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Comment by maxerickson | Hacker News Reader

Humans are apes not monkeys.

What if you sister called and said there was a safe, cheap and effective way to remove, say, the myopia from her spawn (in the case of dogs, stop inbreeding, in the case of humans, currently imaginary)? Would you tell her not to do it?

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I had some in-laws at one point who had a kid with cystic fibrosis, and they decided to roll the dice and have a second one. (Murphy's Law won that round.) I can't imagine convincing those people to get their $1200 purebred pug[1] neutered for the good of the species.

[1] https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/much-pugs-87fd8b209ca...

I imagine the thing to do would be to sell healthy dogs for $1500 (make sure lots of people say they are worth $1500).

so their second kid had CF too?

We aren't apes or monkeys.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/phylogeny/taxonomy/humans...

That is a very long-winded and opinionated article just to make the point that "ape" is not a taxonomic term, and it's not used completely consistently.

In any case, please don't promote anti-science articles (this one begins by complaining about "those who accept and promote evolution").

The writer is a Professor of Anthropology. Don't jump to conclusions.

sorry, i came across way too bluntly. i really should have noted how suprised i was the an expert thinks its a misconception to think of ourselves as apes.

in any case, i think the author is very much in favour of science.

Hmm. We're "Great Apes" (hominids), but not "Apes"? That seems to violate common sense, in my opinion.

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