The 3rd Chimpanzee -Evolution & Future of the Human Animal -A Galaxy Insight

"A zoologist from outer space would immediately classify us as just a third species of chimpanzee, along with the pygmy chimp of Zaire and the common chimp of the rest of subtropical Africa...Granted, we had a couple of curious behaviors, notably our control of fire and our dependence on tools. But these behaviors would have seemed no more curious to the extraterrestrial visitor than would the behaviors of beavers and bowerbirds. Somehow, within a few tens of thousands of years -a period that is almost infinitely long when measured against one person's memory but is only a tiny fraction of our species' separate history- we had begun to demonstrate the qualities that make us unique and fragile."

Jared Diamond -Evolutionary biologist, professor of geography and physiology at UCLA, best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel; Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed; and The Third Chimpanzee.

In his brilliant tour de force of human evolution, Jared Diamond explores the fascinating question of what in less than 2 percent of our genetic code has enabled us to found civilizations and religions, develop intricate languages, create art, learn the secrets of the universe and acquire the capabilities to destroy all our achievements overnight.

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