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Jared Diamond
I have been reading science books all my life, but Jared Diamond never appeared on my
radar screen until recently. His books started appearing on the main promotional
pages at Amazon. I usually try to ignore what the industry is pushing in my
face, so I continued to ignore Diamond's books to my own detriment.
Two things happened which brought me around to placing Diamond on my must
read list. First my wife asked me to order his books as birthday presents for
our two boys a year ago. Shortly after this I discovered
The Edge website and read some
of Diamond's essays posted there. My 18 year old son has read three of
Diamond's books and loved them. I have just finished reading The Third
Chimpanzee, and found it to be one of the best books I have read in recent
years.
The Third Chimpanzee documents and analyzes the last 7 million years
history of Homo sapiens. Human DNA is about 98 percent identical to common and
pygmy chimpanzees. Chimpanzees and humans had common ancestors about 7 million
years ago. The naming conventions along with what is now known about how similar
humans are to chimpanzees, would suggest that some renaming of species are in
order. The three chimpanzee species are Homo troglodytes (common
chimpanzee), Homo paniscus (pygmy chimpanzee), and the third chimpanzee Homo
sapiens (human chimpanzee). The main question explored in this book is: If
we share 98 percent of our genes with the chimpanzee, why have we evolved into
something quite extraordinary?
Diamond is not afraid to discus any topic, no mater how controversial, he
tells it like he sees it. His view is that if we understand how we got to be the
way we are, we have a better chance to finding solutions to our problems. This
contrasts with the typical approach taken by many of ignoring questions which
have answers which we don't like. When learning about how certain
undesirable behaviors have arisen due to their evolutionary advantage, many
people use this as an excuse for the behavior. Diamond warns us to use this
knowledge as a way to understand how we got to where we are and not to blame our
behavior on our genes or condone undesirable behavior. Topics discussed in
detail include: human sexuality, adultery, how we pick our sex partners, why do
we grow old and die, language, art, agriculture, smoking, drinking, drug abuse,
why are we alone in the universe, first contacts, conquerors, the horse, racism,
destruction of the environment, and nuclear holocaust.
A book that kept coming to mind while reading The Third Chimpanzee, was The
Human Zoo by Desmond Morris which I read about 30 years ago. After 30
years I remember very little about book, other then the general topic.
Of the hundreds of books that I have read over the years, The Human Zoo has
never been forgotten. The Third Chimpanzee is likely to be another book
that I think about for several years.
wburris at telusplanet dot net |
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