The FOXP2 gene is believed to have wide-ranging effects on human language ability (i.e., people with defects to the gene–most who do, die–have severe speech, syntax, and writing impairments that seem independent of other intelligence issues; the gene is identical in every healthy human on the planet and it appears to have been conserved in its present form for a good 200,000 years–indicating that it grants some serious adaptive benefit).
The chimpanzee version apparently only differs from ours by 2 amino acids. Has anyone tried to replace the chimp version with the human kind (at the zygote stage, I’d presume), to see what effect it might have?
This thread ( http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=130673&highlight=foxp2 ) addresses the question, but with no answer. Has anything changed since then?