“So far as cerebral structure goes… it is clear that Man differs less from the Chimpanzee or the Orang, than these do even from the Monkeys, and that the difference between the brains of the Chimpanzee and of Man is almost insignificant, when compared with that between the Chimpanzee brain and that of a Lemur.”

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Source: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 120

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Thomas Henry Huxley 127

English biologist and comparative anatomist 1825–1895

Walter Kaufmann book Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

Source: Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (1951), p. 151
Context: There is thus a certain plausibility to Nietzsche's doctrine, though it is dynamite. He maintains in effect that the gulf separating Plato from the average man is greater than the cleft between the average man and a chimpanzee.

“As if to demonstrate, by a striking example, the impossibility of erecting any cerebral barrier between man and the apes, Nature has provided us, in the latter animals, with an almost complete series of gradations from brains little higher than that of a Rodent, to brains little lower than that of Man.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

Source: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 115

“If we look at certain proteins, yes, man then -- it can be assumed that man is more closely related to a chimpanzee than other things. But on the other hand, if you look at other certain proteins, you'll find that man is more closely related to a bullfrog than he is a chimpanzee. If you focus your attention on other proteins, you'll find that man is more closely related to a chicken than he is to a chimpanzee.”

Duane Gish (1921–2013) American biochemist

Gish has repeatedly been challenged to support this claim, but has failed to do so: ** Source http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cre-error.html

“It is hardly an exaggeration to say that a chimpanzee kept in solitude is not a real chimpanzee at all.”

Wolfgang Köhler book The Mentality of Apes

Source: The Mentality of Apes, 1925, p. 293.

“At the time, I was interested in reconciliation after fights, and I wanted to know how bonobos did it compared to chimpanzees. Very soon I discovered that they were much more sexual in everything they did, and that interested me — not so much for the sex part, even though that became a very hot topic, the peacemaking-through-sex thing — but much more how they have such a peaceful society, because they are much less violent than chimpanzees.”

Frans de Waal (1948) Dutch primatologist and ethologist

The Bonobo in All of Us (2007)

“How would you feel if you lived on an island populated, apart from yourself, exclusively by retarded, malicious chimpanzees? Well, that’s how I feel. Don’t laugh, because you’re one of those retarded, malicious chimpanzees.”

Arthur Jones (inventor) (1926–2007) American inventor

The New High Intensity Training (2004)

“I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw [in Ireland] . . . I don't believe they are our fault. . . . But to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black, one would not feel it so much. . . .”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

In a letter written from Markree Castle, Sligo to his wife dated July 4th 1860. Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memoirs https://archive.org/details/charleskingsleyh00kingiala/page/308 (1877)

“One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

“Shave a gorilla and it would be almost impossible, at twenty paces, to distinguish him from a heavyweight champion of the world. Skin a chimpanzee, and it would take an autopsy to prove he was not a theologian.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Baltimore Evening Sun (4 April 1927)
1920s

“Molecular evidence suggests that our common ancestor with chimpanzees lived, in Africa, between five and seven million years ago, say half a million generations ago. This is not long by evolutionary standards … in your left hand you hold the right hand of your mother. In turn she holds the hand of her mother, your grandmother. Your grandmother holds her mother's hand, and so on … How far do we have to go until we reach our common ancestor with the chimpanzees? It is a surprisingly short way. Allowing one yard per person, we arrive at the ancestor we share with chimpanzees in under 300 miles.”

Richard Dawkins book A Devil's Chaplain

"Gaps in the Mind"
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)

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