Humour

Juvenile apes at work

T A Balasubramanian explains why human beings are like chimpanzees who have never grown up

Back on the couch again, Bobo Jitter, the imaginative CIO of Bazooka Company, faces Dr Don Jong, a specialist in the treatment of technology-induced psychotic conditions. Known widely as The Oddfather, Dr Jong has a propensity to come up with odd fixes for virtually any bizarre condition. And like most stressed-out CIOs, Bobo expects hopes that some quick and soothing exchanges under the care of The Oddfather can set him back in form.

“Coming back to my favourite techie, El Gizmo, I must say that he continues to bewilder me. He seems an odd mixture of adult and child. It is sometimes truly exhausting trying to get him to realise that he is a grown-up.”

“And what makes you want to do that?”

“Well, Doc, I cannot have everyone in Bazooka look at me with pity and wonder how I can manage this … this uncontrollable child. I know he is an adult programmer who overindulges in the joys of technology—he is like a boy who loves new toys but you get the same old woes that a parent might get when he is trying to wean away a toddler from a rattle.”

“Why do you seek to distract him? After all, he just loves to play, eh?”

“Well, in all honesty, all of us in this craft of programming love the toy aspect of technology. I remember my first computer—it was analog, you turned dials that closed switches in a predetermined hardware algorithm. It was like a powerful electronic light show, and I loved it. I still love the joy that comes from working with neat technological tools. But I expect my programmers to temper their love of toys with the purpose of their employment—which is to produce business solutions.”

“Ah, I see. El Gizmo, while showing a good grasp of the fun side of technology, fails to consider the end purpose of the software?”

“That’s right. He thinks that his job is to have endless enjoyment with the tools, rather than consider the aspects of programming that makes applications and maintenance simpler.”

“Of course, Bobo, that is a problem, I comprehend. But you can observe that it is quite natural for geeks to behave almost always like infants, especially the ones like your El Gizmo. And this is where we must bring in our wonderful  ancient connection to monkeys.”

“What connection is that?”

“It centres on an interpretation of human evolution which has long been widely accepted, although not without controversy: we are all but juvenile apes who have become mature—but only our bodies become adult. Or, putting it another way, we are like chimpanzees who have never grown up.”

“But surely, Doc, we have evolved far beyond the chimps?”

“Well, Bobo, as it happens, one of our key characteristics, according to this interpretation, is called neoteny—the persistence of childlike traits into the adult state. Among the species, we are unique in this. there are several aspects of juvenile chimpanzees which are also found in humans, supporting the idea that humans are a neotenic species of great ape. For example, at birth, a chimpanzee is almost completely hairless except for on the top of their head. This would explain our lack of mammalian fur, but it also explains a number of other human aspects—especially our ability to learn. Young chimpanzees have an incredible capacity to learn that is apparently turned off upon entering maturity—but in humans, this capacity continues throughout adulthood. Proportionally, the chimpanzee head is much larger in relation to the rest of its body as a juvenile, similar to the proportions of the human head to the human body.”

“What you are telling me, Doc, is that it is acceptable for humans to be a child even if they grow old. How is this of any use?”

“It is, in fact, quite possible that neoteny may have been selected for the intellectual benefits. If you watch great inventors—even when adults are the inventors—their best work involves creative play. Most of the big discoveries came from adults pursuing something solely for the love of it, goofing around, because it was cool, because it excited them. The usefulness followed later.”

“That seems like a long short theory, Doc.”

“There is more to it. It has been proposed that our species’—and especially men’s—apparent preference for juvenile features can be traced back to—or, if you like, blamed on—neoteny. This theory, which can be seen as a revelation or a bit of speculation, depending on your view of evolutionary biology, is in truth no more than an extension of Darwin’s principle of selection, which he developed to account for what appeared to be cumbersome and nonfunctional characteristics.”

“You can say that again, Doc. Cumbersome and nonfunctional it is.”

“As the biologists point out, women have more neotenic physical traits—twice as much baby fat, smoother skin, larger eyes and puffier lips—the better to arouse a protective instinct in males. One enthusiastic zoologist, Clive Bromhall, in his book ‘The Eternal Child,’ goes even further, suggesting that the quiet influence of neoteny has been underestimated. He claims that the entire human species has become ‘infantised’ in order to physically survive and emotionally flourish. Youthfulness is no longer restricted to the youthful.”

“Well, Doc, at least that would explain why some of us may have happily regressed, it would seem, into a state of permanent childhood—and it still leaves me with El Gizmo and his infantised activities.”

“Ah, there is the downside, too. The faults of youth are retained with its virtues: short attention span, sensation-seeking and novelty-seeking, short cycles of arbitrary fashion and a sense of irresponsibility. But think about it, my boy. Do we not see that the characteristics that keep creative minds young—curiosity, wonder, play, acting silly—get subverted as we age?”

“You may be right, Doc.  Maybe we have to be thankful to the chimps.”

“Well, Bobo, we may be observing the evolution of ‘psychological neoteny’, in which ever-more people retain for ever-longer the characteristic behaviours and attitudes of earlier developmental stages. Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, somewhat, shall we say, ‘unfinished.’ And all this, of course, is matched by perpetuation of youthful appearance—partly natural due to improved health and social bonhomie, and partly artificial due to continued advance in cosmetic technologies. It is only expressing the idea that as human beings—or extensions of baby chimpanzees—we are built to grow and develop these childhood traits rather than minimize them—or treat them like aberrations to be overcome. In a psychological sense, many of the bright programming geeks, like El Gizmo, who you find so exasperating, will never actually become adults.”

“Well, that’s a mixed blessing. But he does manage to write good code when he settles down and concentrates.”

“Voila, you comprehend! My suspicion is that with a personality type like that of an eternally young chimpanzee buzzing with prolonged youthfulness, our friend El Gizmo may be good not just in programming, but in most other areas.  We need flexible people who are as agile as monkeys.”