Charles Darwin believed that humans evolved in Africa, because that’s where our closest ape relatives the chimpanzees and gorillas live. And during the twentieth century he was vindicated through a combination of fossil and genetic discoveries. While our place in the tree of life is now well established – chimpanzees being our closest relatives –…
Tag: Human uniqueness
Why Are Humans Unique? It’s the Small Things That Count
Can there be any more important a question than, ‘How did we get here?’ Of course, I don’t mean those books we all gawked at as tweens desperate to understand our transforming pubescent bodies. I mean, ‘How did we get here, as a species?’ ‘How did we come to be so different to all other…
Brain Versus Brawn: Evolution of the Bubble-Headed Weakling
One of the most important questions we can ask – and one that continues to take up much of the time of scientists, philosophers and the religious minded alike – is why are humans so different to the rest of the living world? Philosophers and physicists have even celebrated the appearance of humans 200,000 years…