"Is Karl's bewilderment with the world endearing?"

Ricky Gervais responds to a question about Karl Pilkington:

It is, because you know there is no malice. He says ridiculous things like, the Chinese don't age well, and gays should have their own toilets. But even though on the face of it that could be incredibly offensive, you can't get offended because you can't get offended when a toddler says something either. He doesn't really understand what he is saying. Everything is in the form of a question.

Sometimes there is an arrogance in his ignorance. For example, I explained to him on "Natural History" that we're 98.6 percent genetically identical to a chimpanzee. And I said we're closer to a chimp than the chimp is to a gorilla. Karl went "no way," I said, yes it's true. He said "no, if I look at them, I'd think the gorilla is more like us." I said "You'd be wrong. The chimpanzee is 98.6 percent genetically identical to a human. That's only 1.4 percent difference." And Karl went, "well that's gotta be the arse then."