Humans: Going Beyond the Primate Ancestry

What makes monkeys and other primates so close to humans? Why is there a significant bond that cannot be objected? Besides similar anatomy, behavior and characteristics, the family Hominidae, well includes our kind, our species, the Homo sapiens together with the apes, chimpanzees and the bonobos.

According to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, “Besides similar anatomy and behavior, there is DNA evidence. It confirms that humans are primates and those modern humans and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor between 8 and 6 million years ago. There is only 1.2 percent genetic difference between modern humans and chimpanzees throughout much of their genetic code.

Are we just one of those primate species with origins from Africa and other parts of the world? As far as the National Human Genome Research Institute is concerned, we actually share roughly 96 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, our closes living great ape cousins today. In fact, most of the 4% difference
found was in the duplicated non-gene segments. These genes apparently are the ones responsible for the capability of speech and the great control of it, the senses like smelling, hearing, digesting proteins.

Are we still in denial? Although there is still so much to be learned from the study of primates and humans, one fact remains. Apart from the similarity of our internal organs, the number of chromosomes in our cells (46 for humans and 48 for the apes) with our relatively known ancestors, human beings are special and that we have gone beyond being treated as a primate and have developed a human brain that is 3 times larger in volume than the other great primates.

Human brain based on the body size ration is considerably bigger and massive and it has a larger cerebral cortex with a much higher concentration of neutrons. Although it is not surprising that anatomy has a major similarity, the poignant difference between the great apes and humans is the more complex
form of mental ability that allows creation of great and innovative ideas and complex technologies, no other primate of its kind has excelled. Verbal communication and speech is the other capability that humans have developed through time.

Why are we using computers, going to schools, driving cars, learning unceasingly and developing new and exciting things for the great future?