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Thursday, June 04, 2020 9:50:21 PM
Yes, Humans Are Animals -- So Just Get Over Yourselves, Homo sapiens
Annalee Newitz 6/10/14 8:55PM
Even though you are reading this on a sophisticated electronic device, you are an animal. That's the most radical idea to come out of Charles Darwin's groundbreaking studies of evolution, and even today, it still freaks people out.
I know this because last week I wrote an article about all the pieces of evidence that suggest humans have become domestic animals .. https://io9.gizmodo.com/7-signs-that-humans-are-domestic-animals-1586580895 , which I thought was a fairly non-controversial claim. Among evolutionary biologists, it certainly is. Just as agriculture and a sedentary life have changed the genomes of dogs, cows, sheep and chickens, they have also changed ours. But after the article posted, many people responded to say that they didn't like my casual use of the phrase "domestic animal" to describe Homo sapiens.
7 Signs That Humans Are Domestic Animals
Tens of thousands of years ago, humans were wild animals. Our ancestors roamed the land in search…
Read more > https://io9.gizmodo.com/7-signs-that-humans-are-domestic-animals-1586580895
But what else would we be? Are we exempt from the same forces that have changed our fellow animals on farms and in cities? Does a sedentary, domestic life behind walls exert evolutionary pressures on sheep and pigs, but not on humans? If you accept the precepts of evolutionary theory, where environmental pressures drive natural selection, obviously not. Environments are environments, regardless of whether we built them or not .. https://io9.gizmodo.com/forget-the-evil-gmo-hype-here-are-the-real-problem-1586203046 .
You're Worrying About GMOs For the Wrong Reasons
Scientists have demonstrated that genetically modified organisms have no measurable negative…
Read more > https://io9.gizmodo.com/forget-the-evil-gmo-hype-here-are-the-real-problem-1586203046
Indeed, environmental scientists even have a word for the domesticated natural habitats that humans have created: agroecosystem.
Leaving aside religion, there are two main objections to the idea that humans are animals. One comes from environmentalists who believe that humans are unique in their ability to fuck up the planet, not to put too fine a point on it. The other comes from a common sense notion that humans are so different from all the other species out there that we might as well be a different order of being altogether.
Let me explain why both are utterly wrong.
Animals Who Changed the Planet
First of all, humans are not the first species ever to transform the planet into a polluted hellhole. That honor belongs to cyanobacteria, blue green algae that evolved about 3.5 billion years ago and promptly began to fill the methane-based atmosphere with oxygen. You see, oxygen was a byproduct of a new energy-making system that cyano had developed .. https://io9.gizmodo.com/meet-the-molecule-responsible-for-giving-earth-all-of-i-5874963 . We call it photosynthesis — it's the way all plants today make energy out of light and water. At the time, however, all the life forms on the planet had evolved to live in a methane-rich environment. As the cyano filled Earth's atmosphere with oxygen, their nasty byproduct attenuated the methane, killing off pretty much all the other life forms around them. We may love our nicely oxygenated air today, but at the time it was an apocalypse. It's also evidence that humans aren't the only species ever to change the atmosphere with a new form of energy production.
Meet the molecule responsible for giving Earth all of its oxygen
About 2.5 billion years ago, our planet had virtually no oxygen, and lifeforms were primitive.…
Read more > https://io9.gizmodo.com/meet-the-molecule-responsible-for-giving-earth-all-of-i-5874963
We also aren't the only species to change land uses for our own ends. Beavers build dams that utterly transform the way water moves through forests, flooding some areas and parching others. Ants build massive underground cities, full of farms where they "milk" aphids for food .. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/09/mercenary-ants-protect-farmers-with-chemical-weapons/ .. and grow fungus to eat .. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080324173459.htm . So we are not the only polluting life forms, and we are not the only ones to transform landscapes with building and farming.
Finally, we aren't the only species to spread all over the planet either. Humans share that honor with other invasive species, including extinct animals like trilobites, as well as living ones like rats, crows, cockroaches and more. Invasive species have roamed across the Earth since life began. Humans are about as special as dirty little rodents, scampering between walls in search of some garbage to eat.
Humans Aren't the Same as Those Other Species
But what about the fact that humans are undeniably different from all other species that we've met so far? We've got this whole written language thing going on, plus we build rockets and suspension bridges and indoor plumbing (which — thanks, humanity!). It's true. Just like every other creature on the planet, we have our special norms and rituals. Part of what makes us animals is the fact that we have unique behaviors that we can call our own.
Yet we have many other behaviors that we share with our fellow animals. Darwin wrote about this in one of his lesser-known works, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Today, hundreds of scientific studies have offered solid evidence that animals from chimps to rats share the same kinds of emotions and motivations .. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307461459?ascsubtag=d2d161e15ebda3f088f9c895bed9907788849be6&linkCode=ogi&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=gizmodoamzn-20&th=1 .. that we do.
Many animals also make tools the way humans do too. We've long known about tool-making among other primates, but recently scientists have found evidence of tool-use among dolphins, crows, and even sea otters .. https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-mysterious-tool-making-culture-shared-by-crows-and-1460350033 .
The Mysterious Tool-Making Culture Shared by Crows and Humans
Many animal species use tools, from insects, elephants and sea urchins to apes, badgers and…
Read more > https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-mysterious-tool-making-culture-shared-by-crows-and-1460350033
Humans may not use tools and express emotions exactly like other animals, but that doesn't exempt us from animal status. No two species share exactly the same sets of behavior. But we also share far too much in common to pretend that we are some form of life that transcends animal status.
The real question we should be asking ourselves is what we gain by claiming that humans are not animals. Does our special status make us seem more powerful than we are? Does it make our lives more meaningful? Does is allow us to justify our behavior toward other life forms?
The famous anthropologist Clifford Geertz once said that he believed "man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun." Ultimately, the only animals who buy the idea that humans aren't animals are humans themselves.
Annalee Newitz is the editor-in-chief of io9, and this is her column. She's also the author of a book called Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction ..
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307949427?ascsubtag=b71133d3d9c62701fec771116b9e619b6bacad33&linkCode=ogi&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=gizmodoamzn-20&th=1 .
https://io9.gizmodo.com/yes-humans-are-animals-so-just-get-over-yourselves-1588990060?IR=T
Thank you Annalee. Makes sense to me.
And surely the photo, which has lasted in the previous
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=153890929
longer than some others before, is sure closer to the most probable reality than all the westernized whiter ones i only was shown as a child.
Who are the more honest ones now?
Annalee Newitz 6/10/14 8:55PM
Even though you are reading this on a sophisticated electronic device, you are an animal. That's the most radical idea to come out of Charles Darwin's groundbreaking studies of evolution, and even today, it still freaks people out.
I know this because last week I wrote an article about all the pieces of evidence that suggest humans have become domestic animals .. https://io9.gizmodo.com/7-signs-that-humans-are-domestic-animals-1586580895 , which I thought was a fairly non-controversial claim. Among evolutionary biologists, it certainly is. Just as agriculture and a sedentary life have changed the genomes of dogs, cows, sheep and chickens, they have also changed ours. But after the article posted, many people responded to say that they didn't like my casual use of the phrase "domestic animal" to describe Homo sapiens.
7 Signs That Humans Are Domestic Animals
Tens of thousands of years ago, humans were wild animals. Our ancestors roamed the land in search…
Read more > https://io9.gizmodo.com/7-signs-that-humans-are-domestic-animals-1586580895
But what else would we be? Are we exempt from the same forces that have changed our fellow animals on farms and in cities? Does a sedentary, domestic life behind walls exert evolutionary pressures on sheep and pigs, but not on humans? If you accept the precepts of evolutionary theory, where environmental pressures drive natural selection, obviously not. Environments are environments, regardless of whether we built them or not .. https://io9.gizmodo.com/forget-the-evil-gmo-hype-here-are-the-real-problem-1586203046 .
You're Worrying About GMOs For the Wrong Reasons
Scientists have demonstrated that genetically modified organisms have no measurable negative…
Read more > https://io9.gizmodo.com/forget-the-evil-gmo-hype-here-are-the-real-problem-1586203046
Indeed, environmental scientists even have a word for the domesticated natural habitats that humans have created: agroecosystem.
Leaving aside religion, there are two main objections to the idea that humans are animals. One comes from environmentalists who believe that humans are unique in their ability to fuck up the planet, not to put too fine a point on it. The other comes from a common sense notion that humans are so different from all the other species out there that we might as well be a different order of being altogether.
Let me explain why both are utterly wrong.
Animals Who Changed the Planet
First of all, humans are not the first species ever to transform the planet into a polluted hellhole. That honor belongs to cyanobacteria, blue green algae that evolved about 3.5 billion years ago and promptly began to fill the methane-based atmosphere with oxygen. You see, oxygen was a byproduct of a new energy-making system that cyano had developed .. https://io9.gizmodo.com/meet-the-molecule-responsible-for-giving-earth-all-of-i-5874963 . We call it photosynthesis — it's the way all plants today make energy out of light and water. At the time, however, all the life forms on the planet had evolved to live in a methane-rich environment. As the cyano filled Earth's atmosphere with oxygen, their nasty byproduct attenuated the methane, killing off pretty much all the other life forms around them. We may love our nicely oxygenated air today, but at the time it was an apocalypse. It's also evidence that humans aren't the only species ever to change the atmosphere with a new form of energy production.
Meet the molecule responsible for giving Earth all of its oxygen
About 2.5 billion years ago, our planet had virtually no oxygen, and lifeforms were primitive.…
Read more > https://io9.gizmodo.com/meet-the-molecule-responsible-for-giving-earth-all-of-i-5874963
We also aren't the only species to change land uses for our own ends. Beavers build dams that utterly transform the way water moves through forests, flooding some areas and parching others. Ants build massive underground cities, full of farms where they "milk" aphids for food .. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/09/mercenary-ants-protect-farmers-with-chemical-weapons/ .. and grow fungus to eat .. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080324173459.htm . So we are not the only polluting life forms, and we are not the only ones to transform landscapes with building and farming.
Finally, we aren't the only species to spread all over the planet either. Humans share that honor with other invasive species, including extinct animals like trilobites, as well as living ones like rats, crows, cockroaches and more. Invasive species have roamed across the Earth since life began. Humans are about as special as dirty little rodents, scampering between walls in search of some garbage to eat.
Humans Aren't the Same as Those Other Species
But what about the fact that humans are undeniably different from all other species that we've met so far? We've got this whole written language thing going on, plus we build rockets and suspension bridges and indoor plumbing (which — thanks, humanity!). It's true. Just like every other creature on the planet, we have our special norms and rituals. Part of what makes us animals is the fact that we have unique behaviors that we can call our own.
Yet we have many other behaviors that we share with our fellow animals. Darwin wrote about this in one of his lesser-known works, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Today, hundreds of scientific studies have offered solid evidence that animals from chimps to rats share the same kinds of emotions and motivations .. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307461459?ascsubtag=d2d161e15ebda3f088f9c895bed9907788849be6&linkCode=ogi&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=gizmodoamzn-20&th=1 .. that we do.
Many animals also make tools the way humans do too. We've long known about tool-making among other primates, but recently scientists have found evidence of tool-use among dolphins, crows, and even sea otters .. https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-mysterious-tool-making-culture-shared-by-crows-and-1460350033 .
The Mysterious Tool-Making Culture Shared by Crows and Humans
Many animal species use tools, from insects, elephants and sea urchins to apes, badgers and…
Read more > https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-mysterious-tool-making-culture-shared-by-crows-and-1460350033
Humans may not use tools and express emotions exactly like other animals, but that doesn't exempt us from animal status. No two species share exactly the same sets of behavior. But we also share far too much in common to pretend that we are some form of life that transcends animal status.
The real question we should be asking ourselves is what we gain by claiming that humans are not animals. Does our special status make us seem more powerful than we are? Does it make our lives more meaningful? Does is allow us to justify our behavior toward other life forms?
The famous anthropologist Clifford Geertz once said that he believed "man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun." Ultimately, the only animals who buy the idea that humans aren't animals are humans themselves.
Annalee Newitz is the editor-in-chief of io9, and this is her column. She's also the author of a book called Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction ..
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307949427?ascsubtag=b71133d3d9c62701fec771116b9e619b6bacad33&linkCode=ogi&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=gizmodoamzn-20&th=1 .
https://io9.gizmodo.com/yes-humans-are-animals-so-just-get-over-yourselves-1588990060?IR=T
Thank you Annalee. Makes sense to me.
And surely the photo, which has lasted in the previous
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=153890929
longer than some others before, is sure closer to the most probable reality than all the westernized whiter ones i only was shown as a child.
Who are the more honest ones now?
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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