One of the notions that always irked me was the hubristic idea that humans were somehow deserving of more rights than other species as they were supposedly vastly more intelligent than any other species in all ways. This led to scientists making up all sorts of excuses such as claiming falsely that animals could not laugh or understand laughter etc. Similiarly, apemen would be considered to be vastly inferior to modern humans etc. The above article is just one of many pointing out that we have a lot more in common with other species than previously thought, and that, therefore evolution is rather slow and that we are not particularly special as a species.