Monkeys,
gorillas, they have brains and we have a brain, but they don’t have
this thing, the thumb. They can’t move it opposite the way we do.
The inner digit on the hand of man, that might be the distinguishing
physical feature between ourselves and the rest of the animals. And
the glove protects that inner digit. The ladies glove, the welder’s
glove, the baseball glove, et cetera. This is the root of humanity,
this opposable thumb. It enables us to make tools and build cities
and everything else. Maybe more than the brain. Maybe some other
animals have bigger brains in proportion to their bodies than we
have. I don’t know. But the hand itself is an intricate thing.
The
genetic similarities between humans and primates are very clear when
you see Mick Jagger. Regarding the differences, we have the thumb, as
the text explains, but we also have the fact that primates don´t
have a white sclerotic, so you can´t see where they are looking at.
This has plenty of evolutionary implications, as José Cervera has
explained in this conference very well.
From
a literary point of view, American Pastoral is a great book, so is
The World Accoding to Garp, by John Irving. However, neither books
should be read by parents that are inclined to suffering about their
children too much.
