Note the Curious Sleight of Hand

When Man Mated Monkey

Icky as it sounds, ***we*** mingled across species in the past, which could help us win evolution wars in the future.

Questions abound. In what sense are "pre-humans" "man"? In what sense is something not-human part of "we"? How does the writer slip so easily from saying "pre-humans" and "pre-chimps" mated to saying "human beings and chimpanzees" did? (And, of course, how do they really *know* this?)

No matter. Journalists have just found a very convenient excuse for bestiality as another "taboo" (oh, that *useful* word!) slowly begins to come under scrutiny in light of what "we" used to do. Indeed, cross-species sex is not just not harmful! It's a weapon in our evolutionary arsenal! Who but anti-evolutionary pinheads could hold to those old taboos once the light of Science has shown the meaninglessness of such things. In fact, it not only opens up new frontiers in the evolution of post-Christian sexuality, it shows us that glory of a billion dollar industry devoted to creating chimeras! So many vistas open up, thwarted only by "know-nothing anti-evolutionism, with religious fundamentalists occupying the White House, controlling Congress and attempting to distort the teaching of science in our schools". Yessirree, SCIENCE has (by a remarkable feat of prestidigitation) cast down the Judeo-Christian notion that man is made in the image of God.

No agenda-driven science journalism here.