By Matt Ridley. 344 pp. New York, HarperCollins, 1999. $26. ISBN 0-0601-9497-9.
We have come a long way since the public confrontation in 1860between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley, one ofCharles Darwin's chief advocates. When the bishop asked himwhether apes were on his grandmother's or grandfather's side,Huxley snapped that he would prefer an ape to a man who "introducesridicule into a grave scientific discussion" (Adrian Desmond.Huxley. Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1997). In his latestdiscourse on evolution, Genome, Matt Ridley, a fluent sciencewriter, points out that "we are, to a ninety-eight per centapproximation, chimpanzees, and they are, with ninety-eightper cent confidence limits, . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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