Did you know they also display death rituals? Amazing creature the African elephant. Beautiful plumage.
Well, I mean, I have something of an axe to grind against chimps.
I've been saying for years that I think they receive an excessive amount of focus and may not really be the best subjects. Other animals have not only equaled them, some species have veritably surpassed chimps in various measures of intelligence. Even some monkeys, which we rather crudely think of as more primitive versions of the same kind of thing (but of course that's a very wrong way to think about this). And it's not just intelligence, it's temperament. If you're going to work with an ape, why not an orangutan? Those things are actually nice. Chimps are bastards. And there are so many other things to consider, like how parrots can actually speak while chimps can't. And I definitely think you're right that all of this is driven by a simplistic assumption, that because we are the supposed paragon of intelligence, and chimps are our closest relatives on earth, then chimps must be the best candidate for intelligence in another species. But that's just not how evolution works.
And I do think humans definitely latch onto an excessive belief in their own exceptionalism. But knowing exactly how to negotiate that can be harder than it looks. I hate to bring another, often fraught, topic into this, but it comes to the subject of instinctual behavior in humans. As many may know, I belief a lot in human plasticity, and acquired traits. I'm not very impressed with genetically deterministic explanations about human psychology. Sadly, sometimes the argument that humans aren't really that special is used as step toward promoting genetically deterministic psychology. I could see that causing other people who believe similarly as me to hesitate, and maybe give them another incentive to cling to human exceptionalism. I solve this by doing it the other way around. Maybe other species are a lot more psychologically plastic than we give them credit for. I'm sure of it, really. Not to over-generalize. Clearly there are a ton of species who really do just sort of gestate with a brain (or a brainless nervous system) that pretty much remains unchanged for the rest of its life, and only adjusts through multi-generational mutations. We could even generalize about what those tend to be like (say, a lot of arthropods). But I think a lot of species are quite plastic. And it stands to reason that the human degree of plasticity could not have come out of no where, just emerged in its entirety somewhere between homo erectus and homo sapien or some crap like that. That's unrealistic.
But all of that human plasticity stuff aside, there
is a point about humans doing something no other organism on earth has ever done. It's really hard to deny that. What can be denied is that it says something is fundamentally unique, no less superior, about our minds. It's possible that many organisms have and do have the mind necessary for these achievements, but by luck alone, were simply never struck with the circumstantial catalysts that made us the ones to do it. In that case, it's not so much about what we are like as it is about being in the right time and place. It could also have to do with some things about us, but not our mind. As I said earlier in the thread, I think free manipulators are important for a species to develop technology, and we have those thanks to our ancestral monkey hands and our newer feature of being bipedal. So that's something about us, but not our minds. Here's yet another thought, what if fire is so important for developing at least to a neolithic level that no marine animals can ever do it? What if, no matter how smart a dolphin or an octopus becomes, the water is just not a good place for developing technology?
Suffice to say, there are so many plausible factors, but people zero in with great confidence on the one that makes them feel best about themselves. As usual.