Why don't all humans looks alike, but all other creatures on earth do?

Question

Example: no 2 people look alike...BUT, take Squirrels for instance...they ALL look alike! Why is this variation so?

Answer 1

It's because our brains are tuned to pick out the differences in humans. These differences DO exist in animals, but most people just don't pick up on it. There are SOME examples of people that do: ever hear about the farmer that can pick out all of his own sheep even when it mixes with another herd? You can train yourself to recognize the differences.

Incidentally, (and please don't take this the wrong way; I'm not saying anything about "animals", nor about racial differences as such) research has shown that most people will have an easier time picking out the differences of people of their own race (presumably as that person percieves race) than another. If you recognize that that's an archaic brain function, you can make a deliberate effort to overcome that. Just like stereotyping.

Answer 2

All animals don't look alike. Also there is apart of our brain that helps us differ faces from one another and connect faces with titles like mother and father. Is there really a need to differ one squirrel from another as a human.
Second Its all about genetics. You have mutations, natural selection, gene flow and gene drift. Also don't let the looks fool you, on the DNA level there isn't much different form human to another, very little coding goes into the physical

Answer 3

Animals don't all look alike. If you compare two squirrels or members of any species you would see many differences between individual members. Maybe you should try some comparative anatomy-- try bug collecting maybe.
It's always better to investigate something for oneself before making blanket assumptions that are quite obviously flawed. Have you ever looked at two animals of the same species side by side?

Answer 4

Two Squirrels look alike, but the are not ..... we can just recognise human faces, while all other creatures do have difference in their faces, but we just feel them alike, when it is not like that.

Answer 5

It is because of the unique way that humans evolved. The homo sapiens that came out of Ethiopia at about 50,000 BCE (from which modern humans are descended) knew how to to make tools, weapons, clothes, traps, and fire. That gave them a major evolutionary advantage that no species had ever had before. As a result, humans rapidly spread through the world, and subsequently adapted to their new environments, thus rapidly producing many different species and subspecies of humans.

However, separate species are usually prevented from successfully breeding with eachother, due to the accumulation of random mutations in their DNA which prevent their chromosomes from mixing, but which do not produce any substantial phenotypic (physical) changes. Mutations that produce phenotypic changes usually constitute only a small portion of the total mutations between multiple species that branch from the same source. Homo sapiens, however, have evolved rapidly in the last 50,000 years, and have not had enough time to accumulate enough non-phenotypic mutations to prevent interbreeding. Thus, humans have accumulated a very high ratio of phenotypic to non-phenotypic mutations, which allows for the interbreeding of very different people. A similar thing has occurred in domesticated dogs, in which very different breeds of dogs can breed with eachother. Evolution usually occurs at a much slower pace, thus causing the accumulation of non-phenotypic mutations, and preventing reproduction between dissimilar animals.

Answer 6

Actually humans all look alike, two eyes, one nose one mouth two ears, pretty much the common description. People who are not used to seeing people of other races have a hard time telling people apart that are from another race. The saying that "all(fill in the blank) people look the same to me" is not as much of a joke as most people in multiracial societies think it is.

Answer 7

Maybe to squirrels there are obvious differences among them but we humans all look alike.

Answer 8

identical twins look alike. how do u know that all humans don't look alike 2 squirrels? (because of clothing may be)

Answer 9

Scientist and secular humanist Richard Dawkins used chimps as an example in his book The Ancestor's Tale. Two chimps may look alike to us, but to each other they look as different as we do from each other. I'm sure that we humans all look alike to them.

Answer 10

All animals don't look alike. It is just because humans have hairless, expressive faces that is is more noticeable.