Its important to remember that we evolved. Now, I know thats a dirty word for some people, but we evolved from common ancestors with the gorillas, the chimpanzee and also the bonobos. We have a common past, and we have a common future.

Who are we? That is the big question. And essentially we are just an upright-walking, big-brained, super-intelligent ape.

What is it that really makes us, us? It's our collective intelligence. It's our ability to write things down, our language and our consciousness.

My father so appropriately put it that we are certainly the only animal that makes conscious choices that are bad for our survival as a species.

I think when you work on fossils, and you realize that a species is there, and it's abundant for quite a long period of time, and then at some point it's no longer there - and so, when you look at that bigger picture, yes, you realize that either you change and adapt, or, as a species, you go extinct.