• Question: What makes us human?

    Asked by anon-181679 on 20 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Nathan Clarke

      Nathan Clarke answered on 20 Jun 2018:

      Super question 🙂 Very difficult! Some people used to say language, but we’re learning that lots of animals have complex languages. Some people used to say art, but others have argued that everything that we do is nothing more than complex mating behaviour. Personally, I’d say that what really makes us human is our ability to understand what we’re made of and how it works.

    • Photo: Claire Donald

      Claire Donald answered on 21 Jun 2018:

      Great question! I think what makes us human is that we consider who we are, where we come from and where we are going. As far as we know we are the only creatures that think about the universe as a whole and our place within it. But as Nathan says, a lot of the traits that we once thought of as unique to us have now been shown to occur in animals so maybe this will also be disproved in time.

    • Photo: Lauren Burns

      Lauren Burns answered on 26 Jun 2018:

      I completely agree with the other scientists. I also think what perhaps defines us is our ability to create and our understanding of the world. The cheetah has it’s speed, the owl it’s soundless flight, the bee it’s (seemingly) impossible ability to fly, the brown basilisk can run across water, but I think what makes us special is our minds. As Claire said, this idea may be changed in time, but at the moment, I think that’s something we can be proud of 🙂

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