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Jessica Exconde
Mr. Newman
English 101: Rhetoric
30 September 2014
Survival of the Smartest
The Earth and its inhabitants have been constantly evolving over time due to the drastic
changes of the atmosphere and land and the basic need for survival. Evolution is typically
described as the survival of the fittest. However, fittest does not necessarily indicate physical
strength. Evidence of evolution has been around for millions of years. And although a
controversial subject, it has been a common conception that humans have evolved from
nonhuman primates. Published on May 27 2014 in National Geographic, Dan Verganos article,
Humans Evolved Weak Muscles to Feed Brains Growth, caters to this idea. Vergano
successfully utilizes logos to inform readers on human evolution and the main difference
between todays primates in this article.
The articles main focus is on two of the major differences between monkeys and
humans: brain and brawn. Humans are, statistically, much weaker than monkeys. An automatic
thought may be that monkeys are constantly swinging on vines and humans have a tendency to
stay on the couch. However, Vergano sheds light on a study conducted with college basketball
players, professional mountain climbers, untrained chimps, and another type of monkey,
macaques. The chimps and macaques outshined the humans in this study. Just to be sure,
scientists performed the study again with macaques that lived the couch potato lifestyle: little
exercise, high stress, crummy food for two months and found that they were still several times
stronger than humans. This isnt entirely surprising because studies show that over the last six

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million years, people have evolved weaker muscles...eight times faster than the rest of our body
changed.
However, despite our somewhat crippling weakness, our mental evolution has actually
evolved four times faster than the body. Vergano suggests that, in place of muscles, we have
developed an oversize, energy-hungry brain which consumes about 20 percent of our energy.
Because of this huge brain of ours, we were able to distance ourselves from our more apelike
ancestors and evolved into the humans we are today. Yet science still does not know how or why
our brains evolved.
Dan Verganos use of logos is satisfactory to a point. He successfully discusses the brawn
aspect of monkeys and humans and provides excellent studies and credible links, but he fails to
really touch on the brain aspect. He briefly mentions some statistics, but could really use a study
based on human and monkey intelligence to bring his article full circle. Otherwise, it seems that
monkeys have just as much potential to be the smarter primate because he does not state whether
there is a distinctive line that indicates humans are more intelligent.

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Work Cited
Vergano, Dan. Humans Evolved Weak Muscles to Feed Brain's Growth. National Geographic.
National Geographic Society, 27 May 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.