Oh well Neapolitan, I suspect you're arguing with yourself. Mirror tests have been used and results between species like chimps and gorillas can be compared. If you can think of a better way to do it, feel free to design an experiment then have lots of people test various species so that we get comparable results and then figure out if that somehow helps us better answer when our ancestors became self-aware.
edit :
By the way, yes - I did see Idiocracy. Not super, but it had it's moments I thought
