The iconic March of Progress (originally The Road to Homo Sapiens) by artist Rudolph Zallinger for the Early Man volume of the Life Nature Library – which has been widely imitated and parodied since (fair use image in Wikipedia “March of Progress”)
TOP 10 APES (THEORIES & THESES)
“I hate every ape I see
From chimpan-a to chimpanzee”
No – it’s not my top ten apes like that, as in my top ten species or types of ape. After all, there’s only five extant species of apes including us – the others being gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees. I suppose I could easily do a top ten (and more) if I went by subspecies or added extinct species. Heck you could do a top ten entirely of hominids if you did the latter.
Instead, as usual for my trope top tens, this is for the use of the word ape as a trope – for which we humans are the ape. That is, a trope used for naming theories or theses of human evolution – an idea for a top ten which struck me when I realized just how many had ape in their name or title.
(1) NAKED APE
Possibly the most famous of ape treatises, as the title of the book by English zoologist Desmond Morris with subtitle “A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal”. The subtitle sums up the book – taking a look at humans as a species and comparing them to other animals. The exception to the rule of my top ten as it is not really an ape thesis of human evolution, apart from its overarching thesis of looking at humans as animals – the evolved apes of the title.
The adjective naked in the title refers to the distinctive hairlessness of humans compared to other apes, but I find it somewhat ironic as it is all other apes that are naked while humans are the only apes to invent and wear clothing, in part because of their hairlessness.
Taking the Aquatic Ape too far! Promotional art for the 2011 Animal Planet mockumentary “Mermaid: The Body Found”
(2) AQUATIC APE
Humans as beachcombers – or is that beach bums?
The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis or Theory, proposing that the ancestors of modern humans diverged from the other great apes by adapting to an aquatic lifestyle – or more precisely semi-aquatic or beachside lifestyle, as evidenced by the distinctive hairlessness of humans.
Desmond Morris – writer of The Naked Ape in my previous entry – was a proponent of the thesis, which was originally proposed by English marine biologist Alister Hardy. While it has a certain popularity with lay audiences – myself included, although I’m not ultimately persuaded by it – it is generally dismissed by anthropologists or other scholars of human evolution.
(3) KILLER APE
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Well, us, for one thing. The killer ape theory or hypothesis is the theory “that war and interpersonal aggression was the driving force behind human evolution”, originated by Raymond Dart and developed further by Robert Ardrey (in his book African Genesis).
Basically, the theory is that we’re just more aggro apes – that our ancestors were distinguished from other primate species by their greater aggressiveness.
Shot from the opening credits of Netflix animated series Inside Job – which would seem to be clearly a gag on the Stoned Ape theory
(4) STONED APE
Or should that be shroomed ape
The Stoned Ape theory is the trippy hypothesis by Terrence McKenna in his 1992 book Food of the Gods – which proposed the “cognitive revolution” of modern humanity was caused by the addition of psilocybin mushrooms to the human diet, literally expanding their minds.
It’s not a theory taken seriously by many people, certainly within the wider scientific community, but I like it, mainly because it’s a hoot. I’d also like to think that it influenced the shot from the opening credits of the underrated conspiracy animated series Inside Job which I used for my feature image – in which homo sapiens owes its sapience to psychic mushroom organisms or their spores.
Carving of the Three Wise Monkeys in Nikko Toshogu, Japan – photograph by Jpatokat for Wikipedia “Three Wise Monkeys” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
(5) DRUNKEN MONKEY
Okay, it’s monkey in the name rather than ape, mainly for the rhyming structure with drunken, but I’m counting it.
It’s much less ambitious than the previous Stoned Ape theory and hence perhaps more probable – “The drunken monkey hypothesis proposes that human attraction to alcohol may derive from the dependence of the primate ancestors of Homo sapiens on ripe and fermenting fruit as a dominant food source”.
Robert Dudley from the University of California Berkeley proposed it – writing a book “The Drunken Monkey: Why We Drink and Abuse Alcohol” – suggesting that “whereas most addictive substances have a relatively short history of human use, attraction to and consumption of ethanol by various primates may go back tens of millions of years”.
(6) CANNIBAL APE
Instead of shrooms, it’s braaains!
This one is way out there, usually considered pseudo-science. In that it resembles the Stoned Ape theory – indeed, it’s essentially the dark universe version of that theory, except instead of the human cognitive revolution originating from getting high on shrooms, it’s from slurping down other apes’ brains.
This claim was by Oscar Kiss Maerth (no, really) in his book The Beginning Was The End. He didn’t bother with pesky things like evidence, instead he just did the meme “it came to me in a vision” – and apparently eating raw ape brains in a restaurant in South East Asia. Clearly I’ve been doing it wrong just getting the usual noodle soup.
His theory is literally that modern humans evolved from a species of brain-eating apes, increasing their brain volume (as well as sex drive and aggression). Or more precisely, devolved – as “it suppressed their innate psychic ability, eventually causing insanity”.
Probably no one would remember it but for the band Devo. They loved it so much they picked it up and ran with it, incorporating “several elements of the book into their concept of de-evolution”.
Comparison of a wild wolf and a domesticated dog – by Cephas (dog) and Gillguori (pug) used by Wikipedia “Dog” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
(7) DOMESTICATED APE
Or more accurately, self-domesticated apes.
Yes – I’ve had to stretch my subject of ape theories and theses for human evolution to round out my top ten. While there’s no domesticated ape theory commonly known as such (compared to previous entries), there IS a theory of human self-domestication which really should be known by that name.
Human self-domestication is a theory that, “similar to domesticated animals, there has been a process of artificial selection among members of the human species conducted by humans themselves”, differentiating homo sapiens from Neanderthals or homo erectus.
Domesticated animals tend to be more docile and playful than their wild counterparts, as well as be less aggressive and show marked neoteny. For humans, throw in also language and emotional intelligence.
As a virtual kitchen sink of fantasy or SF tropes, Judge Dredd of course features uplift apes as citizens of Mega-City One
(8) UPLIFT APE
Okay, not so much a thesis or theory of human evolution but a trope of SF – in which uplift is the enhancement of a non-human animal species to a higher level of intelligence, usually similar to human intelligence (and usually by means of technology such as cybernetic or genetic engineering). The term uplift was popularized by David Brin in his series of books or stories known as the Uplift series – with humans uplifting chimpanzees and dolphins.
Of course, one of the most popular animal candidates for uplift are our ape relatives.
However, the trope of uplift apes might well serve as a theory of human evolution in much the same way as the theory of human self-domestication – that we are the ultimate uplift apes, having uplifted ourselves through culture and technology, with the latter increasing into the future.
Alternatively, there are some who propose that we are indeed uplift apes – but uplifted by aliens, in the style of that black monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, sometimes to the extent of our entire evolution.
Great Ape Project logo
(9) GREAT APE
Again, not so much a thesis or theory of human evolution but a term in taxonomy for the primates that include orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and us. None of those lesser apes, because screw those gibbons. Just kidding – gibbons are awesome.
Still, I like being a great ape, although I understand the term has fallen out of usage for hominidae instead. I don’t know – hominidae doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, or have the same gravitas. Also, there remains the concept of great ape personhood, most notably in the Great Ape Project, which advocates that non-human great apes are persons and should be given basic legal or human rights.
1968 Planet of the Apes film poster, spoiling the twist ending
(10) PLANETARY APE
Okay, now this one’s my own creation – a play on Planet of the Apes, but more seriously a characterization of humans as the only apes with a planetary range, as opposed to other apes that are confined to a continent (chimpanzees and gorillas to Africa, orangutans and gibbons to Asia).
