Your blog suggests that English is not your native language, so perhaps that may explain some of your apparent misreading.

My English is not mother language, but is good enough to tell you that your "logic" won't help you climb up the walls.

Nope! Mission impossible, dude. And you are not Tom Cruise.

i. "apes" means something different form "modern apes"
ii. "(ancient) apes" is the progenitor of "modern apes" and of "(modern) humans".

What exactly are you disagreeing with? Both i and ii are true and both are consistent with what I have been writing. "Apes" would encompass modern apes and ancient apes. Humans are descended from ancient apes, not any of the other modern apes. A corollary to that, based on the genetic relationships between the modern species and the fossil record, is that humans are also a species of modern ape, and specifically they are a sister taxa to the African apes. My statement is entirely consistent with Hawk's argument, which you applauded.

Your blog suggests that English is not your native language, so perhaps that may explain some of your apparent misreading. Look, the phrase "humans and other modern apes" means that humans are members of the category "modern apes." Modern apes is obviously a subset of the more general category "apes." Therefore, "humans and other modern apes" and "humans are apes" are in no sense contradictory. Your logic doesn't work. Statements a and b can be true even if your point (i) is not true, and your point (ii) is irrelevant to points a and b.

What you are trying to "emphasize", once again, is that, unlike other primates, humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas (?) are closely related.

Close. More precisely, that humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas are more closely related to each other than they are to any other primate. That's why referring simply to primates is inadequate.

Is it on the father's side?

That's childish.

compare these two phrases of yours:

a. Humans and other modern apes share a common ancestor

b. humans are apes

It's simply a matter of logic, not of biology or paleo-anthropology. Propositions a. and b. can be true together if and only if:

i. "apes" means something different form "modern apes"
ii. "(ancient) apes" is the progenitor of "modern apes" and of "(modern) humans".

I hope you do realize you are just playing with words.

By saying that humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas are all primates, you are not saying anything intelligible [?!?!?!?] about the very close relationship between humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas within the larger order Primates. [bold mine]

What you are trying to "emphasize", once again, is that, unlike other primates, humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas (?) are closely related.

Is it on the father's side?

That "humans are apes", on the contrary, however much you "emphasize" it, remains a non sequitur, an arbitrary statement.

Read more carefully yourself. The statement that you dismiss as arbitrary is also included in the bolded statement, which you call legitimate. Note the key word "other."

Your comment just confirms the suspicion I expressed at the conclusion of my previous comment:

Perhaps the staunch advocates of Evolution still prefer "apes" precisely because the term "Primates" makes the connection between "Humans & Apes" too remote?

Your suspicion is strangely worded. Using the term "primate" obscures the connection, it doesn't make it "too remote" (whatever that means). By saying that humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas are all primates, you are not saying anything intelligible about the very close relationship between humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas within the larger order Primates.

Like it or not, most people do use the word "ape." When someone like Buttars starts rambling on about his grandfather not being an ape, the best one can do is try to state the relationship clearly using terms that person will understand.

As the very definition that you quote indicates, "primate" is not a taxonomically correct substitute for "ape."

Nick, read carefully!

I did not ever dream of writing that "primate" is a taxonomically correct substitute for "ape".

I said that it is more appropriate to use the word "primates", to which order both humans and apes belong.

Humans and other modern apes share a common ancestor. Humans are not descended from any currently existing species.

That clears up several misconceptions often spouted by people like Buttars:
1. It makes clear that humans are not descended from chimpanzees or gorillas.
2. It emphasizes that humans are apes.

The one you bolded, and repeated at pos. 1., is the only legitimate statement.

That "humans are apes", on the contrary, however much you "emphasize" it, remains a non sequitur, an arbitrary statement.

Your comment just confirms the suspicion I expressed at the conclusion of my previous comment:

Perhaps the staunch advocates of Evolution still prefer "apes" precisely because the term "Primates" makes the connection between "Humans & Apes" too remote?

As the very definition that you quote indicates, "primate" is not a taxonomically correct substitute for "ape." Primates include many mammals that are specifically excluded from any definition of "ape."

If you use the term "primate" you are making a much more vague statement, and you obscure the very close relationship between humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas.

There's really no substitute word for "ape" that will be both unambiguous and intelligible to laymen. You could use "Pongidae" for modern Chimps, gorillas, and Orangutans, "Hylobatidae" for gibbons, and "Hominidae" for humans. But if you substitute "Pongids" for "ape," hardly anyone will understand you, and the offending statement is still true: Hominids are probably not descended from Pongids. Rather, modern Hominids and modern Pongids share a common ancestor.

Or, you could go with more modern taxonomic treatments that do away with Pongidae and classify chimps et al. in the Hominidae. In that case, you still need a way to clearly state that humans are not descended from the other modern species.

IMO, the problematic statement can be cleared up by adding a few specifics, thus:

Humans and other modern apes share a common ancestor. Humans are not descended from any currently existing species.

That clears up several misconceptions often spouted by people like Buttars:
1. It makes clear that humans are not descended from chimpanzees or gorillas.
2. It emphasizes that humans are apes.

So, the ancients made very simple distinctions like:

- animate vs. inanimate vs. vegetative
- animal vs. human

This is only partly true. For instance Aristotle, the great philosopher (384-322 BC), included the following in the definition of Humans:

anthrôpos physei zoôn politikon (man is by nature a social/political animal)

This problem derives from the different ways in which the word "ape" is used.

They also object to the idea that humans are animals, but I have not heard anyone object to calling humans mammals or vertebrates.

A very simple solution to the "problem" would be to resort to the taxonomically correct word, which is Primates and not Apes.

A primate (L. prima, first) is any member of the biological order Primates, the group that contains all lemurs, monkeys, apes, and humans. [Wikipedia]

Or is it, perhaps that the staunch advocates of Evolution still prefer "apes" precisely because the term Primates makes the connection between "Humans & Apes" too remote?

So, the ancients made very simple distinctions like:

- animate vs. inanimate vs. vegitative
- animal vs. human

And then they looked for those essential features that differentiated the classes.

One of the projects of human inquiry for thousands of years was to deterine that essential feature that makes us human. Today, we'd refer to something like our DNA and our evolutionary history (features we share in common with other animals). In the past, they'd refer to something like reason or the intellect (things that made us unique and superior).

So, those primitive distinctions are still ingrained in our language and ways of thinking. I think the term "animal" evokes emotion because in our less focused moments, we still fall back on those inherited distinctions, one of which was the animal vs. human distinction based on rationality. So, unlike vertebrate and mammal, animal still retains "non-rational" or at least "non-linguistic" connotations.

Instead we have a half-baked theory of how evolution must occur, at odds with the facts, which virtually all biologists swear fealty to, and which vast numbers of people find not believable on the face of it: that life is some kind of accidental mechanism created by blind processes.