03 November 2004

Humans & Chimps Think Different

Wired News: Humans, Chimps Think Different:
"a big-picture look at why human brains are so evolved. The answer lies not in which or how many genes we have, but in how and when those genes turn on and off."

This is quite important to bear in mind in debates and thinking about gentic determinism. It's not only genes themselves but when and how they are expressed in development. For example, my suspicion is that the pattern of body hair in chimps and humans is more-or-less the reverse each of the other [chimps tend to baldness round the genitalia and under the arms etc]. This may indicate that the genes that control body hair formation are timed or placed differntly but are otherwise pretty similar if not identical between chimps and humans. That's my theory but to go a bigger bundle on the significance of neoteny for human development get hold of and read The Eternal Child which does a very good job of exploring the differences and how they would affect human evolution and social structures.

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"Spend and tax" not "tax and spend"

 I got a response from my MP which got me kind of mad. You'll see why as I reproduce it here. Apologies for the strange changes in types...