# How did Humans end up with 46 Chromosomes?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-humans-end-up-with-46-chromosomes/636510>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 2, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-humans-end-up-with-46-chromosomes/636510 "2012-10-02T19:22:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-humans-end-up-with-46-chromosomes/636510/21 "2012-10-03T14:18:00Z")

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> [@alphaboi867](#):
>
> Ditto. The resulting court proceeding to determin whether the resulting hybrid is a person or not would certainly prove interesting.

Whether a non-human qualifies as human has been a popular theme in intellectual sf, and often results in a dramatic court case. Vercors (pseudonym of Jean Marcel Bruller) wrote _You Shall Know Them_ (_Les Animaux dénaturés_) in 1952 about a discovered tribe of ape-men. The protagonist deliberately kills an infant and demands to be tried, because if they are not human he isn’t a criminal and if they are he deserves death himself. It made a sensation. When it was released in the U.S., they publicized with the [best paperback cover in all history](http://bookcoverarchive.com/images/books/you_shall_know_them.large.jpg).

The situation and the logic is so powerful that in 1988 Roger McBride Allen rewrote the book almost exactly as _Orphan of Creation_, and claimed when I asked him that he had never heard of the original. Not improbable: the earlier book is almost forgotten now.

The Allen book is my nominee when people ask what books of sf should be made into a film. It’s a book about ideas, not spaceships, but would be stronger than a thousand space battle movies. And cost almost nothing for special effects; just some prosthetics.

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**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-humans-end-up-with-46-chromosomes/636510/22 "2012-10-03T15:20:26Z")

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> [@Frylock](#):
>
> Human/Great-Ape interbreeding is one of those things which I would never condone, yet which I secretly wish would happen someday because I am just so damn curious about the result.

I know, right. Will someone please fuck a gorilla and get back to us already?

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**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-humans-end-up-with-46-chromosomes/636510/23 "2012-10-03T15:21:07Z")

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> [@LinusK](#):
>
> Would it be a humimp?
> 
> Or a chiman?

Well, [**Jerry Was a Man**](http://thelawandsciencefiction.solahpmo.com/?p=79).

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-humans-end-up-with-46-chromosomes/636510/24 "2012-10-03T18:02:13Z")

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> [@LinusK](#):
>
> I was gonna say, somebody somewhere has GOT to have tried this… Would it be a humimp?
> 
> Or a chiman?

The convention is that the you hybridize the name with the father’s species first. Humanzee if the dad is human, Chiman if the the mom is.

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