A silverback Western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), photographed on July 23, 2008 at the Bronx zoo.

During my elementary school years I was spoon-fed the classic, textbook mythology about evolutionary theory. Although Jean Baptiste Lamarck had come up with a ridiculous notion to explain the neck of the giraffe the world was wholly unprepared for Charles Darwin’s crystal clear scientific revelation in 1859, On the Origin of Species instantaneously being accepted as the only reasonable explanation for the unity and diversity of life. This is absolute nonsense, of course, but as we approach the “Darwin Year” the opportunities for scientific legend to be clothed as historical fact increase. Darwin’s work is important, absolutely, but we would do well to