What makes Man different for other mammals?

Question:This is a question we were asked in philosophy class: What makes Man different for other mammals? I understand that there are many obvious differences, like appearance, thought processes, etc. What other differences are there? Why did we evolve but other mammals didn't?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: This is a question we were asked in philosophy class: What makes Man different for other mammals? I understand that there are many obvious differences, like appearance, thought processes, etc. What other differences are there? Why did we evolve but other mammals didn't?

One of your questions suggests that you may be operating under a misconception about how evolution works. It's actually a very common one, but it's not quite correct all the same.

Humans are not 'more evolved' than other animals. Nor is the purpose of evolution to produce more and more complex creatures. What evolution does is produce creatures that are better adapted to survive in their specific environment. Sometimes this means becoming more complex, but sometimes it means becoming less so. There are plenty of examples either way.

Being more complex usually also means being vulnerable to more things, even if it does also mean being more adaptable. You can cut a worm in half and both halves will probably survive. Octopi can re-grow lost arms. We're just happy if an injury doesn't leave too big of a scar. The highly specialized nature of our tissues, however, offset this disadvantage - those things we do we tend to do very, very well. At least compared to other animals.

I would say that the one thing MOST special about us is our COMBINATION of talents. Whales may have large brains, but since they have no hands and little access to materials even if they did, all they can do is think up new songs to sing. Tigers may have developed some kind of cunning and intelligence, but because they have scarcely any social instincts even brilliant tigers can't pass on any information. And on that level, Cro Magnon men had better vision and apparently better linguistic skill than Neandertals, and so the latter disappeared. So many of our abilities work together, and there are plenty of examples even among humans of how disastrous it can be to lose even one.

If you're looking for a REASON why we happen to have this collusion of abilities and no other creature... I don't have much of a provable answer I can give you. There are many creatures that have some of them, so maybe the production of a species with all was just a matter of chance and time. Or perhaps there is some intelligence with a purpose out there which is changing the outcomes. The past - like the future - is a land at which we can only guess. Only the present can possibly be clear to us.

That's my take anyway, for what it's worth. Peace.

Have you ever seen a horse riding a man?

humans are the only animals with the ability to control fire. that's what made us apart from the beginning. i don't know why we were given the gift, but it's what started the manipulation of raw materials into tools, which in everything developed............

there are more differences, like humans walk upright and we are more intelligant. But i dont believe that we evolved from no damn mammals, because think about it, while they not still evolving?

We kill for "sport",we drink another species milk after infancy,we believe us to be Superior but we are not,we cannot mate for life,we intimately attack our young,we cannot stop destroying the planet....I could go on and on....

Our Frontal and Pre-Frontal Cortex.

And the abilities that this area of grey matter adds to us.

Language, Self Consciousness, memory, an inner dialog, and social cooperation. we became learning biological systems

Our Skulls allowed for this growth that is restricted in other mammals. Specifically in the great apes the muscles required to empower their jaw mandates a thicker skull with attachment points that our does not require.

Thumbs down on straight facts. What in the bejeasus is this sight coming to, I am terribly sorry for offending anyone. This is a materialist answer not a qualities based response.

Do you mean "different for" or "different from"? Animals have bad manners, especially pigs. Animals don't possess reasoning, which allows them to live more freely with nature. Humanity's search for reason (ie religion and politics) has caused a lot of destruction. Animals are abused as a result. Without reason we would act like wild animals, that might not be a bad thing.

It's primarily and predominantly the intellect.

Other animals are evolving too. We have just evolved the bigger brains.

Jared Diamond, an excellent brainy guy, tries to answer the "just another species of big mammal" to a world-dominating force question. Such thinkers as Charlie Munger like Diamond's writing. He's a Pulitzer Award-winning author.

Diamond is a wonderful writer and thinker.

More than just a "man has a big brain and can communicate" answer in his book, "The Third Chimpanzee."

because we discovered speach and civilization and other mamals have not and the day they do they will be close or better then us :D
and im sure we evolved out of luck or maybe some intervention but not religious :P see we are nothing else then animals who have come together to gather and who can relate messages to each other and we can prosesse the information thanks to that but after all we are nothing else then animals

Like you say there are some obvious visual , social or conceptual differences in the various species, but there are differences between humans as well. Different does not mean better or smarter or more entitled.
I do not however think that we differ from other mammals or any other life forms for that matter. Our lives are basically dependent upon the safe forces of nature .
We can not determine that the things which separate us are anything more than just differences. I do not believe we are superior.
Categorizing is our invention. Labelling is our invention . Invented to satisfy our suspicions that we are inferior to the animal kingdom and to raise our feelings of self importance... I doubt that any of it is based on any kind of truth which can be explained away by mere language. Communication and expression is evident between each species.

Animal, mammals , etc all may very well be superior to us. We are arrogant and ethnocentric. Animals were not created,( if they were created ) not to serve us but to challenge us perhaps lead us to knowledge. Most of if not all of what we know we learned from them.

The use of language is the primary factor differentiating humans from the other animals (written language especially).

Humans seem to have a higher level of self awareness.

Humans use tools with much more frequency than animals.

Humans utilize fire with great efficiency.

The evolution (successful emergence) of humans became much more possible with the passing of the dinosaurs.