A History of Ideas
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Simon Schaffer on humans, apes and Carl Linnaeus
Simon Schaffer is interested in the human species in general and one member of it in particular. Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist and zoologist who set out the basic structure of how we name and understand life on earth. In doing so he broached the thorny question of where humans should sit among the species of the earth. A hundred years before Darwin he correctly placed us among the apes. Simon examines that relationship to see the things that mark our similarities and our differences. Simon comes face to face with 'Jock', an adult Gorilla at Bristol Zoo and talks to Prof. Robert Foley about human evolution. He also sees how Linnaeus' ideas were used to support racial science. After all if humans were more like apes perhaps some humans were more like apes than others.
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