Are humans, animals?

[Geoffrey Francis]

why do you think intelligent life capable of making it to our planet would see us as anything other than the digital watch wearing hairless apes we are?

I really should re-read Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers guide.

The way I see it, Yes we are animals. Everytime I want to feel special about our place on the earth, I always remember that there are other animals just as cool, if not cooler then us. We weren't even the first animals into space! Dogs, and chimps (I think, maybe monkeys...) beat us to it. Using our technology, admittedly.

The only way I think we could become something more then animals, is if we became the progenitors. Like the only life-form that we know of that created a better competitor species. Obviously, other species create better other species through evolution, culling the weak etc. But I think we could make a better species, like some sort of AI, that could be better then us. ie Develop tools faster, replicate faster, basically out compete us in every way and spread itself throughout the universe.
Or maybe we could develop another animal (Through amazing genetic manipulation or some other fantastical technique) into something similar in that it could be suited to life in space ie microgravity, high radiation, thinking in a 3D space. Like in the manifold series by Stephen Baxter. I still think it would need like a spacesuit/ship tool use to live out there, but maybe not. Imagine how cool a creature that could survive on sunlight in space could be, moving from asteroid to comet to assorted space debris, picking up nutrients/building supplies. Though I can see a great need for social behavior, maybe moving in colonies. Space is huge so finding a mate... wait, why would it need that? Hmmm.

Anyway, I hope you get what I'm trying to say in my ramble. We would still be an animal, but one that made another life-form, better then ourselves. It would presumably doom us to extinction, but I believe it would be worth it.

 

[SecondPrize]

Unless it's been changed there are three options: animal, vegetable and mineral. So yeah, we're animals. As far as your list goes, I don't get how you figure we've removed ourselves from the food chain. We'd have to not eat to do that.

 

[ForumSafari]

Just kind of can't make up my mind on the issue and I thought it would be a nice topic to discuss, as I haven't seen it here before and I never want to tread on old ground.

We eat
We move
We reproduce sexually
We react to stimulus
We are eukaryotes (we have complex cells with specialised structures)
WE have differentiated cell types

We are animals.

Like most words with a scientific origin or usage, animal has a strict definition that may not be known to many people but that is very specific about what it involves. The colloquial use of 'animal' to either mean a less sentient animal, a human behaving with no moral qualms or someone displaying brutish characteristics is purely incidental. Humans are animals because they fit the taxonomical definition for 'animal'. It's non negotiable.

 

[Deathmageddon]

The fact that we're super-predators and the dominant species doesn't change biology. We're not plants, therefore we are animals.

 

[nepheleim]

My immediate reaction to my own question is "of course, fuck knuckle" but I can't decide when I think about it.

We have removed ourselves from the food chain, since we have weapons we can fuck up anything that looks at us funny. It's actually really easy for us to just genocide every species. (of course in a one on one fight, loads of things would fuck us up!)
We don't really hunt, we can but it's more for sport than need to survive.
We have extended our lives far beyond what I think we were meant to. If a wild animal lost a leg, it's dead but humans can have prosthetic. Serious diseases can be managed etc.
We have claimed just about every piece of land worth a fuck and live on it.
We have all kinds of crazy tech that we just take for granted.

On the other hand, we came from animals, we breathe, eat, mate etc.

Just kind of can't make up my mind on the issue and I thought it would be a nice topic to discuss, as I haven't seen it here before and I never want to tread on old ground.

Captcha: "I mustache you why" ... best, most sentient captcha ever!

Edit: I should add, if you think we are still animals, what would make us not animals?

Literally everything you said about human characteristics is irrelevant to the taxonomy of human beings. Humans are in the kingdom animalia. We are animals. We are different from every other animal, but that doesn't get us our own special spot outside of animals, plants, minerals, etc.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Yes.

In every scientific meaning of the word animal.

You're alive, you respirate, you're a euchariote, a chordate, a mammal, a primate, a homonid.

Humans are animals. You can't grow out of your heritage.

 

[goodman528]

Yes. /Thread

What do animals need? Food, water, oxygen, shelter
What do humans need? Food, water, oxygen, shelter

What do animals want? space to roam, affection, social interaction, freedom, play, sex, companionship
What do humans want? Money

Sometimes I really think my dog is a lot better a creature than most human beings.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Yes. /Thread

What do animals need? Food, water, oxygen, shelter
What do humans need? Food, water, oxygen, shelter

What do animals want? space to roam, affection, social interaction, freedom, play, sex, companionship
What do humans want? Money

Sometimes I really think my dog is a lot better a creature than most human beings.

But why do we want money?

To get "space to roam, affection, social interaction, freedom, play, sex, companionship".

But this whole "can we stop being an animal?" business just shows a complete misunderstanding of the most basic evolutionary biology.

We can't grow out of our heritage. Even if humans evolve traits that superficially resemble plants, we'd still be animals.

 

[EclipseoftheDarkSun]

Exactly MrFalconfly, "money can be exchanged for goods and services", so it's just one minor step removed from all those animal necessities and "wants" (many of them actually necessary for optimal functioning). Much like us and our cognitive faculties. I think it boils down to ignorance of basic biology and toxic rhetoric fed to us by other ignorant humans. I can't imagine something much stupider than someone who believes in "the rapture", the idea that regardless of what you do to your ecosystem, an all powerful deity will personally save you from a coming apocalypse. Talk about a recipe for lack of personal responsibility.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Exactly MrFalconfly, "money can be exchanged for goods and services", so it's just one minor step removed from all those animal necessities and "wants" (many of them actually necessary for optimal functioning). Much like us and our cognitive faculties. I think it boils down to ignorance of basic biology and toxic rhetoric fed to us by other ignorant humans. I can't imagine something much stupider than someone who believes in "the rapture", the idea that regardless of what you do to your ecosystem, an all powerful deity will personally save you from a coming apocalypse. Talk about a recipe for lack of personal responsibility.

If only we, once and for all, could clear up this mixup between the philosophical "Man or Beast", and the biological "Human and Animal".

It's getting tedious with all these people misusing scientific terminology in what's clearly an argument about philosophy. People mixing up Evolution by Natural Selection with Abiogenesis (that one is beginning to give me a headache), people thinking (for some weird reason) that Evolution includes Big Bang cosmology (the fuck?!?).