How Different Are We?

That’s it, the million dollar question. Are humans that much different from other animals? How did we come to be the dominant species on the planet? Because, fundamentally, we’re not that different. We’re just another species of animal.  Our closest ancestor, chimpanzees, share 99% of our genes. If we are, genetically, 99% the same, what is in that one percent that has changed our behavior so much? And how is it that we, a relatively young species, has become the most dominant species on the planet? Even though I am studying animal behavior this semester, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of our behaviors compared to those of other animal species.

There have been many instances where someone comes up with a new definition that sets humans apart from other animal species. First, it was tool use. Well, many other species, even species that aren’t closely related to us, can do just that, use tools. There have been studies that look at this very behavior in crows. Crows can not only figure out how to use tools, but they can also make tools out of objects that are given to them. Next, there was an idea that only we can see objects in two dimensions and translate them into three dimensional image in our brain. But, as it turns out, dolphins can do this, too. A group of dolphins and trainers can even communicate through a language of hand signals that has its own grammar. Also, dolphins and elephants can see themselves in a mirror and know that it is them. They have a self-awareness that was first thought only to be present in humans. Like it or not, we are actually very similar in many ways to the animals that surround us.

Even though some of our behaviors are not exactly the same as those that we see in other species, many of them are close. As I started doing some research on social dominance in groups of animals, I met with my mentor, a professor at the University of Idaho. He then brought up the point that humans have our own form of social dominance that actually appears quite often in teenagers; bullying. Bullying is just a teenager’s way of showing dominance over another. This happens incredibly often in other animal species, as well. One individual will rise to dominance over another because of a number a factors, but once there, this individual will use its newfound power to get at the best resources or mates, often at the expense of the lower ranking members of the group.

This is one of the reasons that I, personally, find studying animal behavior so interesting. It makes me think. It doesn’t just make me think like a hard math problem makes me think; it makes me think about what it truly means to be human. It causes those who study it to compare ourselves to animals in ways that most people typically avoid doing. We just want to feel that we are superior and don’t like anything that tells us otherwise. In a way, studying animal behavior makes me feel less human, less civilized. But I also feel connected. It helps me to understand that we really are just animals with the same desires and needs that every other species of animal has. We want to stay alive so we can reproduce and pass along our genes on to the next generation.

-Rachel C.