How are human beings different from animals?

Question

plz i need a good detailed answer as quick as possible. Because it's my Homework and its due for Monday 2nd July 2007

Answer 1

no other species have ever mastered the art of making the cappucino

Answer 2

The animal mind is a stimulus-response mechanism. It receives stimulus (hears, sees, feels, and smells things), and responds accordingly. The simpler the animal, the smaller the array of possible responses. For example, most insects within a species will have similar reactions to similar situations. As the animal becomes more complex, variables get thrown in to the stimulus-response equation. In mammals, individual genetic characteristics such as temperament, as well as previous experiences in similar situations, will influence their response. But it will still be a reaction, commonly reffered to as "instinct". Humans, however, can contemplate their options and CHOOSE a response. This is called "conscious thought", and we are the only animals that have this capability.

Answer 3

We're not. Mostly it's a matter of degree.

a) We control fire. Other animals do not deliberately start fires. Other animals certainly don't keep fire in a circle of stones.
b) We seek to find connections where none exist. You can call it spirituality, and/or call it deliberate conscious inventiveness. It's the basis of religion and engineering. Other animals do not worship a god or gods. Beavers and a few other animals engage in large scale engineering, but they don't think about it the way we do.
c) We knap stone. Other animals may use stones for tools, but no other animals deliberately break stones to make tools. Okay, so you haven't knapped any stones lately... but if you tried, you'd be better at it than any chimp or bird.
d) We put other animals in zoos. Other animals may have symbiotic or other mutualistic or commensal relations with other species... but we're the only zoo builders.

Answer 4

Lots of good answers there. One other difference I see is that humans think in terms of past, present, and future and we have developed calendars and clocks. Animals follow behaviour. They remember where the food is at, not in terms of three weeks ago, I went to the berry patch...nor would they think oh, next month I need to look for a new tree. They do these things out of need, not abstract thought.

Answer 5

The biggest difference between animals and humans is the ability to make conscious choices and decisions based on reasoning.Animals make decisions based on the need to survive commonly called instinct.Also humans are the only animal with the ability to enter space.

Answer 6

While animals can build nests and dens, men build houses, skyscrapers, office complexes. While fish and other creatures make their home in the sea, man can cross the ocean, explore its depths, transport goods and peoples from continent to continent. While birds and insects can fly through the air, men fly in state-of-the-art jets from city to city, country to country, across the world.God gave man a brain to create wonders and God gave man too the authority over animals. (^_^)

Answer 7

well to be fair, humans are animals. But what makes us diferent from other animals is that we are capable of complex speach, building sophisticted shelters, high level of inteligence, creativity, complex emotions and fealings and the ability to adapt to our surondings. though some animals are capable of a few of these, its exagerated in the human race the most, exept for the last one, that can be debated appon

Answer 8

Because it's homework, I'm not going to answer it fully.

You can think this through - what makes us different from animals?

Lots of things.

Answer 9

It's a good question. Humans are in fact animals. Many of our ideas about our special nature come down to propaganda such as "God made _them_ second" with the thought that we must always be first in priority in all things. Although we've spent a good deal of our scientific history trying to find ways to differentiate ourselves from the "commoners" of the animal kingdom, a lot of those ways have been shot down in flames.

One major set of flames was generated by the belief that humans are the only animals that use tools. But birds have been found which strip sticks and poke them down termite nests to pull up the attacking termites. Apes and monkeys have been found to use rocks, sticks, and leaves as tools from weapons to grooming aids.

It was believed that only humans have self-recognition, but recent experiments with apes and mirrors have shown that some apes recognize the reflection is in fact themselves, and thereby show a cognizance of the idea of self.

People have believed (rather archaically now) that animals didn't really feel pain. But experiments have clearly thrown that inane idea out the window, and in fact the use of polygraphs to study plant reactions shows that even plants respond clearly, if at high frequency, to losing limbs (no pun intended). Some of the same people who thought this, btw, also thought that people of various colors didn't really feel pain. Or emotion... (see two paragraphs down).

Some people believe that only humans have souls, but since the "soul" hasn't been scientifically identified or quantified, we can't really prove that humans have souls, much less whether or not animals do, we're only going on faith on that one, and even faith doesn't necessarily tell us that we're the *only* ones with souls.

Some people believe that only humans have feelings, but although this is also very difficult to quantify, both experimental and observational research indicates that whether or not their feelings are *exactly* the same as ours, animals do indicate some kind of fear, rage, or affection-like response in many situations. It is difficult in most cases for animals to be able to communicate with us in some way we find adequate to erase our doubts on the matter though.

People have believed that only humans are capable of meaningful communication, but the Koko gorilla studies with a gorilla speaking sign language, and similar experiments with talking birds, have shown a number of instances of very difficult to refute communication, with mental activity behind that communication, vs. simple repetition responses.

Our list of ways we are more important or "better" than other animals is shrinking apace, and is down to "we use *certain* tools" (e.g., fire) and that we have a sense of time and can look ahead to consequences, hopes, and plans for the future as well as remembering the past. We do have indications that animals remember the past (such as avoiding a man who kicked them) and indications that some can plan ahead in the short term (such as tricking another monkey out of a persimmon). But so far we have not seen long-term future planning in other animals along the lines of, say, getting people to do your homework for next week.

Ultimately, the main way in which we are different from other animals that I can see is that our long-term planning skills have made it possible to destroy the habitats of all animals including ourselves. I hope these skills will also make it possible to save them.

Answer 10

human have sense to think and now what to do
but animal can't think like humans that whether this is goods for them or not.
so the difference is the knowledge
if we do not have knowledge so we are also a animal only.

Answer 11

Life can be divided into six broad categories, called kingdoms:

Eubacteria
Archaebacteria
Protists
Fungi
Plants
Animals

Humans fall into the sixth category. We are animals, and very similar to all other mammals, but with more brains and less hair than most. If you take away our brains, there is nothing to make us stand out from other apes.