The Evolution Of Primates

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Over millions of years of evolution, Human beings have become the most social creatures on the planet. Everything we do is done with the purpose of intriguing other humans. Our social habits are almost incomparable to any other species on earth, as we create all different sorts of social events and interactions for the simple reason of interacting with one another – but have we really actually evolved as much as we think we did? Are us as humans really that much different from our ancestors from whom we evolved? Although this may seem like an almost impossible question to be able to accurately answer, it really isn’t. All we have to do is look to our close relatives to determine if we really are that much different, and no I don’t mean our…show more content…
Through sexual interactions the progression of our species is slightly more guaranteed, and the constant evolution of our species is allowed to continue. Although humans and primates may be different species, many of our sexual habits are the same due to the fact that we evolved from the same ancestors. Of course, some of our sexual habits are also different, but there are very few aspects of sexuality that are only found humans or primates. To start off, what exactly is sexuality in the aspect of primates and humans? “Sexuality – both for mating and social relationships is an important part of primate behaviors” (Zimmerman, Larry J.). Most interactions between humans and most interactions between primates are in some sort of aspect sexual, being much more obvious in human interactions than primate interactions. Humans often dress, act, and participate in events with the sole purpose of impressing someone of their sexual interest – hoping that they will be able to attract someone they find to be a good potential mate. Primates will also show off and act in certain ways to attempt to attract mates, but it is not as overtly obvious as it is in the case of humans. At the same time, both humans and primates are trying to attract as many mates as possible, but this is where the first small rift in the similarities begins. Although attempting to attract many mates, humans often settle down in the long term…show more content…
We communicate in millions of different languages, accents, pitches, and vocal sounds, and we have a remarkable ability to understand one another through verbal noises that we have associated into words that convey messages, different cultures having different sounds for the same thing. Our complex verbal communication evolved much farther than our primate ancestors, who have a very small verbal linguistic system of communication. However, their communication through body movements, facial expressions and gestures is almost as complex as our verbal system. While primates do not have the means to be able to communicate in human language that does not mean that they do not have the mental capacity to understand it. But, they do not learn human language with sounds, but with gestures. Many different species of primates in captivity have been taught to communicate with humans using American Sign Language, a language developed to create communication for people who are mute or deaf. An experiment was performed to see how well primates could use signing to communicate. “The next experiment was conducted by the two psychologists, the Gardeners, and eventually Roger Fouts, who figured that even though a chimp is limited by its vocal apparatus, it might be able to communicate using a different system. So, they decided to teach a chimp named Washoe to use ASL or AMESLAN. AMESLAN is short for American Sign Language,

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