SKIRMISHER

Charles Darwin already got the goat of his contemporaries for being brazen enough to declare that humans descended from chimps [his nasty Victorian enemies probably chided him with, "Did you get that idea, Charles, when you looked in the mirror?"]. But maybe Japanese scientist Tetsuro Matsuzawa is in a lot more uncomfortable situation: he’s telling people chimps are smarter than humans.

Well, it’s not really as bad as it may sound. What Matsuzawa merely says is that chimps have some special stuff up there that humans “gave up” in exchange for other cool things like, say, language.

In the wild, we already know of more things they are better than us at. My studies at my field station in Bossou have shown that wild chimps make use of about 200 plant species out of 600 in the forest. They can discriminate – they have a botanist’s memory for these plants, their seasons, locations and their uses.

Maybe Matsuzawa has a point, but he could have well asked, “How do you say, ‘Darwin Awards‘?”

WHEN CHIMPS OUTSMART HUMANS [New Scientist]

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