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Comment by Zhenya | Hacker News Reader

How can this be the leading sentence in a scientific article??

"Do we gain insight by comparing President Trump to a chimpanzee?"

Edit: this is in response to this idea being floated in the media and this article is responding to it. Thanks child comment for the context.

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It's hard to understand what you're objecting to. 1) This is pop sci, not a "scientific article", and 2) the text you quoted links to another article about the most famous primatologist in the world making exactly that comparison.

>How can this be the leading sentence in a scientific article??

>"Do we gain insight by comparing President Trump to a chimpanzee?"

If you look again at that sentence you quoted, it has a hyperlink to primatologist Jane Goodall comparing Trump to a chimpanzee.[1]

Because Goodall is somewhat of a celebrity on the subject of chimps, and Trump is...obviously Trump, a lot of various media outlets picked up on the combination. E.g. Guardian, FT, Huffington, Fox News, etc.[2]

So it seems like the author is basically responding to all of that.

[1] http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-aggressive-chimp-and-ma...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=comparing+President+Trump+to...

Great point. Updating my comment.

I think it shows the hypocracy on the left. On the one hand it may be a fair question to ask, scientifically [comparing people to any non human species], but imagine someone on the right used that sentence for someone on the left, even if honestly seeking scientific inquiry. They’d be lambasted for being insentive at the least.

> even if honestly seeking scientific inquiry.

OK, so show us an example. We don't have to "imagine" someone on the right comparing Barack and Michelle Obama to chimps, or apes, or gorillas in a non-scientific inquiry because it was a constant during his presidency.

And we’re saying that that was okay? I don’t think so. So why is it okay in this case? Or are we saying it’s dishonest for a leading expert to engage in this juvenile behavior pretending it’s scientific inquiry?

Imagine a scientist on the right equivocating Hillary with a rat, or something to that effect.

People on the right get compared to Neanderthals as well. My point is no one should honestly be making these comparisons, if they also want to keep the moral high ground.

As mentioned elsewhere, the context is from a comment one person (a celebrity scientist) made.

> the hypocracy on the left

This statement seems designed to drag discourse into the gutter. I do not believe you are here to speak in good faith. There are 1,000 ways I can legitimately criticize Trump without referring to him as a chimp, and frankly it's not something that comes up very often.

Imagine the criticism of Trump and tell me honestly you think him being compared to an animal is anywhere near 1/10th of 1%.

Re: Obamas, it seemed to be one of the go to. You are creating a false equivalency.

Ironically, the article we are discussing is refuting the comparison.

I do not believe you are here to speak in good faith.

Most of the media, which is generally slanted left politically, has generally ceased to speak in good faith with regards to actual societal statistics, social science, biology, and psychology. The right tremendously distorts climate science.

There are 1,000 ways I can legitimately criticize Trump without referring to him as a chimp

Portrayal of George W. Bush as a chimp was tremendously popular in the early 2000's.

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