I'm a TA. In a year 4 class today, the teacher said that humans are not animals because they don't walk on 4 legs. I have aways thought that humans were just another species of animal. Who is correct?
2006-09-12 07:07:15 · 25 answers · asked by SueZZZ 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Primary & Secondary Education
Yes, we are animals. Specifically, mammals.
2006-09-12 07:13:31 · answer #1 · answered by Speedo Inspector 6 · 4⤊ 1⤋
Sounds like a fundo Christian. If we are not animals, why have we got organs like other animals, bones like other animals, why do we eat, mate and die just as other animals do? If two-leggedness is the criteria, then we must accept birds as fellow humans.
Presumably what this dufus means is walking upright on two legs, which still includes an awful lot of birds.
About the only thing serious difference one can seriously point to between man and animals is the ability to consider our own condition and that of others. Even lying and tool making - once thought to be uniquely human traits - have been shown to be shared with animals; there was a monkey recorded giving the warning cry for eagle to pinch another monkey's lunch (the little monkey) while it's victim looked vainly for the non-existent eagle .
This teacher seems to be a menace and should be stopped as she is clearly abusing her position to spread Fundo Christian views.
2006-09-12 07:29:41 · answer #2 · answered by tagette 5 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Animal Vegetable or Mineral? We have to be one of them, no ifs ands or buts about it.
Because we don't walk on 4 legs? Birds walk on 2. Centipedes walk on hundreds. Spiders walk on 8. Fish don't walk at all. How does the teacher explain that?
Humans are a part of the animal kingdom, we are animals. Period.
Send a note home with all of the kids stating that this is what your child is learning. If my child ever got info like that, I'd have the teacher fired under incompetance rules.
2006-09-12 07:59:57 · answer #3 · answered by Manny 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
That is a weird definition of "animal". Apparently, it only includes the tetrapod vertebrates that have not specialized for other forms of locomotion (ncluding snakes and legless lizards and amphibians). And anyway, we do have 4 limbs, although we don't walk on all fours.
*scratches head*
Here's the 'official' definition of Animal (members of Kingdom Animalia):
"Multicellular, heterotrophic eukaryotes that are capable of mobility at some stage during their lives, and that have cells lacking cell walls."
http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/BioBookDivers_class.html
And just in case, this is something I wrote in a friend's blog:
"Of course humans are animals, and subject to "animal law". In fact, we're subject to the same natural and biological laws as the rest of the living beings in this planet, and indeed, we're fairly more limited than, say, extremophile bacteria able to live without oxygen or at extreme temperatures.
But nowhere in the corpus of Evolutionary Theory there is a statement that we are "just animals"; and "animal law" does not equal "Social Darwinism" which is another travesty of a biological principle for social/economical domination purposes.
The awareness of our exclusive capabilities as a species is not opposed to the recognition of our limitations as living beings.
And religion is not a mandatory requisite to recognize these special capabilities."
2006-09-13 17:44:37 · answer #4 · answered by Calimecita 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The teacher is wrong - all birds walk on two legs also. How would the teacher explain that? Most primates walk on two legs - they just use there arms more than humans - but that doesn't change anything. I am also a teacher and I am horrified to hear that.
2006-09-12 07:11:45 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
Yes of course they are animals.
And there are plenty of other animals that don't walk on four legs as well - try asking your teacher what these are if they're not animals:-
fish
whales and dolphins
snakes
birds
bats
insects
spiders
centipedes
millipedes
slugs and snails
squid and octopus
In fact there are thousands more species of animals that DON'T walk on four legs than there are that do!
2006-09-12 07:08:41 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
Human is an animal
2006-09-12 07:11:19 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
humans ARE animals. kangaroos and penguins walk on two legs and this doesnt stop them being animals.
humans are what are known as mammals (they give birth to live young and care from them as babies) and mammals are animals. you are right, the teacher is very very wrong!
im sure you could do the job better than her...you seem to know more about basic biology than her!
2006-09-12 11:53:19 · answer #8 · answered by fifs_c 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Yes we are classed as mammals and we may walk on two leg but we reproduce live young, we have hairs all over our bodies, we feed our babies milk, we are warmblooded and these are the main factors of telling a mammal from a bird or reptile. So by the sounds of it your so called science teacher doesn't know sh*t.
2006-09-12 07:11:55 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Lol, sounds a bit like religious preference sneaking in there. Humans are mammals. Mammals are a type of animal. We are animals. Lol, would he then class a duck as a human? Strange...
2006-09-12 07:09:29 · answer #10 · answered by Xenophonix 3 · 3⤊ 0⤋
it's like I speed through evolution when i wake up early
Sleep
crawl round the floor
stand
wlaking like an ape
standing
Everything on this planet IMO i a form of animal, even humans they just have a bit more intelligence, build more and have bigger civilizations than some animals.
btw do heavily drunk people count?
2006-09-12 07:20:11 · answer #11 · answered by Wolf guy lupine 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋