AP: "Humans are not that special"

The London Zoo has an exhibit this weekend which lowers mankind to the same level as animals.

Entitled "Humans", it includes eight volunteers on a rock ledge inside a bear enclosure, demonstrating that humans are no better than any animal.

Visitors stopped to point and laugh, and several children could be heard asking, "Why are there people in there?"

London Zoo spokeswoman Polly Wills says that's exactly the question the zoo wants to answer.

"Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate," Wills said.

Despite growing evidence to the contrary, the institutionalized theory of evolution continues to get plenty of press through events like this one.

Tom Mahoney, 26, decided to participate after his friend sent him an e-mail about the contest as a joke. Anything that draws attention to apes, he said, has his support.

"A lot of people think humans are above other animals," he told The Associated Press. "When they see humans as animals, here, it kind of reminds us that we're not that special."

Mark Ainsworth, 21, heard about the Human Zoo on the news.

"I've lived in this country for nine years and have never come to a zoo," said Ainsworth. "This exhibit made us come to the zoo. Humans are animals too!"

Only some of them, Mark. Only some of them.

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." Genesis 1:26 (NIV)