Chapter 12: The Madness Gene

                   

In this chapter, number 12, Elizabeth Kolbert looks more at the history of the human race and the ancestors we are associated with. She starts with the Neander Valley, also known as Das Neandertal, which harbored the bones of the Neanderthals which now have many museums built out of their culture. When the Europeans first came into contact with the Neandertals, they started to vanish however, many people today carry a percentage of up to four as Neandertal. Even though, Neandertals weren’t entirely the same as humans, they did carry similarities with us just as we both do with chimpanzees. There are other relatives close to us but they are only small pieces of us, causing researchers to have to rely on the next best thing which is “chimpanzees and bonobos, and somewhat more distant relations, gorillas and orangutans, to perform live experiments” (p. 247).  These experiments would have to do with testing the mindsets of chimpanzees and children which had researchers come to the conclusion that “chimps do a lot of incredibly smart things, ... but the main difference we’ve seen is putting our heads together” (p. 249). This could show the value of the theme that human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems since a possible cause for the Neaderthals disappearance is because of the europeans advancements as well as the systems they had in place that could have been more vastly different than what was assumed. This also stands because not everywhere in the world has the same universal laws and the current laws set up can be changed or taken way based on the way the government or how higher powers feel in the current system [C].