The Third Chimpanzee

The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal

By: Jared Diamond

Narrated by: Rob Shapiro

Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

The Development of an Extraordinary Species....

We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet - having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art - while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins?

In this fascinating, provocative, passionate, funny, endlessly entertaining work, renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world...and the means to irrevocably destroy it.

©2006 Jared Diamond (P)2012 Random House Audio

Jared Diamand is nearly always amazing...

If you could sum up The Third Chimpanzee in three words, what would they be?

Transformative, illuminating, provocative.

Any additional comments?

....This is an excellent book.

I am only in part 2, but... I am writing this review to vent a little. There is one theme that is being proposed regularly in explaining traits in modern humans. That is the presumptions that human beings by culture or personal preference choose their evolution. Like a bad movie that makes you fill in the plot holes, or accept it's misses this book has many inferences to the behavior of primal / pre-human tribes and how those behaviors effected evolution. Maybe it is the lack of detail, but the theories cited by Jared Diamond to explain hidden female ovulation is presented as a tool they chose to evolve for various reasons, or as something they evolved so that...

This isn't how evolution works. Evolution works that a biological feature is selected out. That is the ones that don't survive are killed by nature, or circumstance. It isn't that the creatures themselves choose to evolve subtle variations. To some degree in mating there is some suppression of less desired traits that would occur, but over all death of a feature, ie: complete homogeneity of a feature in the human population means alternatives were wiped out. For instance in reasoning why humans have much larger penises than other primates, the notion of the small penis babies not getting bred at all seems to be very significant. Perhaps in females walking upright the vaginal canal is stretched and therefore the smaller penis genes didn't get passed on due to insufficient penetration.
That women don't ovulate and display there dripping or inflamed genitals seems more likely to be due to reasons of disease and is certainly not an evolutionary choice or planned behavior.
If I stand on my tippy toes my future children wont be effected by that.

Also where genetic trade offs are concerned, for example Diamond talks about the life length gene being a trade off for many offspring. The reader is left to fill in the gap, I presumed there maybe some shared proteins or other genetic resources that are rationed somehow between creating a new baby and extending the life regenerating functions of the mother. But that is me filling in the gap.

But it is easy to criticize. And to it's credit the topics that are being presented here are thought provoking, interesting and in some cases really turning over some fresh ground. So that that ground isn't being perfectly seeded ( to stretch the metaphor ) isn't necessarily as important as to uncover it.
And for all it's prejudices and blind spots, there are many things in this book that are adding to my world view of people and the way they behave and why. So well worth listening to / reading.

A must read

One of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read. From beginning to end, it was a perfect mix of science and emotion evoking thoughts. It is one of those books you never want to end.

I should have read this 20 years ago!

Better late than never! Really well done, with clear explanations for his conclusions. It was written in 1992, so I am looking forward to his next books, in chronological order. I liked the narrator, too.

one of the best books written

one of the best books written by one of the greatest minds of our times

A bit dated but still relevant and informative

It took me a few months to listen to the whole thing, very good good each chapter is fairly independent.

good info. his latest books cover info

don't get me wrong its a good book. however you have to be interested in this topic.

A very interesting and meaningful read.

After having read Guns, Germs and Steal as well as Collapse I decided to read this earlier work. I was not disappointed.

Success of One Spesies, Means the Lose of Another

A superb exploration of how our growing population is mindlessly committing environmental subside, for want of a memory. Assigning our collective"willful blindness" to our utter inability in learning from history, the author builds his obvious case for including forethought in decision making processes, he concludes with an ambivalent stance for our species sustained existence.

A book that will get you talking...

The Third Chimpanzee was first published in 1992 although the audio version dates 10 years after publication. It is important to take note of this fact as even prof. Jared Diamond might have changed his mind on some things he wrote in the book.

One thing I found very peculiar when I listened to the book, was his side-line comment that South Africa is one of the countries that runs the real risk of genocide. I only understood his pessimism after I realised that in 1992 things really looked bleak in South Africa.

The reason I highlight the above-mentioned point, is that there might be quite a few things that he says, especially predictions that he makes that are already dated and might feel very dark and pessimistic, while he really tries to advocate a positive approach to the future of homo sapiens on this planet.

Diamond begins with the story of the evolution of humans. He describes what makes us genetically different and where we fit into the evolutionary chain. He proposes an intriguing idea, namely, that the two chimpanzee species are genetically nearer to humans than to other apes. They should according to him be classified under the homo genus.

This can be seen as the starting point of a lot of issues that he raises with ethics as the thin line that motivates each of his subject matter discussions.

The book is structured as follows: 1) Part 1 ??? Just another big species of mammal. 2) Part 2 ??? A animal with a strange life cycle. 3) Part 3 ??? Uniquely human. 4) Part 4 ??? World Conquerors. 5) Part 5 ??? Reversing our Progress overnight.

I found especially Part 1-3 fascinating. Ideas like, ???the evolution of genes does not explain human progress??? and ???Neanderthals dying at the age of 30-35 and how homo sapiens??? life cycle adapted to ensure further aging??? are just mesmerising. Part 4 and 5 became more sober and even doomsday-like. Especially in part 5 we hear Diamond???s emotional language. He doesn???t beat around the bush about the way we do things today that might cause destruction.

This book contains a vast array of subject-matter starting with evolution and ending in the dangerous human. It is well-structured and mostly well thought through. Yet some ideas might have gathered some dust since the book was published in 1992. However this is the type of book that gets people to talk and reflect on the world around them. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Rob Shapiro???s reading of the book is fair and easy to follow.

I think Diamond???s book is worth the listen and raises important topics that need to be taken seriously by any listener of the audio book. This book will probably get you talking about what matters.

1992 really?

As a huge Jared Diamond fan I had probably unconsciously made my mind up about this book before I read a single page. It is an older book, and that was particularly irksome to me at several points when I thought to myself "I could have learned and known all this in 1992". If you have read other works by Jared Diamond there is some overlap. The beginnings of 'Guns germs and steel" as well as 'Collapse' are here. Those ideas each get about a chapter and a half toward the end. For some that may be repetitive, but there is plenty not covered in his other other books, such as the genetics of aging and mate selection. The narration is great, nothing to distract from the book itself. Bottom line if you like Jared Diamond you won't be disappointed.