Primate Archeology

The Review of Primate Archeology by Michael Haslam et al in the July 16 issue of Nature really stimulated my imagination.

First, to primate archeologists: make your writing about chimpanzees potentially comprehensible to educated chimpanzees. As a child I learned from our family physician to make my conversation as comprehensible as possible to all listeners (I don’t always succeed) because after examining me as a patient he always addressed me directly and made his remarks understandable not only to my listening mother but also to me..

You may ask how do you propose that educated chimpanzees come about? So for practicing primatologists: I suggest enrolling a young chimpanzee already somewhat adept at sign language in a school for deaf children. If such a chimpanzee became literate and had already read perhaps Kipling’s Jungle Book and E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, he/she would be fascinated by chimpanzee archeology. Why not make the archeologist’s report appropriate for both him/her and humans? When such a chimpanzee was interviewed through a sign language interpreter by Rush Limbaugh (or equivalent), ample empathy between chimpanzees and humanity would be demonstrated, greatly enhancing the preternatural educational experience for Rush (or equivalent) and the TV audience.

Mankind urgently needs to be just one tribe. Let us expand the venue and include at least our closest animal relatives as they (and we) become eligible. I am aware that chimpanzees may not be educable to this extent. Science fiction does have a place, however. (Helen Keller would have especially empathized with such a unique chimpanzee.) For more medical science fiction see An Innovative Treatment for Emphysema on www.frantzmd.info .

John A. Frantz, MD telephone 608 325 3242

812 22^nd Avenue,

Monroe, WI 53566-1672