Is Human a kind of animal?

[Yazata]

Do you think of yourself and other people as a sort of Animal

Biologically, humans are obviously animals. On the cellular level, we are almost identical to other animals. Same cellular anatomy, chemical metabolism, genetic encoding mechanism and so on. We share many genes (hox genes for example) with distantly related animals like insects.

Our status as animals is even more obvious in terms of gross anatomy. A human and a dog are basically distorted images of each other in ways that we and insects or octopuses arent. Head with two eyes and nose and mouth centered below them. Ears on the sides of the head. Quadripeds with fingers/toes and very similar bone structure in each appendage. Ribs and backbones and pelvises. Basically the same organs and organ physiology.

or you consider yourself superior to animals?

Well, humans are obviously superior in terms of language and conceptual thought. We are clearly superior in terms of social organization.

Those cognitive and psychological differences make it very hard for us to interact with other animals in the same way that we interact with other humans. That fact creates the impression in humans that there's a huge chasm and difference between humans and animals, since we can only interact in distinctly human ways with other humans.

Dogs and humans get along well, even though dogs lack language and (it's assumed but hard to know) conceptual thought. That's because humans and dogs share a very similar set of emotions and we are very good at reading what the other is feeling emotionally.

 

[Stevicus]

What about fungi? Ha!

Wouldn't that fall under "Vegetable"?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Wouldn't that fall under "Vegetable"?

No. They are neither. They do not make their own food. They consume other life for food.

 

[SalixIncendium]

No. They are neither. They do not make their own food. They consume other life for food.

Much like my third wife. At least the last part.

 

[Alien826]

The subject has been pretty much covered so I won't add an answer the original question. I'll just quote this conversation I had once with a a very fundie Christian.

Me: We are all animals.
FC: I'm not an animal! I don't think much of animals.
Me: Chimpanzees and humans have 98% the same DNA.
FC: Then I don't think much of DNA!
Me: I don't think this discussion is going anywhere.

 

[SalixIncendium]

The subject has been pretty much covered so I won't add an answer the original question. I'll just quote this conversation I had once with a a very fundie Christian.

Me: We are all animals.
FC: I'm not an animal! I don't think much of animals.
Me: Chimpanzees and humans have 98% the same DNA.
FC: Then I don't think much of DNA!
Me: I don't think this discussion is going anywhere.

What I took away from the responses: "I don't think much..."

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Well, I don't think humans would fit into the categories of Vegetable or Mineral, so that only leaves Animal.

I don't know...some of my students seemed to fit those other categories...as did some of my fellow faculty...

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Kingdom: Animalia
Phyllum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: Homo sapiens

So we're animals all right. But we are not the only ones who can speak.

I would say the mental feature that we seem to have (occasionally), which separates us from other animals, is that we can project long-term outcomes from our current activities.
Alas; this is far too seldom utilized by many human animals.

rather than being the only ones who can speak, I'd say humans are the only one we can understand...

 

[We Never Know]

Well, I don't think humans would fit into the categories of Vegetable or Mineral, so that only leaves Animal.

Some fit in the insect category, they are nothing but pests lol

 

[exchemist]

Wouldn't that fall under "Vegetable"?

In the supermarket, but not biologically.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Do you think of yourself and other people as a sort of Animal, or you consider yourself superior to animals?
Please explain your thoughts.

Yes, humans are animals per biological classification. As for whether we're "superior" to other animals, I don't compare humans and other animals to each other in those terms; we're just different, not "superior" or "inferior" to each other (and those are highly subjective descriptors either way). We each serve a purpose in nature.

An ant can't type a post like I just did, but my friends and I can't build a human-usable equivalent of an anthill by picking up sand in our mouths, nor can I walk on a wall like a gecko.

 

[Colt]

No! Have you ever seen someone driving a Honda Human?

 

[Ebionite]

You're conflating the terms 'human' and 'humane.'

No.

"appellari ceteros homines, esse solos eos, qui essent politi propriis humanitatis artibus"

The studia humanitatis were held to be the equivalent of the Greek paideia.

Studia humanitatis | philosophy of education | Britannica

Other articles where studia humanitatis is discussed: humanities: The term studia humanitatis (“studies of humanity”) was used by 15th-century Italian humanists to denote secular literary and scholarly activities (in grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, moral philosophy, and ancient Greek and...

www.britannica.com

paideia​

noun
1. (in ancient Greece) a system of broad cultural education.

 

[Ebionite]

What does that have to do with humans as animals? Forgive me, I'm hungover.

It challenges the assumption of the OP that the essence of a human can be described by their biology.

 

[YmirGF]

Do you think of yourself and other people as a sort of Animal, or you consider yourself superior to animals?
Please explain your thoughts.

I am a human animal. I am puzzled why another human animal would even have to ask these days. Likewise, I do take exception to the idea that we are superior. We are not. We are different. Our main defence system is our intelligence, and so we do not need heavy armour, large teeth and claws etc.

 

[Ebionite]

Cicero was an animal.

Cicero was the source of the language of humanism. The animal nature of Rome (and other nations) is described in the Bible as the beast.

 

[F1fan]

Cicero was the source of the language of humanism. The animal nature of Rome (and other nations) is described in the Bible as the beast.

So you don't deny he was an animal. Excellent.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It challenges the assumption of the OP that the essence of a human can be described by their biology.

Then you're answering a question that wasn't asked. The question is whether a human being is a type of animal, not what "essence" makes it human.

Cicero was the source of the language of humanism.

There is no language of humanism. It's an ideology with no jargon unique to it. Its fundamental tenets go back to the ancient Greeks, but it doesn't take its present form until the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, when empiricism and utilitarian ethics were added to Greek rationalism (reason and rational speculation over faith).

The animal nature of Rome (and other nations) is described in the Bible as the beast.

You're using metaphorical definitions of both animal and beast, both irrelevant to biology as is the Bible.

 

[SalixIncendium]

No.

"appellari ceteros homines, esse solos eos, qui essent politi propriis humanitatis artibus"

The studia humanitatis were held to be the equivalent of the Greek paideia.

Studia humanitatis | philosophy of education | Britannica

Other articles where studia humanitatis is discussed: humanities: The term studia humanitatis (“studies of humanity”) was used by 15th-century Italian humanists to denote secular literary and scholarly activities (in grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, moral philosophy, and ancient Greek and...

www.britannica.com

paideia​

noun
1. (in ancient Greece) a system of broad cultural education.

Still not relevant to the thread.

 

[Ebionite]

Still not relevant to the thread.

Its relevance is that it challenges the underlying assumption of the human condition.