• Question: what is the main difference between humans and animals?

    Asked by elphaba to Claire, Joanna, Kapila, Renata, Suzanne on 17 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by colsn002, putmj002, hetaliafan128, morgan1411, shana098, knigl034, tombl12, katiem12, alicemurray, sophie1357, cccaaallluuummm, megafruitykiwi, 12sbknapk.
    • Photo: Suzanne Harvey

      Suzanne Harvey answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      This is an excellent philosophical question, and often where ideas for research in my area begin! Humans tend to feel unique, and we’re surely pretty special in the animal kingdom, but when we try to define why it gets tough, especially when coomparing ourselves to other primates like chimpanzees.

      Firstly we thought humans could make tools and chimps couldn’t, but it turned out chimps make tools too. Then we thought humans had language when other primates don’t, but my own research is showing that monkey communication is a lot more complicated than it seems. I find it easier to think of the differences between us and other animals as gradual changes rather than big leaps – our tool use and languages are much more complicated and advanced, but other animals have their own simpler or different versions of these behaviours too. Finding these ‘benchmarks’ of important behaviours is a great way to start thinking about interesting areas of research into humans and animals.

    • Photo: Claire El Mouden

      Claire El Mouden answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      Great question! Personally I’d say language….and then the things that come from that ability, like culture.

      Hundreds of animal species have complicated calls, that can mean things, they don’t have language like humans do. For example, if I said out loud ‘Darwin liked eating cheesepuffs, pink cheesecake and peanuts on Sundays”…it is very likely I am the first person in history, ever to say that sentence…but you understand what I mean by it.

      So human language is unique because we take lots of small sounds that we all know the meaning of, and combine them to create unique, complicated messages. This means humans can plan, learn and thinks about things animals never could.

    • Photo: Renata Medeiros

      Renata Medeiros answered on 22 Jun 2013:

      Asking that question is in itself one of the greatest differences between us and other animals! We don’t believe any other animal is capable of asking itself such questions.

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