Humans are Strange creatures

We humans are strange creatures. There is no doubt that our bodies evolved by natural selection just as other animals’ did. Yet we differ from all other creatures in many ways. For a start, we speak. We believe ourselves to be the most intelligent species on the planet. We are extraordinarily widespread and extremely versatile in our ways of making a living. We sage wars, believe in religions, bury our dead and get embarrassed about sex. We watch television, drive cars and eat ice cream. We have had such a devastating impact upon the ecosystems on which our lives depend. One of the problems of being a human is that it is rather hard to look at humans with an unprejudiced eye.

On the other hand, we are obviously animals comparable with any others. . . . Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection can successfully explain how we, along with the rest of life on this planet, came to be here, and why we all share so many characteristics. On the other hand, we behave quite differently from other animals now that biology has so successfully explained much of our similarity with other creatures we need to ask the opposite question. What makes us so different? . . . .

A common answer is that we are simply more intelligent than any other species. Yet the notion of intelligence is extremely slippery, with interminable argument about how to define it, how to measure it, and to what extent it is inherited. Research is artificial intelligence has provided some nice surprises for those who thought they knew what makes human intelligence so special. ~ Page 1 ~ "The Meme Machine" ~ Author Susan Blackmore