Whatever the crude too-making abilities of other animals, they surely fall short of our own. I am not rejecting human evolution. I am rejecting simplistic, 19th Century arguments that ignore the immense gulf that has developed between man and the other primates. My point is that the origins of man are so far in the past that it is impossible to find conclusive evidence. So the argument of whether our differences with chimps are a difference of kind or degree is moot. Only an ideological determination to overthrow all
natural hierarchy can cause people to try to talk to the animals like some modern day Dr. Doolittle. They have much to “say” to us, but not in words or human-like deeds. We study them for knowledge; they study us only as prey or, more broadly, as a source of food.