I’ve always heard that the ability to reason is what separates us from animals. Animals are driven by instinct, whereas we weigh our options before acting (most of the time).

There are certain humans (to give them the benefit of the doubt) that I would so classify. Except it would annoy the hell out of and unnecessarily malign the animals.

this question would only dare be asked, by a species that has grown accustomed to arrogance, i suspect, through science and enlightenment thinking. such is the price of disenchantment.

The only thing that separates us from animals is the fact that we are the only species that has separated itself from animals.

We are the same as any other species of life on this planet and just as fragile and fleeting.

@mammal used exactly the right word when he used arrogance

Yes, humans are animals. We might think we are somehow superior, but we are not.

What else would we be called? We’re an animal just like the animals we own, eat, and see at the zoo.

We’re just animals.

Yes. We’re multicellular, heterotrophic, eukaryotic organisms with a body plan that becomes fixed as we develop. I’d say that makes us animals…

Being more intelligent doesn’t mean we’re not animals. In that respect, we are different than other animals, but we’re still animals.

I wouldn’t get too reductionist about the answer. We’re also “just chemicals”.

So, yeah, we’re ‘animals’ in the sense that we’re mammals, which are a type of vertebrate—a primate, to be more precise. But I wouldn’t say that humans are ‘just animals’. Most of us, anyway.

I keep seeing the word “intelligent” used in this thread when referring to humans. What makes us so superior to animals when it comes to brain power?

Do animals poison the air they breathe?
Do animals poison the water they drink?
Do animals wage war or create weapons of mass destruction?
Do animals lie?
Do animals build McDonalds restaurants and pave over the land that gives them life?
Did animals remove themselves so far from nature that they now consider basic living skills unnatural and cruel?
Did animals set themselves up with a societal system that would completely collapse if the lights suddenly went out for good?

Yeah, man is a giant fucking brain.

Yes we are animals and I agree with @Blondesjon we destroy our enviornment consistantly and use up the resources. Often killing everything around us for profit.

Of course, we’re animals. What else would we be? Computers?

Animals, in my opinion, deserve respect in the sense that we shouldn’t kill them willy-nilly. And certainly we can find differences between ourselves and animals, but we can find differences between any animal and all the rest.

The idea that humans are privileged is an old notion from millenniums ago. It’s a religious idea that says animals are in our dominion—we have the right to do whatever we want with them.

In this case, it is might making right. Which is how it usually is. Very few societies will spend a lot of effort protecting the weak. It takes a lot of wealth to be able to afford to do that. It takes a lot of wealth to afford a pet, these days. They perform heart surgery on dogs these days. All for love. All because they can afford to try to keep an animal alive.

Animals, slowly, are being extended rights we formerly reserved for “differently abled” humans. Maybe one day they’ll get the right to vote. If they live long enough. So the separation between animals and humans is being bridged by many animal lovers. Whether this is any better an idea than the idea that animals are to serve us, I’ll leave to you.

Classification of creatures as animals is something done by humans. There is no outside imperative that says it must be so (unless you believe God said so). We’re not plants, that’s for sure.

@Blondesjon

Depends on how you define “intelligent”, I suppose. No, not everything humans have done has been a wise decision, but that doesn’t mean we lack brain power.

Well, we’ve got animal, vegetable, or mineral to choose from… take your pick.

Here is the first definition of ANIMAL from the online Webster’s dictionary, I left out the other definitions because they were less rigorous and more colloquial.

any of a kingdom (Animalia) of living things including many-celled organisms and often many of the single-celled ones (as protozoans) that typically differ from plants in having cells without cellulose walls, in lacking chlorophyll and the capacity for photosynthesis, in requiring more complex food materials (as proteins), in being organized to a greater degree of complexity, and in having the capacity for spontaneous movement and rapid motor responses to stimulation

Obviously, if you are interested in a more psychological or metaphysical answer, this is incomplete.

@DominicX . . . I totally agree.

Unfortunately we drop the ball when it comes to tempering our “gift” with common sense.

Most animals cannot dance @queenie !

@BoBo1946 Neither can most people.

@BoBo1946 Many animals can dance! Bees, wasps (i guess most hymenoptera), birds, mammals… haven’t you heard of the mating dances? I’m sure you must mean dance for self expression/entertainment as opposed to life essential communication!

@tigress3681 Oh, haven’t seen any in my neighborhood. It was an inside joke anyway! left myself an out as i said, most!

This bird does a mean mating dance.

@BoBo1946 Inside jokes in a public place… how thoughtless :P

@tigress3681 ummmm.. @queenie is a friend of mine! She knows! But, thank you reminding me. I needed that.

The wife says i’m a tiger in the mating…sorry, bedroom. Grrrrr!
A teddy bear when i’m with our kids, aww bless em.
I’m also, apparently, akin to a bull in a china shop when in a hurry, or if i’ve misplaced something.
So yeah, we’re animals alright…just some of us smell a little better, occasionally :¬)

Yes, humans are animals. We aren’t plants or fungi, and we have more than one cell.

Yes, humans are different from other animals. Other animals don’t have true languages. Other animals haven’t completely transformed most of Earth’s surface from its natural state, or visited other planets and moons. Something is going on with us humans that isn’t going on with any other kind of animal.

That said, the biological differences between humans and our closest relatives—chimpanzees—are very slight. We share 95–99% of our DNA with chimps. Chimps, like humans, make and use tools. They have cultural variations in how they use tools. They share and help each other altruistically, and they go to war with other groups of chimps.

So we aren’t that different from chimps, but something in those small amount of differences has enabled us to reshape Earth’s surface and go to the moon. It’s probably a number of small adaptations, such as larger brain size, physical ability to make language-like sounds, etc, that evolved together.

just intelligent animals

It sort of depends on how you define ‘plant’ and ‘animal’, @wundayatta. I’m a couch potato, which makes me a sort of carnivorous plant.

<———Dialing up Rocky Horror Picture Show now.

From the song “Animal” by Dana Lyons-

I am an animal, you are an animal

We both are animals, We eat like animals

We dance like animals, we love like animals

We all are animals, we all are animals

Of course we’re animals.

@wundayatta . . . wouldn’t little shop of horrors be more appropriate?

Scientists have discovered and named 6 “kingdoms” of life on mother Earth. They are:
Archaebacteria, Eubacteria, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia. Hummmm….. I wonder which kingdom humans fall under?

@gondwanalon

I’m a fun guy, so I belong to the Fungi kingdom. ;-)

We are animals. Physiologically we are mammals, and genetically we are cousins to Chimpanzees and Bonobos.

@Brian1946 I’d hate to think what it means that I used to be a rolling stone, then.

@Blondesjon said it well “The only thing that separates us from animals is the fact that we are the only species that has separated itself from animals. We are the same as any other species of life on this planet and just as fragile and fleeting.”

Well, no, we’re not “the same as any other species of life on this planet” (really? bacteria, algae and mosquitoes are all equal to elephants, swordfishes and humans?) and we’re not even the same as every other species of life on the planet capable of locomotion and sexual reproduction. When mosquitoes can invent government and taxes, then they could conceivably be our equals in terms of annoyance.

From an ivory tower point of view of “responsibility for all life”, then it’s probably accurate to say that humans have “no more right to existence as a species” than any other species. Even so, on an individual basis, when it comes to extinction of members of one species vs. members of the human race, we decide in favor of humans.

That’s why, for example, when a dog bites a human we routinely put down the dog instead of the human, even though in a more just world we might side with the dog more often.

Human beings are certainly a type of critter.

Yes, we are animals. We are different from all other animals. But then again, every other animal is different too. We just like to think we are superior.

I’m often intrigued by the point that awareness and reason are what separates us, as opposed to all other animals that live on instinct. However, I’m of the mind that these special traits we have are vital tools of our own instinct.
Especially emotions, which I see as nothing but drive for survival, and that seem to drive our very history; fear, love, ambition, shame. Our evolution seems to decree that our survival be transcended to a different level through adaptation to our own evolution with societal factors like fashion, technology, wealth or religion. Intelligence and awareness, I believe, exist merely to compensate for a lack of claws, fangs, tough skin or scales, wings, poison, speed, you name it.

But who says ants don’t have a god? Are you able to make an ant understand that you’re superior to it? No. It will never understand you. You can kill it yes, we can kill everything.
But that makes us merely the strongest, the top of the food chain. That doesn’t really make us superior, because we don’t really understand anything, much less about animals than even ourselves. In fact, that we’re even part of this food chain only goes to show how not different we are; we’re still a part of what makes everything in nature exist; we’re just the ones who happen to be on top. Big deal, we’ll fall one day, just as the dinosaurs have.
And I think they were even more retarded than we are.

I mean, if we were really all that smart and superior, people wouldn’t claim Megalodon sightings. And if there are any left, I’m sure we never saw them.

Yeah my post completely blows, I’m trying to say that we barely know a thing about what lives with us, so we can’t really claim to be superior or different when we don’t understand. I mean animals have societies too, they communicate with one another, and no animal can communicate with one that isn’t its sort beyond seeing it as a threat or as food, just like we do with animals, and just like we can’t communicate with any of them beyond forcing them to submit to us. And as the male moose engages in combat with another male to win a female, so to we, have adopted superficiality in bars and high school to procreate, or better yet, have created this thing called marriage which owes its roots to oppression and status as a means of preservation. (Praying Mantis lawlz.)
I don’t think our behaviour is much different than animals when it comes to existing merely to keep existing. It just has a different form, but it leads to the same goal.

Animals lie. Animals cheat. Animals steal. Animals transform their ecosystems and biosphere. So what?

We’re no different; even the criterion of rationality is suspect – by whose judgment are we rational?

@Qingu has posted the only withstanding difference between us and ‘animals’ – true language. Even this is not a dead cert.

@Blondesjon You’re trying to tell me you can tell the difference?

@wundayatta . . . Yeah. There’s no dentist in Rocky Horror.

Biology classifications are based on specific, measurable, similarities.

Psychological classifications are completely different as they are based on subjective traits. The arguments which classify the behavior/thought processes of animals as being different from Humans can go both ways, as demonstrated above.

@Blondesjon I thought Brad…. ???

Of course, animals naturally live in some sort of balance with their surrounding environment and all other life. We on the other hand tend to be 6.7 billion parasites sucking the life out of everything, a disease that remains woefully ignorant of the fact that by killing this planet we’re killing ourselves hence need some way to regulate ourselves, both in indulgences and population size if we want to keep living on this mud ball in relative peace and harmony.

@Symbeline, I disagree; I think humans clearly understand much more about the world (and ants) than ants do. Individual ants are basically automatons whose group behavior has weakly emergent intelligence.

Yes, we have herd behavior, mating behavior, etc, all of which parallels similar behavior in other animals. But we also understand mathematics and physics, and we can build machines that take us to other heavenly bodies and make far-off predictions that come true.

My cat is a very intelligent gentleman and he obviously has a rich inner life of emotions and desires—and once I even saw him almost figure out how a top works. But he couldn’t ever explain why a top works (because of angular momentum). His brain obviously has the capacity to act as a calculator (he has to gauge distances for jumps, etc) but it doesn’t have the capacity to understand abstract physics.

And I think this is a gift that we too easily dismiss. I feel sorry for my cat that he doesn’t have the capacity to read books or understand what is going on on the TV screen. There is an entire world that he cannot experience or interact with, experiences he probably thinks are “illusions” or “those big cats acting crazy.”

By simple definition, yes humans are animals. We are mammals, so thus we are animals. But self awareness and mental integrity is what allows us to exist outside of the food chain. Science, for some reason, has yet to even attempt to justify or change the human/animal link solely based on the fact that we have the same inner systems (Heart, lungs, stomach) as all other animals. Maybe we need a new animal class to separate us from other mammals?

@Moegitto how about Stultorum nesciens funesta?

I’ve never understood the peculiar logic that allows a person to sincerely think and state that (at least in that person’s opinion) ‘humans are evil parasites sucking the life out of the planet and destroying all that is decent and good’ (I’m paraphrasing, but I got the context right, didn’t I?) ... and yet still go on living, posting to Fluther, and imagining that, ‘well, other than that one little thing, not so bad, I suppose’.

I freely admit that I’m nowhere near perfect and not even aiming that way any more, and I gave up on the idea of perfection in our species even before I was introduced to the Bible, but I don’t think that I’m evil, or that the rest of the species is, either.

@CyanoticWasp what I mean is that we don’t know when to stop as a species. We hear everyday about increasingly limited resources, about global warming, endangered species edging closer to extinction, etc. I mean seriously, by 2050 at the current rate we’re going we’ll need a second earth to sustain earth’s human population (which is predicted to be edging around 12 billion).

I’m well aware that we’re far from perfect (hell, I’m very nihilistic and believe life in general has little to no purpose). And yeah the nihilist’s paradox is interesting in that some of us believe that there is no purpose to live but continue to do so, but I figure hell, if I’m gonna live, I’m gonna do what I feel like doing and continue to be amused by humanity until something ends me.

Also I’m not trying to be a self-righteous snob or whatnot, it’s just that if people really want humanity to continue to survive on this mud ball, then at least they should take much better care. I personally don’t care if every nuked detonated in the next 30 seconds, but if you (you being universal) want to live and want mankind to continue living healthily, action must be taken to ensure man’s survival, from at least what he has the capacity to control. Otherwise, this world will become something more to my taste, or so I guess.

Perspective is what’s needed. Just because “we hear all these things” doesn’t mean that they are true or destined to be true. Look at the things in human history that have been true, especially the general improvements in lifespan, curing illnesses, improving conditions in more and more places (no, not ‘most places’, sadly), and give them more credence than what the Chicken Littles scream about the falling skies. The skies may fall – I’m not saying that we should kill Chicken Little and fry her up – but consider all of the times that falling skies have been predicted, and how seldom it actually happens.

For instance, consider that many countries now do have nuclear arsenals, yet except for two uses in an ongoing war, arguably in a move to end that war in a more humane way for both sides than was predicted by experts at the time, no one has ‘used’ them. That says something about humanity. Not much, maybe, but enough to give some hope.

Of course nothing is definite, I’m just a pessimistic nihilistic guy and that is my perspective. I won’t be surprised if I end up completely wrong, but I’ll probably be dead before I see that day.

@Winters I’m trying to suggest in the nicest way that your outlook is wrong; it’s an outlook that will kill you figuratively, if not literally.

@CyanoticWasp it’s my perspective, one that I’m very comfortable with, and one I know what may easily come around from it. For me, it is the right outlook.

@Blondesjon

Do animals poison the air they breathe?
Do animals poison the water they drink?
Do animals wage war or create weapons of mass destruction?
Do animals lie?
Do animals build McDonalds restaurants and pave over the land that gives them life?
Did animals remove themselves so far from nature that they now consider basic living skills unnatural and cruel?
Did animals set themselves up with a societal system that would completely collapse if the lights suddenly went out for good?

Yeah, man is a giant fucking brain.

Are you being serious? Without going into detail, essentially everything you listed is a direct result or byproduct of humans doing what it takes to increase their chances of survival, something that every other organism on this planet does. And of course, you leave out all of humanities achievements that are obviously beyond the known capabilities of any other organism on this planet.

@chocolatechip Don’t forget the things humanity has created in the past that we can’t even begin to understand now.

I believe the destruction of our natural resources is part of the biological evolution. Just as organisms adjust to survive, the planet will adjust to survive. I’ll only blame humanity as some sort of “parasite” when the natural food and water runs low.

@Moegitto I believe the destruction of our natural resources is part of the biological evolution.

Exactly. And If humanity ends up destroying itself, I would simply call that an unstable ecosystem coming to equilibrium.

@Winters, the situation isn’t that dire. Consider that educated, economically developed societies have very low birthrates (even negative, in some parts of Europe). Give people education and birth control and all the sudden they don’t want to have kids. It’s almost like our population is self-regulating in the long term.

Also, think about how much our society has improved, even in recent history. 150 years ago, slavery used to be legal and considered moral. 100 years ago, women did not have the right to vote. The industrialial revolution has caused tons of problems, but it also freed us from a life of hard manual labor (often performed by slaves) and allowed women to join the workforce. Most people today no longer savagely beat their children for disobedience. Racism is considered a taboo. We put a man on the moon, and we have sent probes that have actually landed on a moon of Saturn that might contain another form of life. We are this close to developing sustainable and affordable solar and wind energy. We can talk to and see each other over vast distances and almost everyone can read and write and create.

In light of all this progress, I find your pessimism about humanity’s chances of improving our lot to be rather unfounded.

@Qingu I respect your optimistic outlook, but I still stand by my perspective. I used to think like you did but now I feel that mankind is a group of greedy hogs simply craving more and more and more and do so in a manner that is completely self-destructive. Sure we have the capacity to change, but will we do so in a timely manner or scramble at the last minute when it all may be much too late? I think it’ll be too late before we can get it through our skulls that change is needed and appropriate action must be taken, but like I said earlier, I will not be surprised to be proven entirely wrong. But all in all, it doesn’t really matter.

The world is in the process of its evolution and is going to change if we are ready to change with it we will remain here after a time. During the change man will have to be removed for just a little time and then returned.

@Winters

Not that it matters to me a whit what you think about mankind’s prospects for long-term survival, but your attitude is exactly the same as every older generation looking at the generation succeeding it (“they’re going to hell”) ... and also the same as every younger generation looking at the generation preceding it (“they’ve taken us to the brink of hell”). It can only be to your benefit to break that ridiculous thought cycle, as relatively few of us ever do, and realize this truth… and then live life a bit more optimistically and happier for the realization. But hey, if you like it and want to wallow in that, then wallow away.

@chocolatechip . . . Yes, I am serious.

I can’t believe you are.

c’mon kids. blackberrys and televisions are part of natural selection?

@CyanoticWasp I find it amusing that you say that it is to my benefit to break this thought cycle and live life optimistically and happier for the realization, but I’ve actually lived most my life optimistically like so many of those around me and found myself stagnating and wallowing in that perpetual cycle, and now that I broke that cycle, I feel happier for the realization and amusingly enough have never felt more free.

@Blondesjon

This is about intelligence, right? Think about the science and technology that goes behind making a Blackberry or a TV. Just look at the complexities of modern civilization. Look at how successful our species is compared to 10000 years ago. How can you possibly deny this as proof of human intelligence?

This is not arrogance. This is objectivity. Our brains are quantifiably more complex than those of other species. Our civilization is quantifiably more complex than those of other species.

This totally nihilistic viewpoint towards humanity being the trend of the decade is just as ridiculous as the egocentric views of the past. It is just as fallacious to argue that humanity is superior to other species as it is to argue that we are no different.

@chocolatechip . . . Look, I could sit here and go back and forth with you for a couple of hours but if you don’t get that there is something inherently wrong with pissing away natural resources so we can watch Seinfeld reruns and download fart apps then I’m wasting my time.

Remember, one man’s asinine is another’s common sense.

@Blondesjon

I never said humanity was perfect, did I? The difference between your view point and mine is that, while I understand humanity’s flaws, you completely ignore the positive aspects of humanity’s achievements (which at this point in time, seem to outweigh the negatives, given that humans are becoming more numerous, are living healthier, longer lives, are more resistance to disease, and for many, have abundant food such that human life has surpassed the minimum requirement of simply surviving. This may be a point of contention for you – that’s fine). You are ignoring all the good, whether intentionally or not, and from that drawing false conclusions.

Where humanity is headed given its current state may be a point of contention for you, and my opinion is that there are cloudy skies ahead. But it is impossible to deny that humanity has done good things for itself, in such magnitudes never witnessed in other species.

@Blondesjon
Do animals poison the air they breathe? If livestock over-populated to the extent we have, their methane farts would lead to global warming just as much as our cars and power stations.
Do animals poison the water they drink? Carp do. If you keep carp as pets, you need to change their water weekly.
Do animals wage war or create weapons of mass destruction? Animals wage minor turf wars all the time. Every documentary on African animals show lions keeping hyenas out of their territory. If they had the inclination to form larger colonies, the wars would be proportionally larger.
Do animals lie? Thousands of species lie about their nature as a defence mechanism. Note the Texas Coral Snake and the Louisiana Milk Snake.
Do animals build McDonalds restaurants and pave over the land that gives them life? Not specifically, but some species do cause land degradation. Kangaroos over-proliferate and graze to such an extent that at times they starve to death because demand outstrips supply.
Did animals remove themselves so far from nature that they now consider basic living skills unnatural and cruel? I’m not sure exactly what you are referring to here. Many species are monogamous, many will rather flee than fight, and some only rarely eat meat because they prefer a largely vegetarian diet. What exactly do humans refrain from that is a basic living skill?
Did animals set themselves up with a societal system that would completely collapse if the lights suddenly went out for good? What could cause the lights to go out for good? Every ecosystem has vulnerabilities, whether they are natural or a result of the behaviour of certain animals.

Yeah, man is a giant fucking brain. Humans have very few unique skills. Almost everything we do is just an extrapolation of what other animals do – we are no different to the other animals, except we take it much further, and we are only able to do so because of our intelligence. The next level of evolution is realising which behaviours are harmful to our own survival and eradicating them.

@FireMadeFlesh . . . Please refer to the post below, copied from the post above and replace @chocolatechip with @FireMadeFlesh.

@chocolatechip . . . Look, I could sit here and go back and forth with you for a couple of hours but if you don’t get that there is something inherently wrong with pissing away natural resources so we can watch Seinfeld reruns and download fart apps then I’m wasting my time.

@Blondesjon I agree with you there; I just object to the idea that humans are somehow disproportionately bad for the environment or somehow not a part of the ecosystem. Sweeping criticism of humans as a species doesn’t achieve anything.

@Blondesjon

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Or do you mean to tell me that the existence of aspects of human civilization like sitcoms and pollution entirely negate the positives, and that if humanity were a truly intelligent species, we would do away with all of the bad and leave only the good (an impossible feat, by the way)? In other words, that a truly intelligent species must be perfect?

And yes, I could argue that Blackberries and Seinfeld is beneficial to the survival of the species.

I don’t have a “dog in this hunt,” but, @Blondesjon makes valid points. You guys lighten up! Knowledge is a great thing, but it must tempered with tolerance and understanding. No one has all the answers!

Don’t underestimate the superiority of humans. As predators no animal comes even close. This is both a blessing and a danger. Humans are animals, but we are not a harmless species.

WOW, you guys are . . . good, to say the least and to try and say the maximum. . .
i would say breathtakng discussion going on here.
wanna thank all of you… XX
P.S I’m an animal when I dance, but a human otherwise ; )

As funny as it seems, it feels like someone on this blog is like a evil villain. “Humans are the problem, and to save earth they must die!!!”. Lol, Humans are the top of the animal chain and still we have so many flaws that it’s comical. Suicide is something that humans developed, we still aren’t immune to viruses and bugs (cats are beginning to become immune to feline leukemia), our “intelligent” minds are still easily influenced by the idea that your better than someone just because your color is different, I can go on for days. But in the end, every species is bound for evolution or extinction, it’s been scientifically proven that we are the third of our kind. The topic is if you would classify humans as animals. Answer: Yes, really smart animals.

yup , i saw human behave as human
http://www.squidoo.com/the-most-intelligent-animals-you-have-ever-seen