[Physicist]

But many are still "apes" nonetheless.

Of course! Nobody's confused by the fact that the ancestors of modern birds were birds. Apes do exist and did exist. And if a taxonomy were worked out by anything other than a human being, human beings would be classified as apes, also.

[Old Professer]

I meant in the behavioral sense, sorry for the confusion.

It's not so much that we can't believe the evidence, it is more that we can't get comfortable with it.