Originally posted by davesidious
reply to post by The Blind Eye
We are apes. Sheesh.
No... you are a 'monkey's uncle' ... i am an ape, therefore i am superior to you... so prepare to be schooled for inferior breed of primate ...lol
Despite this dispute over labels/taxonomy, my point/challenge still stands... which relates in kin with this anal issue over names ... and prompts the deeper question of why we insist on distancing ourselves from a fact that is hard for most of us to accept.
Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, Linnaeus's inclusion of humans in the primates with monkeys and apes was troubling for people who denied a close relationship between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. Linnaeus's Lutheran Archbishop had accused him of "impiety." In a letter to Johann Georg Gmelin dated 25 February 1747, Linnaeus wrote:
It is not pleasing to me that I must place humans among the primates, but man is intimately familiar with himself. Let's not quibble over words. It will be the same to me whatever name is applied. But I desperately seek from you and from the whole world a general difference between men and simians from the principles of Natural History. I certainly know of none. If only someone might tell me one! If I called man a simian or vice versa I would bring together all the theologians against me. Perhaps I ought to, in accordance with the law of Natural History.
source: linnaeus.c18.net...
[edit on 9-3-2010 by The Blind Eye]




