In the NY Times, Primatologist Frans de Waal Takes a Swing at Human Exceptionalism

Science, properly understood, is a method of obtaining knowledge. But it isn't as simple as that. The way it is approached often reflects the biases and ideology of the scientist. Sometimes a scientists knows what she wants to discover, and by golly, goes right ahead and finds just that.

I've noticed for years that many life scientists -- for example, the novelist (as I call her) Jane Goodall -- seem zealously bent on disproving the exceptional status of human beings. In this they are aided...