I just started a GD thread asking about the societal implications of a large population of chimp/human offspring being discovered since it isn’t that large a leap of logic to assume it’s possible due to similar instances happening with mules, ligers, etc but out of curiosity, and not to hijack my own thread from the get-go, I was wondering… *is *it conceivable?
*Could *a human and a chimpanzee have a child?
This has been done a bunch of times here. If you do a search, you’ll find the threads.
No one knows if it would be possible or not. And there is no evidence that anyone has ever tried, since nothing has ever been published. It might even be that, if it were found to be possible, there might be some special laboratory-type help needed to make the process happen and just going about it by artificial insemination* might not work.
*assuming it wouldn’t be tried the “natural” way. :eek:
This question has been asked umpteen dozen times. Do a search of GQ.
In a nutshell:
The answer is an absolute yes. It’s possible.
There is no evidence for it but then again there is no hard evidence against it.
Humans and chimps are far more closely related than wolves and jackals or cattle and bison and numerous other species that are perfectly capable of producing fertile hybrid offspring.
There is a chromosome count different but that’s not really an issue since numerous other species have differing chromosome counts and remain perfectly interfertile.
It might be assumed that given human proclivities for having sex with anything available that it would have happened in the past and no offspring have been recorded however chimps aren’t really animals to be treated lightly so it’s possible that it has never been tried.
Duh. I completely spaced out and forgot to do a search before posting the OP. You’d think after almost two years here, I’d have the method down pat but apparently not.
Sure there is. Just take a look at my upstairs neighbor.
But as to a "large population of chimp/human offspring being discovered ", that pretty well belongs in Tinfoil-hat-land.
In Nature? - I am very dubious. :dubious:
In the lab? Very possible, indeed. :eek:
What I’ve gathered from previous threads on this is that no scientist qualified to say yes or no would ever go on record saying yes or no. I guess it’s a pretty touchy subject.
levdrakon it’s not that it’s touchy, it’s just that there’s no evidence. Scientists don’t deal in WAGs and they couldn’t possibly do research on this topic so there’s really nothing to say.
Closed at the request of the OP.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
For those wishing to read some of the earlier threads:
Has there ever been an animal-human hybrid?
Human chimp hybrid,remotely possible?
Half-man, half-ape?
O.K. then, what about man and gorrillas?