When we are bad, we are worse than any primate that I know. And when we are good, we are actually better and more altruistic than any primate that I know.

We are by far the most contradictory of all primates. An animal with this much internal conflict has never lived on this earth.

When it comes to social interaction, the chimpanzees appear to be just as intelligent as we are.

Humans became easy prey when they moved from the forest to the savanna, which deprived them of the option of climbing trees to flee predators. This shift made it necessary for the men to actively protect the women and their babies. Only as a result of this protection were women able to give birth in shorter intervals, perhaps once every two or three years. This meant that they could produce offspring about twice as frequently as apes. I would be willing to bet that this rapid reproduction is one of the reasons why we dominate the world today, and not the apes.

Religions have a strong binding function and a cohesive element. They emphasize the primacy of the community as opposed to the individual, and they also help set one community apart from another that doesn't share their beliefs.

It is hard to get animals which normally pay little attention to each other to do things together. One can teach dolphins to jump simultaneously out of the water precisely because they show similar behavior spontaneously, but try to make two domestic cats jump together and you will fail.

Male chimpanzees have an extraordinarily strong drive for dominance. They're constantly jockeying for position.