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... other’s achievements.” 13 The feat Huxley is best remembered for, his confrontation in 1860 with Anglican bishop Samuel Wilberforce during a meeting at Oxford, should be seen against this background. According to the traditional account of that confrontation Wilberforce attacked the new evolutionary theory in a speech, and ended with the question whether Darwin was related to the apes on his ... introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion – I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.” 14 The argumentative power of this reply is weak and its historicity doubtful. Wilberforce was a learned man whose 17,000 words critique of the Origin was published in a prestigious quarterly a few days after the debate. “What really happened [at that meeting] receded behind a fog bank... Each of the players in the drama offered his own version in which he came best,” writes Carl Zimmer. 15 For Joseph Hooker was also present and would write to Darwin “that he himself had taken on Wilberforce: ‘I smacked him amid rounds of applause.’ Both Huxley and Hooker were telling stories that would do two things: raise their stature in Darwin’s eyes, and leave him indebted to them.” 16 And ...