Tom Wolfe's latest nonfiction book is The Kingdom of Speech. From his interview with NPR's Scott Simon:SIMON: Yeah. But you say that speech bedeviled Darwin as a matter of fact.--Marshal Zeringue
WOLFE: It did. He could not figure out what it was. He assumed because of his theory that everything evolved from animals, and he didn't even include it in his theory language until he decided that it came from our imitation of the cries of birds. And I think it's misleading to say that human beings evolved from animals. I mean, actually nobody knows whether they did or not. And there are very few physical signs, except for the general resemblance between apes and humans. The big evolution, if you want to call it that, is that this one species, Homo sapiens, came up with this ingenious trick, which is language.
SIMON: Are you concerned, Mr. Wolfe, or are you resolutely not concerned that people who don't believe in evolution for religious reasons, not scientific ones, are going to begin to cite your work as some kind of scientific proof?
WOLFE: I wouldn't think so because...[read on]