Här följer en recension på engelska av Desmond Morris bok "Den nakna apan" som är en zoologiska studie av människan som ras.
The naked ape. Indeed a title that draws attention to it. Desmond Morris wrote this bestselling book in the late sixties, and it is a zoological study on man as a species. It is written in a popular science sort of a way, so it is not difficult for a layman like myself to understand. But even so, it is a scientific document about the qualities that makes us unique, in difference to other members of the primate family and other animal groups in general. The first thing that Morris attends to is how mammals started to develop after the era of the dinosaurs. The small rat-like mammals that coexisted with the dinosaurs went through a virtual evolutionary explosion when the field was left opened due to the extinction of the great giants. They developed into many different species, each and everyone with their own characteristic features, and their own spot in the food chain. There were both herbivores and carnivores, which lived in a well functional environment. And in the forests, way up in the trees, we had our own ancestors, the primates. And according to Morris´ point of view, the primates had everything they needed right there and then, so there was no point for them to abandon these domains for any reason. But if they hadn’t left the trees, and started to inhabit new environments, modern man would never have developed. So something must have happened that made these animals seek other ways of life. The most probable cause, according to Morris, is that there for some reason or the other, was a great shift in weather conditions that made the forests shrink in size. Suddenly there were no longer any room for everyone. Some primates did stay, and later developed into gorillas, chimpanzees and other kinds of anthropoid apes, but luckily for us that plan didn’t appeal to every one, because there were also primates that chose, or were forced, to leave their homes in search of something better. If you want to, you can draw an equality mark towards the telling of the Old Testament, and man’s banishment from the Garden of Eden.
However, and for reasons unknown, our ancestors suddenly found themselves forced to develop new habits that were more in agreement with the new living conditions. And, according to Morris´ theories, that’s how Homo sapiens evolved his unique conducts within such fields as sexual and social behaviour, which is completely different from those that can be found among other anthropoid apes. And as evolution continued our ancestors rose from their former four-legged way of walking towards a two-legged way. And that among other new skills such as hunting made them copy some behaviours that before only were found within the carnivore group. And in this way Morris continues to explain a large variety of different human behaviours. For example the custom of bowing, witch he claims is sort of the same thing as when a wolf exhibits its throat in order to admit submission.
When you read this book, you can’t deny that you get a feeling of acceptance, because it explains everything about us humans in a way that makes us fit in among all other creatures that trudge along around the globe. And this in a way that doesn’t involve any religious abracadabra. It is simply an uncritical examination of the human species, in a way that you might say follows in the footprints of Charles Darwin and his once so controversial book “The origin of species”. I don’t understand how people today still can question the credibility in these theories. Of course they are in no way complete, and we still learn new things about ourselves, our origin and the genesis process by the hour. But it is still a more truthful way of contemplating the creation of life on earth than those that are found in ancient saga-books like the Koran or the Holy bible ( I hope that I don’t get a fatwa read over me for that sentence, I haven’t forgot about Salman Rushdie) . I have no trouble in accepting that man is just an animal among others. The interesting thing is how we have been able to, in a smaller perspective, control our developments as a species. The larger changes that have happened to us were of course out of our control, but we endured and adapted in a way that had never been seen before. And actually, we benefited from the challenges by growing stronger and smarter.
One other aspect that is brought up by the author is the fact that man is the only anthropoid ape that is almost hairless. And there are a number of different theories presented that tries to explain this phenomena. But the theory that sounds most trustworthy is the one that suggests that at one point our ancestors went back to live in the sea. Of course not in such a big scale as the whales and dolphins, but more likely as collectors and hunters along the coast. And the constant exposure to water of course had effects on our appearance. If you look at other animals that has gone back to live in the sea, like penguins and whales for instant, you sea that there bodies has transformed to meet this new environment. Their shapes have become more streamlined in order to minimize the resistance of the water. There are of course also other things that have changed on these animals, but the streamlined form is one that is also found among humans. There ere also the angle of our nose, that seems to be adjusted to fit for a life in water. I honestly can’t say if this theory is true or not, but I find it most interesting and not at all impossible.
The book then continues in the same way, trying to explain why we humans are so much different from other animals, and also why we are so much alike. I think that it is a very educating book, even if some things that are written in it must be taken with a grain of salt. Unfortunately I only had a Swedish copy of the book, but I believe that the translator can be trusted to have translated the book as close to the English original as possible. This really is a book that should be used in school education all around the world. As it is right now, some schools even question the necessity of teaching children about the evolution, and that is really scary for me. I don’t want to live in a world that is filled with of religious zealots, no matter what religion they are advocating, and I surely don’t want my daughter to grow up in one. Of course everyone is entitled to have his or her own personal beliefs, but I just can’t coupe with bigotry. Being stupid is no excuse. And that is about all that I have to say about this.