ANYONE can see what separates Homo sapiens from the other brancheof the animal kingdom. We are the innovators, the inventors, the devisers onew concepts, ideas, and tools. Here, surely, lies the divine spark that markus off: here, if you like, is the evidence for our ensoulment; thus it is thawe are made in the image of God, our creator. This might seem obvious butaccording to last Saturdays What Makes Us Human? (C4), it simplaint so.
This concluding part of Dr Armand Marie Lerois exploration of thdifference between humans and apes is the only one Ive seen. It contained startling thesis: our trump card is not the ability to be different, buexactly the opposite what were really good at is copying each other. Give couple of chimps the same problem to solve, and theyll work completelindependently; try it out on a group of humans, and well all watch carefullto see how the quickest does it, and then simply copy.
Something that seems so simple that we never even consider it is our innatability to copy the most complex physical actions from someone else. (Thexceptions to this rule are those bishops who find it impossible to genuflector swing a thurible.) The most sophisticated example of this is languageBabies, the world over, copy and try out the sounds made by those around themeager to join in the world of verbal communication enjoyed by adults. Lerosupported his thesis by considering those who suffer from brain damage: whathey cant do is accurately copy how others speak, move, or interact.
If copying is what makes human culture and development so spectacularlpossible, the programme noted how lethally dangerous it can be. Humans are alikely to copy evil and destructive behaviour as they are to copy good angenerous acts indeed, they are far more likely to. We can all transcend ouinnate ability to copy each other; we can be independent and free; but mospeople will choose the easy path of conformity. Theres a sermon in thersomewhere.
Iain Stewart explored one extraordinary feat of human adaptation in SundayJourneys into the Ring of Fire (BBC2). He is travelling around the riof the Pacific Basin, showing how geology shapes history and society. Thiweek, he considered the remarkable way in which the Incas created a successfucivilisation in some of the worlds most inhospitable terrain.
The coastal strip is arid desert; the Peruvian Andes are subject tearthquake and volcano; and yet the Inca found ways to feed an empire numberintens of millions. They covered every slope with irrigated terraces, anestablished an extraordinary system of roads. You can see that this isomething of a geologists dream all those wonderful drystone mountaintocities. The photography is spectacular, and yet Stewarts boundless enthusiasmand the simplicity of his thesis place this firmly, for me, in the Blue Peteschool of TV documentary.
It was geology that did for the Incas in the end: the abundant gold wairresistible to the conquistadores, and the whole civilisation was looted andestroyed to make Europe rich. Still, in return, the survivors were giveChristianity.