[Ichneumon]

BMCDA posted a quotation from Linnaeus: "If I had called man an ape, or vice versa, I would have fallen under the ban of all the ecclesiastics. It may be that as a naturalist I should have done so." I Googled the quote, and it begins: "I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character ... by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none."

Thanks, I hadn't encountered that quote before, I'll add it to my collection.

If the subject matter baffles anyone, read and ponder the essay, You Are An Ape.

The point is that there isn't a single defining characteristic of the ape family that humans do not also possess. In a real taxonomic sense, we are *still* apes, just ones of the human variety. (Just as we are still primates, still mammals, and still vertebrates.)

Put another way, our differences from our ape "cousins" are ones of degree (in some cases large degree), but not of kind.

[PatrickHenry]

PatrickHenry remains aloof ...