These disciplines know that the word
"animal" is not one merely of popular nomenclature, but, rather, it is a popular generation of a
scientific one---namely, the word "Animalia." Animalia is one of the five largest biological
classifications into which all known lifeforms on our planet are grouped (the other four being
Protera, Monera, Plantae, and Fungi). Any flesh and blood creeping thing upon this earth
belongs to Kingdom Animalia and is, thus, an animal. Our particular taxonomy:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum : Chordata
Class : Mammalia
Order : Primata
Family : Pongidea
Genus : Pan
Species : Troglodytes
The most casual glance at the two taxonomies reveal that the human and (his closest living relative) the chimpanzee do not divulge along the tree of biological similarity until you get down to the most specific of their characteristics.
Creationists (and other non-evolutionist thinkers) assert that (and this assertion is evident if their arguments are followed to their logical conclusions) these similarities are merely coincidence---that scientists connect dots that aren't there, and that any pattern can be discerned if one merely looks hard enough and is willing to deceive enough people. There is a willingness to believe the most fantastical stories without a shred of evidence while vehemently and passionately denying what all evidence unearthed, whether it be anthropological evidence, genetic evidence, any evidence whatsoever, tells us must be true.
Whatever the creationist looks at, it always seems that two plus two equals everything BUT four.
It is my assertion, though, that evolution IS the mechanism by which all creatures have come to be what they are. Mankind and his relative, the chimpanzee---indeed, all of the apes descended from a common ancestor.
In the case of man, though, mainstays in our character seem to point to the fact that when our branch did start to diverge from that of the rest of Order Primata (the Primates), somewhere in our evolutionary chain is a supremely vicious and predatious ancestor that very strongly contributed to our gene pool.
Man is rapacious in the extreme. He is the only animal that routinely kills for sport, the only animal that will injure another living being to the severity of death for no other reason than to see that life expunged. When the rest of the animal world hunts, it is done for survival. Man will do it for a trophy. Man cannot seem to shake this penchant for violence, and he is extremely good at it. His world has been shaped much more often than not by viscious, sanguinary conflict than by reasoned, pacific compromise.
Why is this? Why is man plagued by this tendency to kill? (I mean this to apply to our species as a whole, not to individual members of it who do not believe in killing.)
I believe that it is because we have descended from an apelike ancestor that was an efficient, vicious, and fearsomely predatious killer. The reason that these killer tendencies manifest themselves the way they do now is that our brains developed the facility of our higher cognitive functions, and though we can recognize the inherent destructiveness of our sanguininity, we simultaneously invent reasons worthy of engaging in that very same destructiveness.
Man's brain is a marvelous organ--the mystery of our consciousness even more marvelous, still. We shape our world in godlike leaps and bounds, and yet, for every peacful application of our technological advancement, there can be found two--- or three or four---
weaponizations of those advances. We will not stop our killing---of the other animals that share this world and make it such a varied and wonderful place, of the trees and shrubs and foliage that provide our earth's beautiful verdure---or, of each other; human beings, our very own selves.
Killing and violence and all of the aggressive tendencies that make us as much the scourge of this planet as it does its marvel, must come from somewhere---we must get them from somewhere.
And, rather than believe that it is some fallen angel bent on my destruction that whispers deadly nothings into my ear, I much prefer a much more likely bequether of whom I am a descendant.
We humans, by and large, have a tendency to separate ourselves from the rest of the animal world. There is the "human" by which we mean us, and there is the "animal," by which we mean all other creatures on the planet other than ourselves. But, we ARE animals--- we are members of the community of all apes generally...and we, ourselves, are killer apes, specifically.
Isn't it at least possible?
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum : Chordata
Class : Mammalia
Order :Primata
Family :Hominidae
Genus :Homo
Species :Sapiens
The animal world abounds with evidence that so strongly suggests interelatedness of its members that it is only by the most obscure and unscientific of reasonings that we can be separated from the exact same processes, and the exact same types of results of those processes, that inexorably influence all of Kingdom Animalia's developments.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum : Chordata
Class : Mammalia
Order : Primata
Family : Pongidea
Genus : Pan
Species : Troglodytes
The most casual glance at the two taxonomies reveal that the human and (his closest living relative) the chimpanzee do not divulge along the tree of biological similarity until you get down to the most specific of their characteristics.
Creationists (and other non-evolutionist thinkers) assert that (and this assertion is evident if their arguments are followed to their logical conclusions) these similarities are merely coincidence---that scientists connect dots that aren't there, and that any pattern can be discerned if one merely looks hard enough and is willing to deceive enough people. There is a willingness to believe the most fantastical stories without a shred of evidence while vehemently and passionately denying what all evidence unearthed, whether it be anthropological evidence, genetic evidence, any evidence whatsoever, tells us must be true.
Whatever the creationist looks at, it always seems that two plus two equals everything BUT four.
It is my assertion, though, that evolution IS the mechanism by which all creatures have come to be what they are. Mankind and his relative, the chimpanzee---indeed, all of the apes descended from a common ancestor.
In the case of man, though, mainstays in our character seem to point to the fact that when our branch did start to diverge from that of the rest of Order Primata (the Primates), somewhere in our evolutionary chain is a supremely vicious and predatious ancestor that very strongly contributed to our gene pool.
Man is rapacious in the extreme. He is the only animal that routinely kills for sport, the only animal that will injure another living being to the severity of death for no other reason than to see that life expunged. When the rest of the animal world hunts, it is done for survival. Man will do it for a trophy. Man cannot seem to shake this penchant for violence, and he is extremely good at it. His world has been shaped much more often than not by viscious, sanguinary conflict than by reasoned, pacific compromise.
Why is this? Why is man plagued by this tendency to kill? (I mean this to apply to our species as a whole, not to individual members of it who do not believe in killing.)
I believe that it is because we have descended from an apelike ancestor that was an efficient, vicious, and fearsomely predatious killer. The reason that these killer tendencies manifest themselves the way they do now is that our brains developed the facility of our higher cognitive functions, and though we can recognize the inherent destructiveness of our sanguininity, we simultaneously invent reasons worthy of engaging in that very same destructiveness.
Man's brain is a marvelous organ--the mystery of our consciousness even more marvelous, still. We shape our world in godlike leaps and bounds, and yet, for every peacful application of our technological advancement, there can be found two--- or three or four---
weaponizations of those advances. We will not stop our killing---of the other animals that share this world and make it such a varied and wonderful place, of the trees and shrubs and foliage that provide our earth's beautiful verdure---or, of each other; human beings, our very own selves.
Killing and violence and all of the aggressive tendencies that make us as much the scourge of this planet as it does its marvel, must come from somewhere---we must get them from somewhere.
And, rather than believe that it is some fallen angel bent on my destruction that whispers deadly nothings into my ear, I much prefer a much more likely bequether of whom I am a descendant.
We humans, by and large, have a tendency to separate ourselves from the rest of the animal world. There is the "human" by which we mean us, and there is the "animal," by which we mean all other creatures on the planet other than ourselves. But, we ARE animals--- we are members of the community of all apes generally...and we, ourselves, are killer apes, specifically.
Isn't it at least possible?
