Recent Research undertaken by the University of Wallasey suggests that human ancestors split from chimpanzee ancestors because of a dispute over a rock.

Up till about ten million years ago, the human and chimpanzee ancestor was one and the same. Then something happened which caused our mutual ancestors to split and to evolve separately. Dr Kevin Woodlouse, the leader of the research team, believes it was a dispute over a particularly useful rock that caused the split:

“There was already some differences among our mutual ancestor,” he told The Sceptical Poet. “We believe there were two very similar groups living alongside each other in harmony. One group was a little stronger than the other, so was better at, well, everything. In the spirit of sharing, we believe the stronger group lent the weaker group a rock, to help smash things up with, on the implicit understanding that this was merely a loan and that the rock was to be returned in the near future when no longer needed. When the rock never got returned, even though there was the implicit understanding that it would, the stronger group demanded the rock back, and there was an altercation. Completely not the stronger group’s fault, as we maintain in our thesis. As a result, relations between the two groups soured and the stronger group was forced to move to a different location, even though it wasn’t their fault and the court order was completely unjustified.”

Woodlouse’s peer reviewers have roundly dismissed his group’s findings as “fanciful hogwash”, “with no evidence to support their claims”, and clearly “unduly influenced by some neighbourly dispute of Woodlouse’s”.

“It’s the worst paper I’ve ever read,” said a professor at his own university.

Dr Woodlouse is having none of it:

“I stand by my findings. The evidence is there. The fossils buried next to rocks, the innate ungratefulness of man. It’s completely plausible.”

Kevin is currently under disciplinary review.