Chimpanzees are not humans. They are intelligent, social, strong, and curious creatures, but they are not humans. Believing that studying chimpanzees can teach us about the behavior of our human past is not right. Chimpanzees and humans are different species with different evolutionary pasts and although chimpanzees are amazing and it would be great to have a living link with which to understand our past, I think it does both of us a disservice. Learning about chimpanzees is fascinating and they are very important ecologically and we can thank them for some big advances in biomedicine (which we should since animal testing is extremely traumatic for chimpanzees), but looking to non-human primates for information about our evolutionary past has proved problematic before.
The biologist St. George Jackson Mivart, believed (in 1889) that Asia gave rise to our ancestors and he believed that gibbons were key to understanding our past because they were so similar to us. "He, therefore, gave great weight to traits such as the human-like liver of gibbons (vs. the “brutal” liver of gorillas), the apparent chin and “aquiline nose” of the siamang and Hoolock gibbon, their propensity to walk bipedally when on the ground and, most notably, their monogamy. The seemingly civilized gibbons were thus a more appealing ancestor to (Western European male) humans" (Athreya & Ackermann, 2018). Reading this was extremely concerning to me because a) what on earth is a "brutal" liver? b) monogamy is not seen in all human societies c) gibbons RARELY come to the ground and d) our ancestry does not have to be appealing.
Using non-human primates to "understand" our human past can be confusing and I think it is easy for people to justify their connections to animals in their research with "facts." I think it can be easy for scientists to "discover" things that are not there because they are more "appealing to humans," and they make it easier to get published and get grant money for future research.
Another example of why it can be problematic to study chimpanzees for the purpose of understanding humans is that it has been said that we as humans are naturally violent, and one could justify this with the evidence of warfare and cannibalism in chimpanzee troops. This is a controversial topic, though. Are we inherently violent? Also, if bonobos are also very closely related to us then why are they not known to be inherently violent?
As anthropologists, biologists, psychologists, sociologists, etc. it is our duty to think critically about our studies. It is crucial that we do not let our upbringings, our pasts, our desired outcomes for research, our connections to animals alter the quality of our work and keep us from challenging popular beliefs. We also need to be aware of the effect of our research on society and conservation.
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