What makes a human human?

[Shaker]

Long and informative BBC article on the difficulties of classifying humans scientifically:

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160111-what-is-it-that-makes-you-a-human-and-not-something-else

[Gonnagle]

Dear Shaker,

Bloody hell!! if they can't decide.

Anyway

Wood says the human genus began when our ancestors finally turned their backs on the trees, and when childhoods began to lengthen. If he's right, it is these adaptive features – as much as anything in our physical anatomy – that we should use to define our genus.

Childhoods began to lengthen, why!!

Gonnagle.

[Leonard James]

They are trying to find something that doesn't exist. The whole of the evolutionary process is a gradual change, and as those changes occur it is impossible to draw lines separating one 'species' from another. It is like looking at the visible spectrum and fixing a point at which each colour starts and ends, but infinitely more complicated.

[SusanDoris]

They are trying to find something that doesn't exist. The whole of the evolutionary process is a gradual change, and as those changes occur it is impossible to draw lines separating one 'species' from another. It is like looking at the visible spectrum and fixing a point at which each colour starts and ends, but infinitely more complicated.

Exactly; The Ancestor's tale by RD is good, but it sounded unclear. I couldn't work out whether the Schwarz involved was the one who was involved with things like remote viewing?)

I have skimmed through the article (i.e. cursoring down, line by line, listening to bits of each to get the general thread.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Dear Shaker,

Bloody hell!! if they can't decide.

Anyway

Childhoods began to lengthen, why!!

Gonnagle.

Yes we have ''menchildren'' running the country and menchildren voting for them.

[Red Giant]

It's a pity they haven't found a bigfoot.  Some people can't cope with the fact that there were several species of humans living quite recently.

It's debatable whether we and Neanderthals were even separate species.  The guy who wants to make them separate genera is out of his tree.

[Bubbles]

Long and informative BBC article on the difficulties of classifying humans scientifically:

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160111-what-is-it-that-makes-you-a-human-and-not-something-else

Our genetic variations I suppose.

Plus we can breed amongst ourselves.

Something else which is too different probably can't.

Neanderthals probably could breed so they were human IMO.

I'd draw the line when procreation is no longer viable.

So chimps and gorillas can't cross with humans naturally, so they wouldn't be human.

They don't even mention that,  but for me thats where I draw the line.

If something can naturally breed with us, it's human 

[Outrider]

Plus we can breed amongst ourselves.
Something else which is too different probably can't. Neanderthals probably could breed so they were human IMO.

Wouldn't a circle species with humanity at one end be kind of strange, though? We can interbreed with Neanderthals, which can themselves interbreed with something a little more remote, and they with something a little more remote until you get all the way back around the planet to us and realise there's a chain that leads to the chimps in the trees... Kind of puts the idea of interbreeding as a means for defining species into perspective.

I don't have a better definition, don't get me wrong, it's just a way of showing that any system is rather arbitrary - life is a continuum, and to try to classify it is to impose an 'order' on it from outside that it just doesn't inherently have.

O.

[Bubbles]

Wouldn't a circle species with humanity at one end be kind of strange, though? We can interbreed with Neanderthals, which can themselves interbreed with something a little more remote, and they with something a little more remote until you get all the way back around the planet to us and realise there's a chain that leads to the chimps in the trees... Kind of puts the idea of interbreeding as a means for defining species into perspective.

I don't have a better definition, don't get me wrong, it's just a way of showing that any system is rather arbitrary - life is a continuum, and to try to classify it is to impose an 'order' on it from outside that it just doesn't inherently have.

O.

I didn't realise that would happen, so what your saying is Neanderthals might have been able to breed with chimps but we couldn't ?

I can't think of any species that happens with.

A mule is sterile but is still recognisably a horse like animal.

I like my definition because it's totally without too many preconcieved notions and beliefs. I think i will stick with it because we share a lot of DNA with the other apes 

If they can cross with us they are human , and if not they are something else.

If Neanderthals could breed and with chimps maybe the need an in between category,
We do like very defined things don't we? But maybe the reality is we all blur into other things 

I still like it better than some of the ideas on the link 

I'm not offended by being an ape 

[Outrider]

I didn't realise that would happen, so what your saying is Neanderthals might have been able to breed with chimps but we couldn't ?

I doubt with actual chimps, but theoretically there could be a hominid group that Neanderthals could breed with which we couldn't yes.

I can't think of any species that happens with.

I'm more aware of the theory than any specifics - I think it was birds in the example I saw written, might have been in one of Professor Dawkins' books.

A mule is sterile but is still recognisably a horse like animal.

Right. And a gazelle isn't a horse-like animal in the conventional classifications, except that it does share an awful lot of common features... where does the line get drawn?

I like my definition because it's totally without too many preconcieved notions and beliefs. I think i will stick with it because we share a lot of DNA with the other apes 

If they can cross with us they are human , and if not they are something else.

Don't get me wrong, it's a useful delineation in a lot of cases, and we have to pick something in order to be able to classify - it's just worth remembering that sometimes the criteria are quite arbitrary.

If Neanderthals could breed and with chimps maybe the need an in between category,
We do like very defined things don't we? But maybe the reality is we all blur into other things 

Indeed. At some point there were creatures that could breed with the forerunners of Neanderthals and the forerunners of chimpanzees... were they hominids, or merely apes?

O.

[Bubbles]

This is interesting

https://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/04/early-humans-may-have-bred-wit.html

This one is a bit wacky

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515969/Humans-evolved-female-chimpanzee-mated-pig-Extraordinary-claim-American-geneticist.html

This next one is about a chimpanzee called Oliver who walked upright.

It's a shame that once he had died they couldn't have tested his DNA, perhaps we could have learnt something about mutations.

Not sure why this group prevented it. They seem to have had him for the last years of his life.

He was kidnapped from the wild in the Congo when someone saw an opportunity to make money.

https://www.primarilyprimates.org/content/oliver-famed-chimpanzee-dies


Lots of people thought he was human, I think chimps are quite clever, more clever than people suppose.

I read a book on project Nim, I thought it was sad, in that after finding out he could do sign language and communicate when the project was finished he was shoved back in his cage and forgotten.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky

IMO it's cruel to communicate with an animal on this level and raise their awareness and then suddenly remove it.

 

[Bubbles]

If someone classed someone as human because of our intelligence, it might have some interesting results.

I saw a programme the other day that said that hyenas could beat humans in some tests. I think it was some sort of social problem solving test.

They are very intelligent.

I have been trying to find a link to it

http://scitechdaily.com/hyenas-might-be-as-intelligent-as-some-primates/

I'll keep looking, because if cleverness is a way of defining humans we might have to include hyenas, because they might beat us 

Perhaps it was inflated for the programme but hyenas are surprisingly bright.

http://www.livescience.com/34237-hyenas-last-laugh.html

[Bubbles]

The Oxford dictionary says

Definition of human being in English:
noun

A man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.

Well you've got Oliver the upright chimp, teach him sign language like Nim and a few others and you are getting there.

After all someone human  who is deaf and dumb ( or is mentally disabled )  isn't defined as non human because they lack some of the attributes, they are human because their parents were human.

Although my way of seeing which animals are human by which ones can interbreed with us is a bit fuzzy, so is the definition in the Oxford dictionary.

Because I think other animals display some of the things we claim are just ours.

Every day it seems we learn animals are brighter and more capable than we think.

Years ago it used to be said only man, used tools, well that soon bit the dust 

Once scientists looked closely

🌹

[torridon]

Dear Shaker,

Bloody hell!! if they can't decide.

Anyway

Childhoods began to lengthen, why!!

Gonnagle.

In a word, neoteny

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny

[Outrider]

I doubt with actual chimps, but theoretically there could be a hominid group that Neanderthals could breed with which we couldn't yes.

I'm more aware of the theory than any specifics - I think it was birds in the example I saw written, might have been in one of Professor Dawkins' books.

Right. And a gazelle isn't a horse-like animal in the conventional classifications, except that it does share an awful lot of common features... where does the line get drawn?

Don't get me wrong, it's a useful delineation in a lot of cases, and we have to pick something in order to be able to classify - it's just worth remembering that sometimes the criteria are quite arbitrary.

Indeed. At some point there were creatures that could breed with the forerunners of Neanderthals and the forerunners of chimpanzees... were they hominids, or merely apes?

O.

Worked out why I was struggling so much finding examples of these - Ring species, not circle species

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species

O.

[jeremyp]

Our genetic variations I suppose.

Plus we can breed amongst ourselves.

Something else which is too different probably can't.

Neanderthals probably could breed so they were human IMO.

I'd draw the line when procreation is no longer viable.

Lions and tigers can breed. Are they the same species?

So chimps and gorillas can't cross with humans naturally, so they wouldn't be human.

Actually, we don't know this for sure. For fairly obvious reasons, nobody wants to find out.

I saw a TV programme a few years ago about human lice. There are different species of lice depending on which patch of hair they prefer. The hypothesis was that there was only one species of louse and it evolved into several separate species as we lost our all over hair and the different communities could no longer communicate.

Then somebody discovered that human pubic lice were more closely related to gorilla lice than human head lice...

[Shaker]

Actually, we don't know this for sure. For fairly obvious reasons, nobody wants to find out.

On the contrary - some people want to find out. There were the Ivanov experiments in Russia in the 1920s which didn't last long enough to produce any results, but it's rumoured that the Chinese were attempting it as recently as the 80s.

[jeremyp]

On the contrary - some people want to find out. There were the Ivanov experiments in Russia in the 1920s which didn't last long enough to produce any results, but it's rumoured that the Chinese were attempting it as recently as the 80s.

OK , nobody with any sense of morality wants to do it.

[Bubbles]

Lions and tigers can breed. Are they the same species?

Actually, we don't know this for sure. For fairly obvious reasons, nobody wants to find out.

I saw a TV programme a few years ago about human lice. There are different species of lice depending on which patch of hair they prefer. The hypothesis was that there was only one species of louse and it evolved into several separate species as we lost our all over hair and the different communities could no longer communicate.

Then somebody discovered that human pubic lice were more closely related to gorilla lice than human head lice...

They are both cats 

[Bubbles]

On the contrary - some people want to find out. There were the Ivanov experiments in Russia in the 1920s which didn't last long enough to produce any results, but it's rumoured that the Chinese were attempting it as recently as the 80s.

I would have thought it would be easy, put an egg and sperm together and see if the egg divides.

[Bubbles]

OK , nobody with any sense of morality wants to do it.

If it was just a matter of finding out if the sperm fertilised the egg, in a test tube and then it was destroyed.

Is that immoral?

I'm not sure it is, because it's just a couple of cells.

[Shaker]

I would have thought it would be easy, put an egg and sperm together and see if the egg divides.

The process itself isn't especially difficult in any way - it's no more than what is done in fertility clinics everywhere every day of the year; it's just that because we're talking about two different but very closely related species and people in charge of these things are squeamish and have superstitious, speciesist ideas, it's regarded as unethical even to try.

[Bubbles]

The process itself isn't especially difficult in any way - it's no more than what is done in fertility clinics everywhere every day of the year; it's just that because we're talking about two different but very closely related species and people in charge of these things are squeamish and have superstitious, speciesist ideas, it's regarded as unethical even to try.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-man-who-tried-to-make-human-ape-hybrids-513278104

It's unlikely no one has ever tried, just out of curiosity.

[Shaker]

If it was just a matter of finding out if the sperm fertilised the egg, in a test tube and then it was destroyed.

Is that immoral?

I'm not sure it is, because it's just a couple of cells.

Broadly I think I agree. I can't think of a single directly useful, practical benefit of knowing if humans and chimps can interbreed in any way whatsoever. Trying to find out, as far as I'm aware anyway (and I'm not a professional biologist or primatologist so there may be something I'm missing) would be entirely about satisfying human curiosity. Geneticists are a clever lot of sods so there's always the possibility that it may shed some light on evolution, both of chimps and humans - I don't know - but again we're back to satisfying our curiosity about the way the world works with no immediately practical outcome otherwise.

But trying to find out doesn't immediately strike me as anything inherently immoral. I'm not a believer in knowledge at any cost because that sort of approach evacuates science of any moral responsibility - my angle is partly that merely raising disturbing and troubling questions is no reason in and of itself not to do something, but more especially, if disturbing and troubling questions about the nature of humanity and our kinship with other primates are raised, it may just be possible that that may lead to better treatment of our closest evolutionary relatives, who in most places (despite earnest efforts) are still considered to be laboratory fodder for procedures of the most horrendous kind.

[Shaker]

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-man-who-tried-to-make-human-ape-hybrids-513278104

It's unlikely no one has ever tried, just out of curiosity.

Exactly so, Rose - earlier I referred to Ilya Ivanov who certainly tried back in the Soviet Union in the 1920s until he fell out of favour with the regime and was packed off to the arse end of nowhere. That's pretty well certain; less confirmed but highly likely is that the Chinese were trying about thirty-something years ago.