Eric Metaxas and Jonathan Leaf: Decades of Chimp Propaganda
Socrates in the City
Socrates in the City
4.7 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
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Summary
What is behind society’s obsession with monkeys? In this thought-provoking conversation, Socrates in the City host Eric Metaxas sits down with author and playwright Jonathan Leaf to explore the ideas behind his provocative new book, The Primate Myth, and to ask what lies beneath the persistent effort to connect humanity and primates. They discuss why this fascination has endured so powerfully across culture, science, and media.
From the mass popularity of Punch the Monkey to a broader cast of famous animals that have captured the public imagination, they examine the historical, cultural, and even political forces shaping this narrative, questioning whether the perceived relationship between humans and primates is grounded in genuine scientific insight or something more constructed. Along the way, they uncover surprising animal behaviors, trace unexpected ideological influences, and grapple with why this idea continues to resonate so strongly, inviting listeners to reconsider what they think they know about human origins, identity, and the stories we choose to believe.
The post Eric Metaxas and Jonathan Leaf: Decades of Chimp Propaganda first appeared on Socrates in the City.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The bare bones of your thesis are that we are not primates. |
| 0:06.8 | We have been misclassified as primates, and somebody needs to do something about this. |
| 0:13.6 | It's a deliberate effort to mislead people about this. |
| 0:16.0 | There was a famous study that was done decades ago, which claimed that humans were 98.6% the same genetically. |
| 0:22.3 | Okay, that has been said a billion times. What exactly does that mean? No one knows. It's just |
| 0:27.5 | repeated and repeated and repeated to kind of push this idea that we're extremely similar. |
| 0:33.5 | It's literally not true. Just as like we're literally not primates, we don't meet the definition |
| 0:38.3 | requirements of the order. We literally are not 98.6% the same genetically as chimps. And this |
| 0:43.4 | has been known by people who are familiar with the genetics for a very long time. |
| 0:47.9 | Okay. So we have to deal with this as the chimp in the room. Why do they keep pushing this? |
| 0:57.9 | Now that we know it's dramatically false, |
| 1:00.9 | why do some people seem to be so invested in the idea |
| 1:05.7 | that we are biologically similar to chimps? |
| 1:10.7 | Well, you know the answer? We are biologically similar to chimps. |
| 1:11.9 | Well, you know the answer? |
| 1:15.4 | Hey there, folks. |
| 1:16.8 | Welcome to Socrates in the city. |
| 1:21.0 | Today we're having a Socrates in the studio event. |
| 1:26.6 | My guest here in New York is someone I like to call Jonathan Leif. |
| 1:27.4 | That's his name. |
| 1:28.3 | He's a playwright. |
| 1:29.1 | He's a journalist. |
... |
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