According to a study chimps are evolving faster that humans?

Question

Should we kill all the chimps?

It was a joke but here's the links.
http://www.avantnews.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=101
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10994885/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/chimp.htm

I'm really not threatened by chimps!

Answer 1

Zinnia, when one starts a question with "according to a study ..." it is customary to give *some* link to the study!

Otherwise we have no way to know that you aren't just making this up, or perhaps just totally misinterpreting something.

That said however, even if it is true:
(1) Why would you automatically assume that the chimps are evolving in a way that is becoming more intelligent (which is, I assume, why you feel threatened)?
(2) It to 3-5 *million* years for us to evolve to where we are today since our last split with the other apes. Why would you assume that chimp evolution could possibly be so fast as to be a threat?
(3) Why do you respond with all threats by "killing" things?

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Thanks for the links! Sorry, I don't find the 'joke' of killing chimps all that funny ... but I can see, from your links where the problem is.

There is something strangely bogus about the "Biped Research Institute of Portaland." What triggered it is the truly amazing statement by "Dr. Truman Kettle"

"Should trends continue, we could expect to find talking, reasoning, fully bipedal chimps to begin to appear within 15-20 generations. Quite possibly faster."

That does not sound like any responsible primatologist I've ever heard. So I did a Google search on both "Truman Kettle" and "Biped Research Institute" (in quotes) and Google came up with nothing. So something is fishy here.

The second (MSN) link you provide seems to have more solid science ... although the science *reporting* (with crap like "While you might think of yourself as smarter than the average ape, beware...") is awful.

It just shows you the TERRIBLE state of science reporting in mainstream press. The reporters have no real understanding of the science.

Another example ... the headine:
>"Chimps more like humans than apes"

Hello? Both chimps and humans *ARE* apes! So this headline is gibberish.

Answer 2

I have not seen the study in question, but even if it is true, this is no reason to fear the chimps.

Evolution does not have a "direction" other than that determined by natural selection - in other words, the only factor that affects the population is its ability to survive long enough to reproduce. There is no such thing as "more evolved." All that is meant by "evolving faster" is that the rate of change of alleles in the population is faster in one population than in another.

It is likely that this is happening simply because chimpanzees have greater variation than humans. Our species passed through a genetic bottleneck 200,000 years ago. (Non-Africans had an even later bottleneck about 80,000 years ago.) This means that we've only had this relatively brief period of time to establish genetic variation, the raw material upon which evolution thrives.

Chimpanzees, on the other hand, did have any such recent bottlenecks (although due to habitat destruction, they are approaching one now.) This means that they have greater genetic variation and therefore more raw material for mutation to act upon.

Answer 3

It takes about 20 years for a generation of human reproduction. If you are worried about competition from other species that are evolving faster than humans, worry about bacteria, they can have many generations in a single day. And, even if we could, it would not be a good idea to kill off all the bacteria because human life would not be possible without some types of bacteria.