Being intolerant and short-tempered could be a sign of evolutionary superiority. Researchers at Harvard gave chimpanzees and bonobos, two species of apes that are among the closest living relatives to humans, a variety of reward-based tasks. Chimpanzees, who can be quite grumpy, especially as they age, consistently outperformed the bonobos, who maintain a childlike playfulness throughout their lives. Victoria Wobble, the project’s leader, believes the chimps’ ability to put aside their sociability is one of the reasons they are more intelligent and civilized than their genetically similar great ape cousins. She also thinks the evolutionary development of chimpanzees and bonobos could provide insight into our own species.
Grumpy People May Be More Evolved
The Grumpy Vegan thanks his long-standing friend and colleague, Jill Howard Church, for this reference, who, in her better moments, epitomizes all the above qualities (or should that be the opposite?).
