Are chimps people too?

[Ezzie.]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/

I've just watched the programme on whether chimps should be given the rights of a human or the rights of a very young human child (1-5 years old)

The evidence he provided was simply amazing, he actually had a conversation with a Bonobo (a type of chimp- one of the most intelligent of it's species tree) He was using a touch pad it must have had about 100 words on minimum, he pressed the touchpad in order to form a sentence.

The presenter asked the bonobo how was he and stuff like that. The chimp replied back and also asked if he would like to play with him. The presenter agreed then the bonobo started playing with him and were having fun and having games just like a little kid would after he'd asked his parents to play..

They also showed that chimps have another human factor, well two actually, culture and teamwork, the teamwork test required two chimps to pull strings on the opposite end of the room which in turn would drag a plate of bananas attatched to the string to them. They did it, and worked as a team..

The next test of culture was a "lifting or poking" test, Chimp a was taught how to retrieve an m&m from this wooden device by poking inside the hole to enable to mechanism for the m&m to be released chimp b was taught the same except he was told to lift the lever.
They put the chimps back with their different community and put the mechanism there, the chimp a was using his prodding technique and chimp b was doing the same, the other chimps in chimp a/b communities started watching chimp a and b and then started to copy and learn what he was doing, developing a "culture" in the group.

If you look on the horizon website you should find the movie somwhere as it was just screened at 9, we share 99.4% of a chimps DNA so what is the other 0.6 percent?

[You]

excellent find + rep

[Ezzie.]

The possible implications of this are very big. Cruelty to chimps and apes could be extremely reduced as they could be classed as homo sapiens

[You]

I like chimps and apes :cool: - hope they treat them like us xP

[velvet]

I watched that. Really interesting and makes you reconsider what you think of as a 'person'

[brandon]

good find.

[Ezzie.]

Spent quite a while typing that up there's a debate going on about it now on http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/

[SHEEPY_luvs_u]

no, they're not. that's why they're called chimps.

[Ezzie.]

You don't understand... Chimps are chimps of couse but they're related to us. It's like I'm called Elliot and you're called sheepy? lol? But we're both human, if you understand me.

[GommeInc]

I would say no. They are a species that act similar to people, but that is just it! They act and have similarities.