We would much rather blame nature for what we don't like in ourselves than credit it for what we do like.

There's actually a lot of evidence in primates and other animals that they return favors.

I call the notion that we are nothing but killer apes the Beethoven fallacy. Beethoven was disorganized and messy, and yet his music is the epitome of order.

Although elephants are far more distantly related to us than the great apes, they seem to have evolved similar social and cognitive capacities.

I was raised Catholic. Not just a little bit Catholic, like my wife, Catherine. When she was young, many Catholics in France already barely went to church, except for the big three: baptism, marriage, and funeral. And only the middle one was by choice.

Why not assume that our humanity, including the self-control needed for livable societies, is built into us? Does anyone truly believe that our ancestors lacked social norms before they had religion? Did they never assist others in need, or complain about an unfair deal? Humans must have worried about the functioning of their communities well before the current religions arose, which is only a few thousand years ago.

Male bonobos really don't fit the human male ideal.