Given that humans and chimps already share about 98% of our DNA, it probably wouldn’t take much on a genetic level to cause a chimp to show characteristics that would be considered humanoid. That said, the so-called "humanoid" features of Oliver are not that uncommon at all among chimpanzees, which would seem to indicate that claims to his uniqueness are probably exagerrated.
The entire concept of a "missing link" is, in reference to Oliver, a gross and foolish misunderstanding of popular culture. Aside from Andrew’s very valid point on the matter, it is also rather obvious that any creature alive today has absolutely zero chance of being a missing link between chimpanzees and humans. In fact, it is flatly impossible for such a link to exist at all, either today or in the past, at least in an evolutionary sense. For example, is there a "missing link" between yourself and your cousin? The only link between the two of you might be that you share the same grandfather. It is the same with humans and chimps. There never will be a link between chimpanzees and humans because humans did not evolve from chimpanzees, or from any other primate alive today. We share a common ancestor with other apes, and we may discover may species linking us and other extant species to that now-extinct ancestor, but a "missing link" between chimpanzees and humans will never be discovered because it is impossible for any such link to exist.
As for the possibility of human-chimp hybrids, I wonder how this would work out on a genetic level. Examination of chromosome 2 in humans seems to indicate that this chromosome was formed from the fusion of what was once two separate chromosomes, leading most geneticists to believe that humans at one time did have 48 chromosomes like chimpanzees. When the gametes of two parents merge to form a zygote, the chromosomes of each pair up with each other to form the genome of the offspring. Chromosome 1 from the father will always pair up with chromosome 1 from the mother, and the same will happen with the second pair, and with the third, and so on. I wonder how the fact that the second chromosome in humans corresponds to two separate chromosomes in chimps would affect that pairing? Would the two chimpanzee chromosomes both pair with their single counterpart in the human genome, or would the third chimpanzee chromosome (which should correspond to half of the human second chromosome) pair with the third human chromosome, thus throwing the entire sequence out of order and possibly preventing an offspring from developing?
Such a hybrid might be possible, especially given that similar chromosomal differences between horses and donkeys does not prevent them from mating to produce mules. Some evidence also suggests that such hybrids have existed in the past between the evolutionary ancestors of humans and chimps. However, only a few experiments have ever attempted to produce a hybrid between modern humans and chimpanzees, and none of these have met with success. It might be that such a hybrid is impossible after all.
15 years, 1 month ago
