Darwin's dangerous idea.
Most educated people nowadays know that we share over 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. It does not disconcert us. The Victorians may have reacted with outrage to the proposition that we share our ancestors with the great apes, but we now live comfortably with the knowledge of our cousinhood.

We also share 50% of our DNA with bananas. This is a little harder to come to terms with. We cannot know how the bananas feel about it, but many humans may experience a frisson on learning this fact. The frisson may only be a faint echo of the existential horror that Darwin's contemporaries had to deal with. All the same, it gives us some sense of the blow that he delivered to their self‐esteem.

Modern doctors have a somewhat peculiar relationship with Darwinism and evolutionary biology. The problem is not one of disbelief. Only a small minority of doctors still have anti‐Darwinian views about the origin of species or the descent of man. No doubt they continue to defend these in the same way that the Inquisition …