To neglect the common ground with other primates, and to deny the evolutionary roots of human morality, would be like arriving at the top of a tower to declare that the rest of the building is irrelevant, that the precious concept of "tower" ought to be reserved for the summit.

When someone brutally kills someone else, we call him "animalistic." But we consider ourselves "human" when we give to the poor.

Most exotic animals are not particularly interested in people, which makes it hard to provoke them. Human-rearing gets them used to and sometimes imprinted on humans, which makes them potentially dangerous.

To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.

The thinking is that we started evolving language not by speaking but by gesturing.

People want to work with somebody who feels shame, who worries about the perceptions of others. Dishonesty is something we don't like in others.

Personally, I think it is possible to build a society that is moral on a nonreligious basis, but the jury is still out on that.