Up From The Apes

Despite the protests of creationists and their intellectual allies, and such efforts as the Kansas school board's vote last week to expunge evolution from the school curriculum, science has long taught that human beings are just another kind of animal, but most of the time this seems like a technicality. It's not just the obvious differences--language, civilization, technology--that set us apart. Even basic biology suggests that humanity has special status. Virtually every other type of animal comes in multiple varieties: dozens of species of monkeys, antelopes, whales and hawks walk, swim or fly the earth, to say nothing of beetles, whose...