Comparing Ourselves to Other Animals
Examples of authors referring to animals in nature for insights into human nature.
Folksonomies: nature evolution enlightenment science naturalism
Memes
16 JUL 2013
DNA Divergence is in How You Count
It’s a common misconception that chimp DNA
differs from Homo sapiens sapiens genes by only a
single percent, but this number is apocryphal. In actuality,
the degree of similarity of human and chimp
genetic code depends mostly on how you count.
Since all complex organisms from Earth possess
great swaths of junk DNA inherited from a distant
common ancestor, there tends to be startling similarity
between many organisms. Sure, humans are like
chimps—but they’re also like flatworms and fruit...Folksonomies: dna genetic drift
Folksonomies: dna genetic drift
1 
There's much more to the differences between Chimps and Humans than counting genes.
16 JUL 2013
What is a Person?
What is a person?
This seems like an easy question, but appearances
can be deceiving. Throughout the long sweep of
human history, the answer to the question of what
a person is has continually changed. Was a woman
a person, or was she a piece of property? Or was she
even a liability, something that had to be compensated
for with a dowry before a man’s family would agree to take her on? Was a man alien to their immediate
culture a person? Not if you were of African descent
in the United Sta...A great passage on the history of personhood and its possible future.
21 JUN 2013
Intelligence in Animals, Humans and Machines
To build software that is deemed intelligent, it’s helpful to begin with a definition of intelligence. Intelligence can be simply defined as a set of properties of the mind. These properties include the ability to plan, solve problems, and in general, reason. A simpler definition could be that intelligence is the ability to make the right decision given a set of inputs and a variety of possible actions.
Using this simple definition of intelligence (making the right decision),
we can apply ...All have shared intelligences, but some have more than one kind of intelligence. What makes humans special is that we have multiple kinds of intelligence: language communication, problem solving, kinesthetic, etc.
08 JUN 2012
The Exponential Complexity of Man
We can see that there is only one substance in the universe and that man is the most perfect one. He is to the ape and the cleverest animals what Huygens's planetary clock is to one of Julien Leroy's watches. If it took more instruments, more cogs, more springs to show or tell the time, if it took Vaucanson more artistry to make his flautist than his duck, he would have needed even more to make a speaking machine, which can no longer be considered impossible, particularly at the hands of a ne...Using automatons made to resemble ducks and the task of building one to resemble man.
28 JAN 2012
Man is Distinguished from Other Animals by his Imagination
Among the multitude of animals which scamper, fly, burrow and swim around us, man is the only one who is not locked into his environment. His imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness, make it possible for him not to accept the environment, but to change it. And that series of inventions, by which man from age to age has remade his environment, is a different kind of evolution—not biological, but cultural evolution. I call that brilliant sequence of cultural peaks The As...Man evolves culturally.
01 JAN 2012
Carl Sagan's Encounter With a Dolphin's Theory of Mind
I was swimming in a large indoor pool with Peter. When I threw the pool's
rubber ball to Peter (as was natural for me to have done), he dove under the ball as it hit the water and batted it with his snout accurately into my hands. After a
few throws and precision returns, Peter's returns became increasingly inaccurate –
forcing me to swim first to one side of the pool and then to the other in order to
retrieve the ball. Eventually, it became clear that Peter chose not to place the ball
with...The dolphin began to experiment with him during a game of catch.
21 SEP 2011
Humans Should be Proud
Evolution is neither moral nor immoral. It just is, and we make
of it what we will. I have tried to show that two things we can make of
it are that it’s simple and it’s marvelous. And far from constricting our
actions, the study of evolution can liberate our minds. Human beings
may be only one small twig on the vast branching tree of evolution,
but we’re a very special animal. As natural selection forged our brains,
it opened up for us whole new worlds. We have learned how to improve
ou...We are the one species of 3.5 billion years of evolution that has figured out how we got here.
15 SEP 2011
Washoe the Chimpanzee Demonstrates Sympathy
People who should be there for her and aren't are often given the cold shoulder--her way of informing them that she's miffed at them. Washoe greeted Kat [the caretaker] in just this way when she finally returned to work with the chimps. Kat made her apologies to Washoe, then decided to tell her the truth, signing "MY BABY DIED". Washoe stared at her, then looked down. She finally peered into Kat's eyes again and carefully signed "CRY", touching her cheek and drawing her finger down the path a...Story of Washoe the Chimpanzee when one of her caretakers missed work for awhile after having a miscarriage.
03 SEP 2011
Humans Have a Balance of Cooperative and Egoistic Tendencies
... the cooperative forces are biologically the more important and vital. The balance between the cooperative and altruistic tendencies and those which are disoperative and egoistic is relatively close. Under many conditions the cooperative forces lose, In the long run, however, the group centered, more altruistic drives are slightly stronger. ... human altruistic drives are as firmly based on an animal ancestry as is man himself. Our tendencies toward goodness... are as innate as our tendenc..."...human altruistic drives are as firmly based on an animal ancestry as is man himself."
27 JUL 2011
Why the Brain Takes So Much Time and Effort
The brain’s chief job description—yours, mine, and your hopelessly adorable children’s—is to help our bodies survive another day. The reason for survival is as old as Darwin and as young as sexting: so we can project our genes into the next generation. Will a human willingly overcome self-interest to ensure the survival of his or her family’s genes into the next generation? Apparently, yes. Enough of us did hundreds of thousands of years ago that we grew up to take over the Seren...Babies must be born before they are ready to prevent killing the mother, thus parenting became an evolutionary strategy in humans.
21 MAY 2011
Looking to Animal Instincts for What's Needed for Women i...
Now, back to the family cat or dog in labor. By quietly, even sneakily, approaching we observe additional factors involved.
1. The need for darkness and solitude. Bright lights are indeed disturbing. My attempts to take photographs of dogs and cats have been foiled by the indignant laboring mothers retreating to dark secluded place usually physically out of reach of annoying human beings—such as far under the house or barn.
2. The need for quiet becomes obvious. Any loud or unexpected n...Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth
Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth
Quiet, solitude, and an environment conducive to concentration and relaxation.
19 MAY 2011
The Term "Higher Animals"
So glibly do the phrases 'higher animals' and 'lower animals' trip off our tongues that it
comes as a shock to realize that, far from effortlessly slotting into evolutionary thinking as one
might suppose, they were - and are - deeply antithetical to it. We think we know that chimpanzees
are higher animals and earthworms are lower, we think we've always known what that means, and
we think evolution makes it even clearer. But it doesn't. It is by no means clear that it means
anything at all. Or...Is meaningless and confuses people.
04 MAY 2011
Humans are a Self-Domesticated Animal
Mankind is a self-domesticated animal; a mammal; an ape; a social ape; an ape in which the male takes the initiative in courtship and females usually leave the society of their birth; an ape in which men are predators, women herbivorous foragers; an ape in which males are relatively hierarchical, females relatively egalitarian; an ape in which males contribute unusually large amounts of investment in the upbringing of their offspring by provisioning their mates and their children with food, p...A list of the behaviors in human beings.
03 MAY 2011
The Tangled Bank Theory
Michael Ghiselin developed this idea further in 1974 and made some telling analogies with economic trends. As Ghiselin put it, "In a saturated economy, it pays to diversify." Ghiselin suggested that most creatures compete with their brothers and sisters, so if everybody is a little different from their brothers and sisters, then more can survive. The fact that your parents thrived doing one thing means that it will probably pay to do something else because the local habitat might well be full...Folksonomies: evolution evolutionary theory
Folksonomies: evolution evolutionary theory
"In a saturated economy, it pays to diversify."
03 MAY 2011
If Humans Were Like Chimpanzees
If we were hairless chimpanzees, our society would still Dok fairly familiar in some ways. We would live in families, be very social, hierarchical, group-territorial, and aggressive toward other groups than those we belong to. In other words, we would be family-based, urban, class-conscious, nationalist, and belligerent, which we are. Adult males would spend more time trying to climb the political hierarchy than with their families. But when we turn to sex, things would begin to look very dif...Much would be the same, but we would be very different sexually.
03 MAY 2011
If Humans were Like Sparrows
It is my contention that man is just like an ibis or a swallow or a sparrow in several key respects. He lives in large colonies. Males compete with one another for places in a pecking order. Most males are monogamous. Polygamy is prevented by wives who resent sharing their husbands lest they also share his contributions to child rearing. Even though they could bring up the children unaided, the husband's paycheck is invaluable. But the ban on polygamous marriage does not prevent the males fro...The sexual habit differences and similarities.
11 APR 2011
What Makes Humans Remarkable
What is remarkable about man is not the size of his brain, no greater than that of a dolphin, nor his loose incomplete development as a social animal, nor even the faculty of speech or his ability to use tools. Man is remarkable because by the combination of all these things he has created an entirely new entity. When socially organized and equipped with technology even as rudimentary as that of a Stone Age tribal group, man has the novel capacity to collect, store, and process information, a...It's the the characteristics we share will other species on Earth, but the way we combine those characteristics.
29 MAR 2011
Humans Aren't Especially Smart, It's Just that We Swarm
I prefer sociobiologist E. O. Wilson's view of us as unfortunate tribal carnivores that have acquired intelligence. Our evolution is more like that of social insects; the advances in knowledge and understanding that we prize are more a property of the human nests we call civilization than of its individual members. The nest is always more powerful than a collection of individuals. Who dares disturb the hornet's nest? Small bees easily destroy the huge and powerful but solitary Japanese horne...
1 Humans are like other social insects. Our power doesn't come from our brains, but our ability to collaborate.
References
21 JUN 2013
Artificial Intelligence, A Systems Approach
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Jones, Tim (2008-12-26), Artificial Intelligence, A Systems Approach, Retrieved on 2013-06-21Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: computers
Folksonomies: computers
1 
17 JUN 2013
Eclipse Phase - Panopticon
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Boyle , Rob and Cross, Brian (2011-06-15), Eclipse Phase - Panopticon, Retrieved on 2013-06-17Source Material [books.google.com]
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08 JUN 2012
Machine Man and Other Writings
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Mettrie , Julien Offray De La and Thomson , Ann (1996-04-18), Machine Man and Other Writings, Cambridge Univ Pr, Retrieved on 2012-06-08Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: philosophy
Folksonomies: philosophy
2
28 JAN 2012
The Ascent of Man
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Bronowski , Jacob (2011-06-01), The Ascent of Man, BBC Books, Retrieved on 2012-01-28Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: history
Folksonomies: history
1
01 JAN 2012
Carl Sagan's cosmic connection
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Sagan , Carl (2000-10-23), Carl Sagan's cosmic connection, Cambridge Univ Pr, Retrieved on 2012-01-01Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: science
Folksonomies: science
33
15 SEP 2011
Why Evolution Is True
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Coyne , Jerry A. (January 22, 2009), Why Evolution Is True, Penguin (Non-Classics), Retrieved on 2011-09-15
51
15 SEP 2011
Anthropology & Law
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Donovan , James M. and III Anderson , H. Edwin, (2003-07), Anthropology & Law, Berghahn Books, Retrieved on 2011-09-15Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: law anthropology
Folksonomies: law anthropology
1
03 SEP 2011
Where Angels Fear to Tread: A contribution from general s...
Periodicals>Journal Article: Allee, Warder Clyde (1943), Where Angels Fear to Tread: A contribution from general sociology to human ethics, Science, vol 97, 1943, p.521, Retrieved on 2011-09-03
1
27 JUL 2011
Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Chil...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Medina , John (2010-10-12), Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five, Pear Press, Retrieved on 2011-07-27
47
21 MAY 2011
Husband-Coached Childbirth (Fifth Edition): The Bradley M...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Bradley , Hathaway , Hathaway , Hathaway (2008-05-20), Husband-Coached Childbirth (Fifth Edition): The Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth, Bantam, Retrieved on 2011-05-21
Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth
Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth
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19 MAY 2011
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Dawkins, Richard (2010-08-24), The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Free Press, Retrieved on 2011-05-19
46
03 MAY 2011
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Ridley , Matt (2003-05-01), The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, Harper Perennial, Retrieved on 2011-05-03
38
11 APR 2011
Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Lovelock, James (2000-11-23), Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, Oxford University Press, USA, Retrieved on 2011-04-11
10
29 MAR 2011
A Book For All Seasons
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article: Lovelock, James (8 May 1998), A Book For All Seasons, Science, Vol. 280 no. 5365 pp. 832-833, Retrieved on 2011-03-29Source Material [www.sciencemag.org]
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