Our brain is almost the same as the chimps', but we have language, we have electronic communications, we've put people on the moon - we are immensely more intelligent. And yet: how come the being with the most extraordinary intellect ever is destroying its only planet?

Being evil is something that only humans are capable of.

Chimps are very quick to have a sudden fight or aggressive episode, but they're equally as good at reconciliation.

But does that mean that war and violence are inevitable? I would argue not because we have also evolved this amazingly sophisticated intellect, and we are capable of controlling our innate behavior a lot of the time.

We find animals doing things that we, in our arrogance, used to think was "just human".

I believe that we have more capability than any other creature to control our biological inheritance - and we do so most of the time.

Surely it should be a matter of moral responsibility that we humans, different from other animals mainly by virtue of our more highly developed intellect and, with it, our greater capacity for understanding and compassion, ensure that medical progress slowly detaches its roots from the manure of non-human animal suffering and despair.