2011-18138
It always makes me a little excited when I think
that millions of years of constant change, adaptation, and selection somehow
bred a species that could circle back and be aware of the very process that
bore them.
Way
back when the theory of evolution and natural selection wasn’t as concretely
proven as it is today, many people used the implication that apes were the
closest related animal to humans to discourage any supporters. Who, they said,
wanted to be direct descendants of apes? And if you look at them- at the butt
scratching, poop slinging, and public sex- it isn’t as appealing as the other,
more elegant theories out there (though to be fair to apes, sometimes humans
can be much worse). I think that the point of view skews perception, though, as
we look to an inferior species when we make the comparison. Frankly I’d rather
have an ape as a direct ancestor rather than a toad.
The
thoroughness of speculation is what caught my interest with the documentary.
Everything is scrutinized and given tentative, logical meaning that may or may
not be proven later on. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that
nothing happens because of only one catalyst, and the sheer number of possibilities
for why and how things have come to be should be enough to discourage anyone
from speculation. We’ve learned to accept, I think, that we cannot possibly
know everything but we never allow it to taint fascination and a constant
hunger for new information.
If
thought about in context of the human condition instead of as a straightforward
delivery of information about the intricacies of monkey and ape social
structure, the documentary succeeds in forcing introspection because it looks
as if every advantage we have over every animal in the planet is quite
literally all in our minds.
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