One of the common objections to evolution from people who don't understand evolution is that humans, with their superior intellect, could not have "come from apes." This stems in part from the oft-copied but erroneous meme we're all used to seeing -- that of a single-file procession from early primate to monkey to ape to early hominid to Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon, concluding with modern human. In fact, evolution has never claimed that humans descended in a straight line from apes; the evolution of modern humans places us on one branch of the primate bough of the mammalian tree, with humans and modern apes sharing a common ancestor many millions of years ago. Thus, the Creationist's challenge, "If humans came from apes, why are there still apes?" becomes just so much more ignorant nonsense.
If you still doubt that our closest living relatives are the chimpanzees, here's a striking recollection of mine from a black-and-white primate research film I saw decades ago. I can't tell you when or where it was filmed, but what I saw stayed in my consciousness. The researchers, who often rewarded their study chimps with bananas, wanted to see what would happen if there was an overwhelming wealth of bananas available. So they brought in a wheelbarrow full of bananas, left it in the room with the chimps, and started their cameras rolling.
The first thing that happened, of course, is that all the chimps came over to investigate. They had never seen this many bananas in one place. A couple of chimps grabbed a banana each, and ran off to peel and eat them. But then a curious thing happened.
The three larger, older, stronger males shooed away the others, and began to fill their arms with bananas. If any of the other, smaller chimps tried to approach, the large males shrieked and charged at them, chasing them away. When each of the three had filled his arms with as many bananas as he could hold, he began waddling away with his treasure. The wheelbarrow was now completely empty.
As one of the three was struggling with his load, he dropped a single banana. A small, young female scurried over to grab it. After all, the male who had dropped it still had more bananas than he could possibly eat. Surely he would not miss one. But instead, as she approached, he actually dropped his entire pile of bananas so he could furiously chase her away from the one she had tried to grab. Terrified, she ran off. Satisfied, the older male scooped up his load of bananas, including the one he had dropped, and struggled on.
I thought of that striking demonstration recently in response to the way American conservatism is being applied in the 21st century, and especially in view of the policies of the new administration and the majority party in Congress. We have a nation that generates unprecedented wealth overall; yet the distribution of that wealth is more skewed than at any time since the so-called "Gilded Age." Nearly all the increases in wealth of the last 30 years have gone to those at the very top, who were already quite wealthy.
In order to have a healthy, functioning society, all must contribute something to its upkeep, and it makes sense that those who have more should contribute more, since they have so much surplus wealth, and are not hurt by helping to support important government functions. When we had a 90% top tax bracket, we built the interstate highway system. When we had a 50% top tax bracket, we sent men to the moon.
But now, the attitude in Washington, echoed endlessly by the party shills on Fox News, is that the wealthy are entitled to keep all of their wealth. It doesn't matter if they got it by hard work, by shrewd investing, or by inheriting it; it's theirs, and how dare those liberals suggest that they owe the rest of us anything? Greed rules the day: just as the older, stronger male chimps decided that they were entitled to all the bananas, even though they couldn't possible eat all of them, the older, powerful men who control most of the wealth in this country are dedicated to amassing ever more wealth, even though the total amount of wealth available to all remains finite. After all, the big lie goes, you too could have that much wealth if you were just willing to work as hard as those men worked -- except that upward social mobility in America now lags behind that of nearly every other developed nation.
So when it comes right down to it, we're not all that different from those banana-hoarding chimps with whom we share a common ancestor. But we humans also evolved the capacity to form governments...and a decent government worthy of our respect is supposed to stop a few, powerful individuals from keeping all the bananas for themselves.
If you still doubt that our closest living relatives are the chimpanzees, here's a striking recollection of mine from a black-and-white primate research film I saw decades ago. I can't tell you when or where it was filmed, but what I saw stayed in my consciousness. The researchers, who often rewarded their study chimps with bananas, wanted to see what would happen if there was an overwhelming wealth of bananas available. So they brought in a wheelbarrow full of bananas, left it in the room with the chimps, and started their cameras rolling.
The first thing that happened, of course, is that all the chimps came over to investigate. They had never seen this many bananas in one place. A couple of chimps grabbed a banana each, and ran off to peel and eat them. But then a curious thing happened.
The three larger, older, stronger males shooed away the others, and began to fill their arms with bananas. If any of the other, smaller chimps tried to approach, the large males shrieked and charged at them, chasing them away. When each of the three had filled his arms with as many bananas as he could hold, he began waddling away with his treasure. The wheelbarrow was now completely empty.
As one of the three was struggling with his load, he dropped a single banana. A small, young female scurried over to grab it. After all, the male who had dropped it still had more bananas than he could possibly eat. Surely he would not miss one. But instead, as she approached, he actually dropped his entire pile of bananas so he could furiously chase her away from the one she had tried to grab. Terrified, she ran off. Satisfied, the older male scooped up his load of bananas, including the one he had dropped, and struggled on.
I thought of that striking demonstration recently in response to the way American conservatism is being applied in the 21st century, and especially in view of the policies of the new administration and the majority party in Congress. We have a nation that generates unprecedented wealth overall; yet the distribution of that wealth is more skewed than at any time since the so-called "Gilded Age." Nearly all the increases in wealth of the last 30 years have gone to those at the very top, who were already quite wealthy.
In order to have a healthy, functioning society, all must contribute something to its upkeep, and it makes sense that those who have more should contribute more, since they have so much surplus wealth, and are not hurt by helping to support important government functions. When we had a 90% top tax bracket, we built the interstate highway system. When we had a 50% top tax bracket, we sent men to the moon.
But now, the attitude in Washington, echoed endlessly by the party shills on Fox News, is that the wealthy are entitled to keep all of their wealth. It doesn't matter if they got it by hard work, by shrewd investing, or by inheriting it; it's theirs, and how dare those liberals suggest that they owe the rest of us anything? Greed rules the day: just as the older, stronger male chimps decided that they were entitled to all the bananas, even though they couldn't possible eat all of them, the older, powerful men who control most of the wealth in this country are dedicated to amassing ever more wealth, even though the total amount of wealth available to all remains finite. After all, the big lie goes, you too could have that much wealth if you were just willing to work as hard as those men worked -- except that upward social mobility in America now lags behind that of nearly every other developed nation.
So when it comes right down to it, we're not all that different from those banana-hoarding chimps with whom we share a common ancestor. But we humans also evolved the capacity to form governments...and a decent government worthy of our respect is supposed to stop a few, powerful individuals from keeping all the bananas for themselves.
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