Another question that's really fascinating, then,
is to compare ourselves to the ones we can really compare ourselves to:
our closest living relatives, which are the chimpanzees, but also the gorillas in Africa.
What is really the big difference there?
Of course, some people would list upright walking,
a much bigger brain, much more complicated cognitive skills.
For most of these things, where we used to put ourselves on a pedestal
by saying "In this sense, humans are unique. Humans have culture--no animals have culture;
humans have language--no animals have language," and so on.
The more we learn now about apes in their normal, wild environment,
the more we learn that almost all these differences are actually quantitative differences,
differences in degree, rather than absolute differences of having or not having something.
So we know now that all great apes, in their natural environment, use tools, for example.
We know that we can teach a chimpanzee 100 to 200 words or symbols,
and that the chimps will also use some in an adequate way.
So clearly there is an ability for tool use.
There is an ability for language.
It is also clear that it is not as complex as ours--
it takes a longer time to learn; it doesn’t change as fast.
But we are actually very hard-pressed to really put our finger on saying
exactly what is now the linguistic difference between the human and the chimp.