Saturday, September 8, 2007

Study: Human toddlers smarter than chimps. Well, duh!

A new study seems to have confirmed what most of us, save for perhaps some in the AR community, have suspected all along: human children are smarter than chimps. The study found that human children at 2 years of age have superior social cognitive skills to apes. ARAs sometimes will use the fact that some scientists claim that humans and chimps share so much genetically that the two should, in fact both be classified in the same genus, or even the same species, as a transparent, feeble attempt to justify "personhood" for chimps. Such an opinion is in the scientific minority however, because genetic similarities are not the only criterion used in determining taxonomic classification. It also involves other factors such as anatomical/physiological similarities, as well as behavioral/social similarities, and in those respects, humans and chimps are obviously quite different. This study seems to help confirm that fact. Well, there you have it: two year olds are smarter than chimpanzees. But what about PeTA members or ALF thugs vs. chimps? That comparison hasn't been made yet. My money would be on the chimps.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here the theory is proven, as AR nuts drag their knuckles and toss their own feces.

http://forums.treehugger.com/viewtopic.php?t=1386