The Gap; The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals

 The Gap; The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals

Reviewed By  Janet Mawdesley       March 12, 2014

 

Author  Thomas Suddendorf

Distributor:     
ISBN:                 9780465030149
Publisher:         Basic Books
Release Date:    

Website:    http://www.newsouthbooks.com.au 

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Thought provoking and challenging this is a book about You; Yes you, human person. It is a book about who you are and where you come from: how you have evolved and how you connect to the animal kingdom, more particularly the Apes. While there are many issues raised they are debunked with strong research making this a definitive work on Us, the people of the human race.

It has long been debated how we as a species evolved. With this detailed and concise look at what is ‘the Gap’, what exactly is the difference between Apes, Chimpanzees and humans, where does one begin and end and where, and if anywhere are there any connections, we begin to understand the science of evolution a from a different perspective.

It would appear that it comes down to mental capacity and possibly also the ability to share the language of the mind, to connect the mind and the thoughts that are created there which makes the definitive difference. While it appears the animal kingdom has various traits and undertakings that are similar to man, that is as far as it goes; there is always, or it would appear at this time in the detailed research, an end point in the animal world behaviour that falls short of the human ability to carry out and complete complex undertakings associated with mental capacity.

Suddendorf has spent several decades researching ‘the Gap’ from a psychological perspective has coming to a conclusion that both exist but in a parallel universe; that we as humans have gone a considerable way to widening ‘the Gap’ between this highly advanced species of animal in the Apes and Chimpanzees, by slowly but continuously destroying their habitat and creating an ever widening gap in the species, which also in his estimation includes that of the widening of ‘the Gap’  between our ancestors and today’s human species.

In Quo Vadis, the final chapter, he really delivers a number of though provoking issues on the direction society as a whole is heading and the responsibilities the future generations will have to bear, as we head faster and faster towards higher intelligence with  apparently little care for the destruction of the other species on our planet.

He ends on a note of hope though by saying we as species have overcome many obstacles in the past and considers that now, perhaps we are now better equipped to protect not just our, but the generations to come, as well as our ‘cousins, the monkey Apes’ on the other side of ’the Gap’,  futures.

Non Fiction