The headline probably wasn't chosen by the author, and is pretty bad. The minor headline is actually quite good: > Although there is merit in recognizing how w

The headline probably wasn't chosen by the author, and is pretty bad. The minor headline is actually quite good: > Although there is merit in recognizing how we resemble our primate relatives, sometimes we need to understand what sets our species apart. That's 100% true. Both sides are right. But it's not just the headline which is bad. The author goes too far in one direction: > The argument goes that if warfare, sexual coercion, male aggression, the creation and use of tools, hunting, and other patterns show up in both chimpanzees and humans, then these are evolutionarily old, shared traits. Thus, understanding the reasons behind these behaviors in chimps can offer insight into similar behaviors in humans. This premise is nice, but it is mostly wrong. No, as the previous sentence says, it can offer insight - not complete answers, but some amount of insight. How much is still very open to debate. > We have evolved the capacity to be the most compassionate, the cruelest, the most creative, and the most destructive of all life on this planet. The first two - most compassionate, cruelest - are an overly anthropocentric perspective. It would take extraordinary evidence to claim that humans are more compassionate than all other animals. And that's just not likely to be true - why would it? > Racism and global climate change are not explained by our shared history with chimpanzees, nor are gender diversity No, some amount of them probably are explained that way.