Why do some say that humans are apes?

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Humans are not apes. Humans are hominoids, but not apes. The difference between "hominoid" and "ape" is like the difference between "vertebrate" and "fish".

Exactly

Fish are a subset of "vertebrates".

Modern humans are a subset of "hominids", and hominids, are a subset of "apes". So by your own logic humans would be "apes".Like Nebraska is a subdivision of the USA. So Nebraskans are "Americans".

(Apes in turn, are a subset of primates, which are a subset of mammals, which (along with fish, birds, and reptiles, and amphibians) are a subset of vertabrates. But I digress).

"Hominoid" and "ape" mean the same thing.

Type "hominoid" into Wikipedia (which is actually just as reliable as Encyclopedia Britannica) and you get their ape article.

Another problem is the classification "ape".

The living non human apes include the lesser apes (the gibbons), and the greater apes: the orangutan, and the African apes (gorillas, chimps, and bonobos).

Some living ape species are closer to humans in kinship than they are to some other apes species. So its impossible to lump all living apes together into one "ape" family without including humans. Even if edit out the lesser apes, and only confine it to just the more advanced and larger "great apes" you still cant draw a line around the orangutan, gorilla chimp and bonobo and exclude us from the group.

The best that you can do zoologically is to put the Orangutan in its own "Asian ape" category, and then place man with the chimp, bonobo, and gorilla, as one of the "African apes".

That's right. Hominoid is "ape". I was thinking of "hominid" (fossil humans, and humanlike apes, like Lucy).

Apes are hominoids not aren't human. That's the way the word is used in typically conversation. Fish are vertebrates that aren't amphibians, reptiles, birds or mammals. "Ape" and "fish" are paraphyletic, "hominoid" and "vertebrate" are monophyletic. Yeah, you could say that all hominoids are apes and all vertebrates are fish, which would make "ape" and "fish" monophyletic, but that's not how the words are typically used. The word "ape" by definition excludes humans. That's how the word is ordinarily used.

Tell a black person that they are an ape and they probably will take it as an insult.

Yes, but the division between "ape" and "human" is arbitrary. Much more arbitrary than that between tetrapods (nonfish vertabrates) and fish.

A better analogy is the word "animal".

Humans are classified as "animals" by zoologist. But part of the colloquial definition of "animal" is "non human". So its a conundrum. So animal is used both ways (to include humans, and to exclude humans).

Similarly "ape" is used colloquially to mean "a humanlike primate that isn't human". If a fossil is found that deemed not be humanlike enough to be in the genus homo its called an "ape". But if you're get real you have to be aware that humans are really just another species of ape. Chimps are closer to us than chimps are to gorillas. And gorillas are closer cousins to us than are orangutans. So if you're gonna lump orangs and chimps together into the ape category then you hafta include humans into the ape category as well.

I don't think many people think humans are apes.

We have Hollywood movies that remind us that humans are not apes.

That's the right answer. It just depends on whether you are speaking in ordinary-language terms or in formal evolutionary terms. In ordinary language, "ape" refers to a paraphyletic group that excludes humans. But it's also possible to use "ape" in a formal evolutionary sense to include humans.

Are birds dinosaurs? In an ordinary-language sense, no. But in a formal evolutionary sense the answer must be either yes, or else one must agree that "dinosaur" refers to a paraphyletic group.

... except Hollywood almost never gets science right.

We already inhabit the Planet of the Apes, as we are the descendants of apes that just happened to have given God's likeness (our self awareness, as well as our intelligence, sense of right and wrong, and creativity, not to mention a soul, etc).

The Great (Ape) Taxonomy Debate

The amount of genetic difference between sibling species (like from one kind of frog to another kind of frog) is around one to two percent. That's the same as the distance between humans and chimps. And chimps are closer to humans than they are to other "apes" like to gorillas or to orangutans. So all of the species classified as "great apes" form a group that includes humans. So the bottom line is that humans are siblings to, and are one of the same kind of animal as the apes.

So its absurd to deny that "humans are apes".

Ew, paraphyletic groups.

It just seems strange to people to consider humans "apes". Likewise, dogs may be classified as a subspecies of wolf, but in ordinary usage the word "wolf" doesn't include dogs.