Fellow scientist Frans de Waal sees the roots of cognition in a bonobo named Kakowet, who spotted zookeepers turning on water valves and realized they would flood a nearby moat where infant apes were playing. Kakowet warned the zookeeper and helped rescue the babies. Scientists once largely excluded research on mental traits from the study of evolution, instead emphasizing fossils that showed how human anatomy had developed over millions of years. Take Hopkins' finding that apes are left-brained like humans, or de Waal's experiments that suggest certain primates developed frameworks for morality.
Animals enter the debate in a way that's very important.
And that's critical. The idea behind Living Links is to use Yerkes' 200 chimpanzees and more than 2,500 other primates to help move these theories from speculation to science. One chief project will be identifying ape genes to match with the neurologic and behavior findings. Language is one critical difference. Hopkins' brain scans found that orangutans, gorillas, chimps and bonobos all were left-brained, too.