We are more similar than we think to those chimpanzees that we see climbing a tree in any tabletop documentary or to the specimens that watch us while they scratch themselves in a zoo. “Emphasizing those similarities” between both species in their behaviors in different areas has focused the admission speech on the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) paleoanthropologist and biologist José María Bermúdez de Castro (Madrid, 70 years old), entitled Nature, culture and evolution, in which he has spent almost an hour. The institution that observes the evolution of Spanish adds to its full number of academics —with him there are 40 of 46 places available— a man of science, who has dedicated his professional life above all “to the study of extinct human beings and our own species”, he said this afternoon in the assembly hall of the academy, which he entered flanked by Carlos García Gual and Juan Mayorga, the two previous to enter the RAE.
Bermúdez de Castro, Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research in 1997 for his work as co-director of the archaeological sites of the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos), an area declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, was chosen in December to succeed the chair K to the philologist and Arabist Federico Corriente, deceased on June 16, 2020. In addition to his predecessor, he has had words for other names that occupied that chair, such as the writer Carmen Conde, the first woman in the academy, which was only for men until 1978, which has led him to point out: “It is very unfortunate that for several thousand years and practically in all corners of our planet, men have dispensed with half of the talent that humanity treasures”.
Months after his retirement, this fan of practicing sports for an hour and a half a day began the central part of his speech by quoting the Swedish scientist Linnaeus: “In his work Natural Systemof 1758, included our species with the denomination of Homo sapiens”. With this he referred to the “wise man, capable of knowing, of carrying out abstract reasoning, complex conceptual and symbolic mental operations”. Linnaeus received much criticism for “considering that human beings should be treated as one more species” within the animal kingdom. “However, we share almost 99% of our genes with chimpanzees. In evolutionary terms, a temporary sigh separates us from them”, added Bermúdez de Castro, coordinator of the Paleobiology Program of the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (Cenieh) and co-vice president of the Atapuerca Foundation. “What differentiates us from other primates and makes us more human is culture.”
The new academic, who was replied with his welcome speech by the deputy director of the RAE, José Manuel Sánchez Ron, with a praise for his research work, has disseminated his science through courses, conferences and books, among the latter : The boy from the Gran Dolina (2002), on human evolution and with which he debuted; Atapuerca. lost on the hill (2004), that explained the phenomenon of that deposit; The evolution of talent (2010)Children of a lost time (2011), explorers (2012)Origins: the Universe, Life, Humans (2015), A journey through prehistory (2013), Small steps. Growing up from prehistory (2017) or Gods and beggars. The great odyssey of human evolution2021. He has published eight articles in the magazine Science and many others in Nature.
We share almost 99% of our genes with chimpanzees
In his field, paleoanthropology, he has studied our ancestors, their behavior and evolution. Humans are not as special as we think, for example, when dealing with public affairs. “Chimpanzees also practice politics”, she has assured about these animals, with whom we share a common ancestor. To argue this, he has quoted the Dutch primatologist and psychologist Frans de Waal, from Emory University in Atlanta, who has studied how “alpha males achieve and maintain their power.” “For this, physical strength is not essential. Skill, cunning, and a well-planned strategy are more appropriate.” Thus, an alpha male “can stockpile food to distribute among those who are faithful to him. Maybe some kind of bribe? Of course! ”, He has answered himself. As old as politics.
Another aspect to which he has referred and from which a joke could come from the type in which Joe Biden looks like a monkey: “Alpha males are not very interested in offspring, but they win the favor of some females if they kiss or hold up their children. Have we not observed similar behavior in humans aspiring to win presidential elections? ”, He asked himself, to the laughter of some of the attendees. In addition, chimpanzees are Machiavellian to achieve majorities that help them dominate the group. “Their coalitions are not always the same. Alliances between males and females can change depending on the circumstances. In democracies, political parties are the alpha males. We haven’t invented almost anything.”
Continuing with alpha males, he has talked about the behavior that leads us humans to defend a territory that we consider our own. “But since we also want to get what others have, we use armed conflicts or speeches full of fallacies. We hit our chests with our fists to show our strength and intimidate opponents.” What has sounded like an allusion to the alpha male who started a war eight months ago from Moscow in which thousands of people have died in Ukraine.
We produce waste that puts our health and that of other species at risk
Likewise, there is a “cognitive aspect” that the human species considers exclusive to itself, “the sense of justice”. However, it is something that we share with the furry brain: “Females tend to mediate when a fight occurs between two males who do not allow reconciliation. Females have been observed disarming a male to avoid the damage it could cause to another. It has also been found that adult chimpanzees react with indignation when they see that another harms a young”.
Bermúdez de Castro has ended with a warning and a hope. The first, with a conservationist message: “Some towns have signed up to a frantic race to reach technological heights unthinkable just decades ago. To do this, we devour resources and produce waste, which puts our health and that of other species at risk.” And hope appeals to the intelligence of those same beings: “I wish that many competent minds unite their abilities to create a superior entity capable of proposing a model totally different from the current one.”
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