Why are there no species that have developed to bridge the gap between humans and apes?
In: Biology
Snowball effect of various developments in human culture. You’re also thinking about this from a very anthropocentric perspective and measuring progress in a particular way. The progress from single celled organism into complex life is an incredible increase in ability and we draw the lines between the stages. The difference between apes and humans represents 6 million years worth of evolution. If you were to talk more specifically about earlier versions of man, rather than apes it would be more recent but even so, it’s still hundreds of thousands of years. It’s not like these things came about overnight, and drawing this arbitrary line ape vs human (humans didn’t even evolve from apes mind you) and saying how different they are doesn’t actually make much sense. Compared to what? Compared to the dominance of other animals when they were the most dominant on the planet? There are plenty of times in the history of the earth that certain animals or plants have absolutely dominated the ecosystem with almost no equal. Dinosaurs for instance.
Another thing to think about is what is your ability compared to an ape. You can do certain things better than him, you’re more dexterous, you can probably solve problems better than him, but if you were left alone who would be better at surviving? He’s way stronger than you and similarly resourceful and has much better natural tools to survive, is a better climber and fighter. What does ability even mean? You can teach apes to do lots of stuff we can do. We are only better because of the cumulation of thousands of years of humans working together and creating new things and designing a society which produces everything we could possibly need to survive, and far far more. If we suddenly wiped out all human knowledge and infrastructure, all concepts of language and everything the human race had learned and stored in society’s collective brain, and just put a load of infant or even young humans into the world, they wouldn’t do very well at all.
Overall though there are a few super important things which happened to advance civilisation heavily which is what separates us most from other animals:
Fire (cooking, not dying super young from disease, able to preserve food longer)
Language(form complex ideas and communicate)
Tools
Agriculture to allow for communities and more time not spent hunting safer more reliable
Transport wheels boats etc
Currency trade
Maths
Astronomy/ calendar
Science
Overall, instead of existing purely to survive like most animals, humans became able to spend more time and energy improving and were able to collaborate in communities formed by agriculture etc. language allowed us to actually express complex ideas. I think the ability to formulate thoughts into words in a systematic way allows for more complex thought and problem solving (drawing a problem typically is far easier than having to solve in your head)
Latest Answers