# So. Are humans apes or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 16, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526 "2013-02-16T19:07:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/21 "2013-02-16T20:08:18Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Hahaa! You flatter me. I have no idea what ‘extant ape’ means, so that’s not what I meant. > > Thanks guys for helping me out here. I’m looking stuff up now. I’m still confused though. Like Dr. Fidelius, I’m beginning to wonder if I believe in apes at all. Maybe I should stop counting the basketball passes. In simple terms, “ape” is a layman’s term, not a scientific one. The closest scientific clade is Hominoidea (which includes all the critters the average Joe would usually associate with the word “ape” – chimps, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons – along with humans). So, if you want to consider “ape” synonymous with Hominoidea, knock yourself out. No one can really tell you you’re wrong, but neither can you point to any particular resource that says you’re right. Under such a definition, yeah, we’re apes. In cladistics, the exclusion of groups is generally frowned upon. Thus, if you _do_ consider “ape” synonymous with “Hominoidea”, then we are, by that definition, apes as well. Most folks, including the aforementioned Hawks fellow, do not consider the two terms synonymous, therefore humans are not apes (the English term “ape” being synonymous with Hominoidea - _Homo_, in this case). Edit: You are certainly free to use either definition for “ape”, but what trips up these sorts of discussions is when you don’t explicitly state which definition you are using. The same is true for a good many vernacular terms - fish, whale, amphibian, reptile, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/22 "2013-02-16T20:10:21Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > So, ape IS a clad. Ape is a clad **e** but humans are not clad - hence ‘the naked ape’. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/23 "2013-02-16T20:15:11Z")
Darwin, what do you think? Would you say humans are apes? Do you consider ‘ape’ and ‘Hominoidea’ synonymous? Terminus Est, don’t make fun of me! ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/24 "2013-02-16T20:31:12Z")
> [@Darwins\_Finch](#): > > In simple terms, “ape” is a layman’s term, not a scientific one. The closest scientific clade is Hominoidea (which includes all the critters the average Joe would usually associate with the word “ape” – chimps, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons – along with humans). So, if you want to consider “ape” synonymous with Hominoidea, knock yourself out. No one can really tell you you’re wrong, but neither can you point to any particular resource that says you’re right. Under such a definition, yeah, we’re apes. I’ve heard actual primatologists and anthropologists refer to “apes” in this sense (qualifying it as “non-human apes” for statements that don’t include humans, or making comparisons between “humans and other apes”). “Ape” is _also_ a layman’s term, in exactly the same sense as “animal.” In each case, the scientific application unquestionably includes humans, while the layman’s is pretty much defined by the exclusion of humans. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/25 "2013-02-16T20:36:07Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The only way you could argue that humans aren’t apes is to say that there’s no such thing as “apes”. If Chimps are apes, and Gorillas are apes, and Orangutans are apes, then Humans have to be apes. It’s not the only way. It’s the only way _if you accept cladistics as the only way to describe groups._ > [@](#): > > There are three species of zebra, the plains zebra, the mountain zebra, and Grevy’s zebra. But Grevy’s zebra is more closely related to donkeys than it is to the other two zebras. So “zebra” isn’t a scientific cladistic term, it just means any kind of horse that has stripes. Different species in the horse family have evolved stripes, but having stripes together doesn’t make them close relatives. If we wanted “zebra” to have phylogenetic validity we’d either have to declare that Grevy’s zebra isn’t really a zebra even though it’s a striped horsey, or that pretty much all horsey things are zebras. What, if anything, is a Zebra. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/26 "2013-02-16T20:57:11Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s not the only way. It’s the only way _if you accept cladistics as the only way to describe groups._ > > What, if anything, is a Zebra. 😉 To make people more upset, just point out that there is no such thing as fish either. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/by/fish](http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/by/fish) > [@](#): > > Biologists call this a paraphyletic collection of taxa, which in the case of fish includes hagfish, lampreys, sharks and rays, ray-finned fish, coelacanths and lungfish. Indeed, lungfish and coelacanths are more closely related to the tetrapods (mammals, birds, amphibians etc) than to fish such as ray-finned fish or sharks. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/27 "2013-02-16T20:58:33Z")
Eh, its obvious that people find it useful to have a word that means “all members of Hominoidea minus humans”. The word is “ape”. The fact that it doesn’t line up exactly with a clade is kind of the point. If it did, we wouldn’t need a separate word. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/28 "2013-02-16T21:01:11Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Darwin, what do you think? Would you say humans are apes? Do you consider ‘ape’ and ‘Hominoidea’ synonymous? As a personal preference, yes, I consider them synonymous. I prefer the vernacular terms to mesh with the scientific terms whenever possible. So when I use them, terms like “ape”, “whale”, “reptile” coincide with clades Hominoidea, Cetacea, and Sauropsida, respectively, which means humans are apes, bottle-nosed dolphins are whales, and birds are reptiles. But, again, there’s no scientific requirement to do so. It’s all about making clear what you are (and are not) talking about when you use a specific term. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/29 "2013-02-16T21:02:33Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > By george, I think I’m getting it! > > So if we want ‘ape’ to have phylogenetic validity, we have to accept that humans are apes or that gorillas aren’t apes. Right? Humans and chimps/bonobos have a more recent common ancestor with each other than either do with gorillas. So any group with chimps and gorillas in it must also include humans. Humans, chimps, and gorillas have a MRCA with each other then any of the three do with orangutans, so any group with gorillas and orangutans in it must also include humans and chimps. I actually had a thread with a similar question on it [a little while ago](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=647563)- not only are humans apes, we’re also monkeys, [some grouping](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euarchontoglires) that would include all primates along with rodents and a few other groups (but not bats, which I was surprised to find), and further up the tree of life, we’re Eutherian mammals, tetrapods, and lobe-finned fish. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/30 "2013-02-16T21:03:54Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > To make people more upset, just point out that there is no such thing as fish either. > > [http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/by/fish](http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/by/fish) Noted in post 3. **Simplicio** : I disagree. When I say “ape” I include humans. If I want to exclude humans, I will say non-human apes. A bit cumbersome, but I think a lot of people understand humans to be included in the term “ape”, and I prefer to avoid confusion. > [@iiandyiii](#): > > Humans and chimps/bonobos have a more recent common ancestor with each other than either do with gorillas. So any group with chimps and gorillas in it must also include humans. Humans, chimps, and gorillas have a MRCA with each other then any of the three do with orangutans, so any group with gorillas and orangutans in it must also include humans and chimps. As already noted, this is not true. It is true for cladistics, but cladistics isn’t the only way to classify things. It is become more and more the preferred way, but it needn’t be the only way. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/31 "2013-02-16T21:07:00Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Eh, its obvious that people find it useful to have a word that means “all members of Hominoidea minus humans”. The word is “ape”. The fact that it doesn’t line up exactly with a clade is kind of the point. If it did, we wouldn’t need a separate word. Right, as I said, in the same way that “animal” is used to mean (effectively) _Animalia_, minus humans. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/32 "2013-02-16T21:07:45Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > As already noted, this is not true. It is true for cladistics, but cladistics isn’t the only way to classify things. It is become more and more the preferred way, but it needn’t be the only way. Ok, based on the wording of the OP, I thought it was implied she was asking about cladistics. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/33 "2013-02-16T21:12:40Z")
I don’t think this was answered explicitly. > [@BrassyPhrase](#): > > Aren’t we all (apes, chimps, gorillas and us) primates? Isn’t that the classification? All apes (including chimps and gorillas) are indeed primates. But so are monkeys and prosimians (lemurs and such), which are not apes. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/34 "2013-02-16T21:17:36Z")
SO that guy’s argument boils down to “Of course humans are apes cladistically, scientifically, and behaviorally. **But I don’t like it**.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/35 "2013-02-16T21:34:04Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > SO that guy’s argument boils down to “Of course humans are apes cladistically, scientifically, and behaviorally. **But I don’t like it**.” Damn splitters! ---
**Author:** ![slowlearner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@slowlearner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slowlearner)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/36 "2013-02-18T00:45:16Z")
Sounds like dialogue from an overly long Pogo strip. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/37 "2013-02-18T07:00:19Z")
So. yes, we’re apes? And I’m a monkey driving a car? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/38 "2013-02-18T08:32:29Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > So. yes, we’re apes? And I’m a monkey driving a car? And birds are dinosaurs? :: D&R :: ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/39 "2013-02-18T15:37:56Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > So. yes, we’re apes? And I’m a monkey driving a car? Yes we are apes\*. No, we are not apes. Both of those statements are correct. I hope that clears everything up! 🙂 \*We’re also monkeys and fish. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526/40 "2013-02-18T15:58:19Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Noted in post 3. > > **Simplicio** : I disagree. When I say “ape” I include humans. If you ever in your life have discussed the movie “The Planet of the Apes,” you didn’t then. I assure you at some point in your life you’ve used to word “ape” to mean “primates that are not monkeys but also not humans.” Which is fine. Indeed, in some contexts it’s okay to refer to apes as monkeys. I’m not picking at you, just pointing out that the term “ape” is, like a lot of words in English, context-sensitive. The author of the OP’s cite, John Hawks, to be perfectly blunt, sounds like he’s just kind of a jackass who is out to prove he’s smarter than other people. And he probably is, but going out of your way to prove it on an issue of semantics is a good way to make yourself look much less smart than you really are. Mr. Hawks may know a lot about anthropology but he’s either a shitty linguist or he’s carrying the torch for an issue that nobody cares about. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-are-humans-apes-or-not/650526.md?page=3)