Casey’s Reviews > The Naked Ape > Status Update

In the meantime, our
unbelievably complicated civilizations will be able to prosper
only if we design them in such a way that they do not clash
with or tend to suppress our basic animal demands. Unfortunately our thinking brain is not always in harmony with our feeling brain. There are many examples showing where things have gone astray, and human societies have crashed or
become stultified.

Even a young chimpanzee completes its brain-growth within
twelve months after birth. Our own species, by contrast, has
at birth a brain which is only twenty-three per cent of its final
adult size. Rapid growth continues for a further six years after
birth, and the whole growing process is not complete until
about the twenty-third year of life.

With strong pressure on them to increase their prey-killing
prowess, vital changes began to take place. They became more
upright—fast, better runners. Their hands became freed from
locomotion duties—strong, efficient weapon-holders. Their
brains became more complex—brighter, quicker decisionmakers

Whereas we are vegetarians turned carnivores, the panda is a
carnivore turned vegetarian, and like us it is in many ways an
extraordinary and unique creature. The point is that a major
switch of this sort produces an animal with a dual personality.

So the hunting ape became a territorial ape. His whole
sexual, parental and social pattern began to be affected. His
old wandering, fruit-plucking way of life was fading rapidly.
He had now really left his forest of Eden. He was an ape with
responsibilities.