The famous primatologist Frans de Waal, of Emory University, says this is something humans do all the time—downplay similarities between us and other animals, as a way of maintaining our spot at the top of our imaginary ladder. Scientists, de Waal points out, can be some of the worst offenders—employing technical language to distance ourselves from the rest of the animals. They call “kissing” in chimps “mouth-to-mouth contact”; they call “friends” between primates “favorite affiliation partners”; they interpret evidence showing that crows and chimps can make tools as being somehow
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