Ape Genes Conserved in Humans

Ape Genes Contribution to Human Behavior

We see a broad range of behaviors in Human society and I wonder what is perverse and what is natural. Our prisons are full of people who indulge in the extreme forms.

The Bonobo ape, the one most like us humans, has behaviors that we in Human culture would call perverse if we were the ones indulging. But here is the irony. Humans also indulge in every manner of behavior but not all Humans. Google XXX and you will find abundant confirmation. Are these recently mutated genes acting out behaviors that are uniquely Human or are they primate Ape genes that have lingered on?

The Bonobo's behavior is so similar to humans and our DNA genes are over 98% similar to theirs that one must conclude that conservative Ape genes from our early evolution strongly influence Human behavior.

What is Human but also subjected to evolution is to impose cultural constraints on behaviors that are in conflict with the natural genetic expression of the inherited conservative genes, and this 'a-posteriori' add on is behind the struggle between legal, ethical, moral and 'natural' behaviors.

These cultural influences impose values into rationality which influence another interesting attribute of higher mammals and I get to that shortly.

We have made a societal determination unwittingly that certain genes are bad and others are good and those who act out the bad genes are criminals but this only acts upon the phenotype, not the genotype and has no effect on the next generations genetic predisposition or inheritance nor does penalization change the genes of a criminal in any way.

This could only happen if populations of genes were removed from the population by capital punishment or sterilization. Expression can be modified because it is under partial environmental control vis a vis stimuli such as visual, pheromonal, tactile and auditory, and that unique psychological attribute, will. The most difficult question for society from a genetic and physiological and legal point of view is this. Do pheromones which are normal gene products know anything about the age of their target recipients or are they 'age colorblind' so to speak or is stimulation by pheromones the same across the age spectrum?

The inference underlying cultural constraints is that 'Will' determines conduct, not genes and environment and will must have control.  Is this true? I believe that genes determine behavior in concert with environment in the absence of rationality and culture but values and will are also involved through learning and social pressures and here lies humanity's eternal dillemma.

These attributes struggle with each other for dominance and most lapses of socially determined moral and ethical behavior can be attributed to lapses of judgement or more properly will power. This conclusion begs the question, 'are lapses of judgement and will leading to regression to simian behaviors deserving of the moniker criminal felony'? There will be different answers to this question depending on wether or not a person is a Lawyer for the defense or for the prosecution or is an animal behaviorist or is a criminal or a dictator.

In short, humans will periodically continue to act like Apes until our mischevious greedy promiscuous little 'monkey' genes go extinct along with us experiments in adaptive fitness of intelligence. Values ajudicating behavioral norms is a matter for society.

The same sorts of arguments can be applied to genetic predisposition to murder and suicide which is present in both Chimpanzee and Human societies but not amongst Bonobos as far as I know. In the face of the genetic evidence from our ancestors, it appears that we humans are unique having inherited the sexuality of the Bonobos and the Aggression of the Chimps. We are a schizophrenic mix.

The great questions are these. Are these primitive genes and their expression present in all humans the same or are there mutations that have changed them and lastly, are there differences between different races of Humans?

I suspect mutations underlie many socially disapproved choices made by people since prisons have a high proportion of XYY chromosome so called supermales. Is will under genetic control and I suspect it is because damage to the frontal lobe affects rational decision-making in injured humans but, then again, we see willful behavior in dogs and cats but not all? Is not the detailed elaboration of the frontal lobe the especially human' evolution'?

Jormawankenobe

© 2008 J. Jyrkkanen

More...............http://williamcalvin.com/teaching/bonobo.htm