tappet I hope you realize that the statement "humans are apes" does not from from baseless conjecture. It is very well grounded in biology and genetics.
Humans are a type of ape in the same way that lions are a type of cat. That is to say, they indisputably are. Our bodies are extremely similar to other apes, with only a few minor differences compared with other non-primate animals. Our DNA is almost identical, again with only a few minor differences. The fact that humans are intelligent enough to be self-aware does not mean we are not still animals.