> NO chimps are not our ancestors--but according to
> geneticists 99% of human
> genome is identical to chimp genome and it is
> generally believed that humans
> and chimps have a common ancestor.

Granted and enthusiatically accepted. My concern is
with the "slippery slope" arguments using ape vs.
human comparisons. Either we are truly "brothers" (or
"sisters" - don't want to be politically incorrect
now) of apes and chimps and should emulate their
behavior, or we are actually "very distant cousins"
and should differentiate ourselves from them. I fall
into the latter category. After all, zebras and horses
"look" like they are related species and have very
similar dietary habits, but are actually further apart
genetically than humans and chimps.

> No, its not.  To manage fire for cooking you have to
> have a certain level of
> nervous system development, hand eye coordination
> and intelligence not had
> by any other primate.

I disagree. "Use" of fire is not the same as
"management" of fire. Fires occur naturally, and since
we are talking about HUGE timeframes, I can accept the
premise that early man may have used naturally
occuring fire when available. It may have taken
another million years for him to "learn" that he could
"create" and then "manage" fire, but he may have
cooking with it long before that. (When I was a kid we
used to jam just about anything on a stick, not just
meat, and "cook" it over an open flame. Seems almost
like a genetic memory when I look back on it now).

> any successful management of fire requires
> a kind of neurological
> hardware not found in any other primate.

Are you assuming, then, that early man 1.9 million
years ago was not any more advanced intellectually
than current primates?

> I wasn't negating the possibility of early use of
> fire (though I have great
> scepticism about it)!  I was negating the following
> three ideas 1) that
> cooking vegetables caused increases in intelligence,
> 2) that vegetables
> supply the substrates required for brain
> development,  and 3) that cooked
> vegetables are more energy dense than meat!

Here I agree with you. I sincerely believe we have
been hunting (or more likely scavenging) for longer
than we've been "officially" cooking. I wonder,
however, if the possibility of very early use of fire
opens up a greater variety in the basic dietary.

> >why is their brain development not on par with
> humans?
>
> Two plausible reasons occur to me:  1) they don't
> now and never have eaten
> enough meat and fat 2) they don't now and never have
> eaten seafood as man
> has.

Another possibility: survival of the (mentally)
fittest. Perhaps environmental pressures were not
sufficient to promote the development of increased
brain capacity in our chimp friends.
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