Strange Perfection

Recently, I went to Taiwan. On the 14 hour flight to and from Taipei, I spent a lot of time with EVA Air’s in-flight entertainment. I watched a number of movies, including Monuments Men, BlacKKKlansman, Oceans 8, Alpha, and The Children Act. But the video that I most enjoyed was the BBC TV special, “Can Science Make Me Perfect?”. With a title like that, you might imagine the result would be a bionic or genetically engineered Ubermesch, but the accompanying thumbnail image of Alice Roberts’ strange doppelganger suggested something more along the lines of Frankenstein. Colour me intrigued!

Quick synopsis: Alice Roberts, an anatomist with a reputation for “whinging” about human physiological shortcomings, receives a challenge from London’s Science Museum to produce a life size sculpture of her ideal self in 3 months. To meet the challenge she enlists the aid of sculptors Scott Eaton and Sangeet Prabhaker. In her quest for perfection, Roberts seeks to design a body that won’t suffer from the middle-aged ailments that plague her (and many other humans). The maladies she attempts to address include: back pain, bad knees, heart attacks, choking hazards, child birthing difficulties, varicose veins, skin cancer (she’s a ginger), hearing loss, blind spots, and poor night vision. To keep the design grounded in reality, Roberts draws inspiration and solutions from other animal species. The end result is a chimera that includes parts borrowed from chimpanzees, emus, dogs, kangaroo, cuttlefish and frogs.

The journey proves to be highly educational and along the way Roberts examines the evolutionary paths that have resulted in the modern human form. One comes away with the sense that, far from being the pinnacle of evolution, the human body represents a series of compromises and kludges.

Apart from being educational, the episode is highly entertaining. After two initial meetings with Scott Eaton, the remainder of Roberts’ design choices are conveyed over the phone so that the shape of her ideal self remains a mystery until the final big reveal. I can’t help but imagine Eaton getting off the phone and heaving a big sigh as he’s left to figure out how to incorporate Roberts’ latest suggestion into the sculpture. “A camel is a horse designed by committee” seems appropriate here.

The episode concludes at the Science Museum. Over a hundred curious gawkers show up to see Roberts’ unveiling of her ideal self. At the moment of the reveal there is gasping, laughter and a shriek from Roberts. At this very moment, I’m laughing just thinking about it. I’m tempted to call the final result an abomination (hyperbolically), but perhaps that’s because my mind is a prisoner of evolution. Can Science Make My Mind Perfect? That’s a topic for another episode.

The BBC website includes a comments section for the episode. Disappointingly (but not surprising), I saw a fair number of trollish comments, but I was also pleased to see Roberts’ genial responses. Roberts and the sculptors deserve lots of credit for being good sports and for taking on the enormous challenge of redesigning the human form. From reading Roberts’ blog, it’s clear that she put a lot of thought into composing her wish list for Alice 2.0.

Perhaps I will try a similar exercise in the future, as a way of exploring anatomy and meeting my own hubris and fallibility face-to-face.

About Kissing Cousins

In June, I decided to go on a road trip to Ohio. The Cincinnati Zoo has a unique collection of small cats that includes species like the spunky black-footed cat, the agile caracal, and the famously grumpy pallas cat. I had high hopes that these small cats would make good painting subjects. As it turns out, the Night Hunters exhibit is poorly lit and the cats were uncooperative (which is the prerogative of all cats). Fortunately, all was not lost because I had another reason for visiting the Cincinnati zoo: bonobo chimpanzees.

The first time I learned about bonobos was in the 90’s, when I read about Kanzi, a bonobo that was able to communicate using lexigrams. This was before the age of YouTube and streaming video, so I only had the article’s text to go on, but I remember being fascinated by the idea of communicating with another species. I also wondered: was there something special about bonobos? Was Kanzi a one-of-a-kind genius? The following documentary, made in the 90’s, provides a glimpse into Kanzi’s life, and suggests some answers to those questions:

Some background: Bonobos (aka the pygmy chimpanzee; pan paniscus) are the less well-known cousins of the common chimpanzee (pan troglodytes). Physically, they are slighter and more comfortable walking upright than their common cousins. Primatologists say that bonobos bear a close resemblance to Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), one of our hominid ancestors.

Socially, bonobos are matriarchal. Temperamentally, bonobos are gentle and peaceful, preferring to use affection and sex to resolve differences instead of the violence that their common cousins often resort to. The famed primatologist, Frans de Waal refers to bonobos as “The Make Love, Not War” primates.

I knew all of this when I drove down to Cincinnati. But facts are one thing. Seeing the bonobos in person was another. Prior to Cincinnati, my encounters with non-human great apes had been limited to gorillas and orangutans in North American zoos. I’ve always admired gorillas and orangutans, but I’ve also sensed a certain reticence when I’ve spent time observing them. Not so with the bonobos.

When I entered the viewing area, two youngsters, Bolingo and Kibibi, were rough housing with each other and an adult male, Vergil. When I squatted down to take a photo, they all looked at me and the youngest one, Bolingo, approached me before being pulled back to the play session by Kibibi.

A while later, a young female, Clara, approached the window, locked eyes with me, and placed her hand on the glass separating us. I placed my hand over Clara’s and she held my gaze for a few seconds before venturing back to the group. I felt quite moved by this brief connection.

Bonobos and common chimpanzees are our closest living relatives. We share 98% of our DNA with them. Behaviourally, the two chimpanzee species differ wildly in their propensity for violence: common chimpanzees conduct murderous raids on neighbouring troops, while bonobos will help strangers with no promise of reward.

Frans de Waal describes humans as the bipolar ape: occupying a space that is somewhere between the bonobo and the common chimpanzee. Based on the brief time I spent with them, I think we would do well to learn from the bonobos, our playful and gentle cousins.