Are Humans the only species that are "all the same"?

The other day I got into a debate That keeps getting deeper and deeper.

A friend of mine said that Humans are the only things that are like we are. Such as, stand on two feet constantly, rely on homes to live, and such.

I tried to give him another perspective. Aren't all cats the same? They all have to same features, just some are smaller while others larger. The same with Dogs and Wolves. Sure the scientific names are differant, but then again, Humans came up with the scientific name for everything.

His next argument was If you put and asian with a caucaian, or caucasian with African American, you still get Human. So that makes Humans one of a kind. But, if you put a house cat with a cheetah, you get a new breed. But isn't that what you would get by putting two different races of people together, a diferent "breed"? Yes, you get a new breed of cat, but it is still cat. All cats have the same ancestors as do people. The same goes for Dogs. Dogs and wolves are the same. Dogs are just domesticated wolves and cyotes. As with horses and all animals in the same Families.

In the end, his arguments all go to scientific names as the difference between a house cat and a wild cat... and Humans all have Homo Sapian as the Scientific classification. So besides the Scientific name, which humans have given, a cat is a cat as a human is a human, right?

Lots of help with this one guys!!!

[edit on 14-12-2005 by Inanna]

[edit on 14-12-2005 by Inanna]

It never really occurred to me before but you might have a point. If we strip away the scientific labels we (as humans) have put on things - or if we even admit that maybe our labels aren't exactly perfect or comprehensive - there could very well be more than one 'type' of human being. Maybe not necessarily in the physical sense, but in the 'soul' or 'heart' of a person.

I know there are people on this earth who seem like a different animal than me. People to whom money and power are so important that they would kill many others just to gain it? I just can't imagine... Where's their heart?

Okay, I think the problem here is the squicky definitions. I bet things will clear up once I explain this:

Human beings belong to the genus "homo" and the species "sapiens." Right now, we are the only representatives of the genus "homo" on the Earth. 40,000 years ago this was NOT true because there were also "homo neanderthalis" and "homo floreniesis" and "homo sapiens" and "homo heidelbergensis" (and one or two others, I think) all living on Earth.

All of them would have looked pretty much like we do today... shave them, dress them, put a little makeup on them, and they could stroll into any charity banquet and pass themselves off as "homo sapiens."

Could they breed with homo sapiens? Well, the debate rages, but the answer is "maybe."

Originally posted by Inanna
I tried to give him another perspective. Aren't all cats the same? They all have to same features, just some are smaller while others larger. The same with Dogs and Wolves.

Actually, no, they're not. We have many different species of the genus "felis" living on the Earth and many different species of the genus "canis."

But, if you put a house cat with a cheetah, you get a new breed.

Actually, no. They're genetically (and size) incompatable.

But isn't that what you would get by putting two different races of people together, a diferent "breed"?

No. It's still a homo sapiens.

A better example... you wouldn't get a new breed of horse if you bred a black horse with a white horse. You don't get a new breed of dog if you breed a chocolate Labrador Retriever with a golden Labrador Retriever. Breeding darker skinned humans with ligher skinned humans just results in another human... not a hybrid. Coat (or skin) color doesn't mean a new breed.

All cats have the same ancestors as do people. The same goes for Dogs.

Quite true. Remember that our first ancestor to be a part of the modern human (species 'homo') lineage lived about 1.2 million years ago.

Dogs and wolves are the same. Dogs are just domesticated wolves and cyotes.

Acutally, no. Dogs and wolves are very different and so are coyotes. They can all interbreed, but there's some real differences (as different as horses and donkeys.)

Did that help?

Here's a short, helpful, easy to understand page on taxonomy. Take a look at and soon you'll be able to fling those big words right back at your friend and know the exact definition of what he's talking about!
www.borg.com...

Thanks Byrd. It helped me understand his point of view a little better. I am trying to go a little deeper, I guess. I am trying to look beside the point of what science has named and classified everything. What if science had not given all these names to everything. Would a cat then be the same thing as a lion? I may just be confusing myself trying to proove myself right, as females tend to do. Or maybe I am just trying to show homo-sapiens as something not so special, just because we had fish in our diet.

Originally posted by Inanna
What if science had not given all these names to everything. Would a cat then be the same thing as a lion?

Heh. It doesn't matter if we call the cat a Baryliptus Paraprotoli and the lion a Pendiculous Rastafarian. The difference between genera (members of different "genuses") and species is genetic.

Within a genus, you can USUALLY crossbreed two animals. For instance, you may think a zebra is just a "stripey horse" but in fact there are three living kinds of zebras and they all have different numbers of chromosomes: Grevy's zebras have 46 chromosomes, Mountain zebras 34 and Plain's zebras 44. So they're stripey horse-things and they're related to each other. You can breed them to each other or to other equines like donkeys and horses. They will produce offspring, but these are almost always sterile.

But you can't cross an elephant with a rhino, or a horse with a cow... or a human with a chimp, for that matter.

So in taxonomy, you have the animal kingdom (which basically means "things that are alive and move.") There's no relationship and you can' t breed any random two of these together. They're split into chordates (things with backbones) and non-chordates.

Then there's the chordates (things with backbones and things without backbones) Again, no interbreeding. Chordates are split into mammals and nonmamals

Then we have the class Mammalia (things with milk glands.) You still can't breed any two mammals of this Class at random and get offspring.

The mammals separate out into many Families, including the Carnivora (meat eaters.) You can't breed any two meat-eaters together and get offspring.

After Family comes the Genus. At this level, animals are reasonbly closely related. Much of this is pretty evident... we can tell a monkey from a cat from a dog. Animals of two different genuses may not be able to produce fertile offspring.

The most close genetic relationships are Species. You can breed animals of different species together and get offspring (so felis Panthera leo (lion) and felis panthera tigris (tiger) can crossbreed.) This isn't always a "given" and two species that are related still might not produce offspring.

Now... there's also the sub-sub species. At this level, the genetic differences between the two are slight (but more than skin/coat color) and they can reproduce successfully.

Is that better?

Hey, there's no reason why we girls can't understand and discuss this stuff. Being female doesn't make us a different species!

Originally posted by Byrd
Hey, there's no reason why we girls can't understand and discuss this stuff. Being female doesn't make us a different species!

Hmm. I am not sure of this statement! All through your post, you made perfectly sense, but "that females aren't a different specie"? Hmm. I think you are pulling my leg on this one! I will blatantly call females a specie of their own, totally far from men! I'll bet'ya that it was only one of natures flukes, or perhaps the devoid sense of males wisdom, that made us men poke ours 'manna-sticks' into whatever looked funny!

Never thought about that, its a very good point (First one). Where are all the diffrent types of people??? You have so many diffrent types of birds...but types of people are so limited, we are all pretty much the same. I know we are all mamals and we all came from the same place as other animals, Im just curious as to why there are not more variations of us. Dont consider color a variation, very slight but not a major one like someone having extremley long arms or huge ears or wings, there are versions of fish that have this.

Imbalanced, I agree.

The only 'variations' I can think of, is that some are more wrinkled than others, and stuff like that, but as You say, that is only minor differences, due to age, climate and culture. Is is kind of strange that even our coloures, only go from pale white, to dark brown, and different yellow tans. Why don't humans have spots, like a cow, or stripes like cats, or even a colourful face, like the baboon?

I guess it must have something to do with the flukes of nature, because why is the elephant so dull with it's grey colour?
I would not be surprised, if they one of these days find the gene that controls the appearence of the skin. Imagine the possibilities. The latest fashion will be to create mandelbrot-patterns on your kid. Oh, the traumas.
I would bet on the military would really love to make chameleon behaviour latent to future kids, and in the media, call it 'a miracle' made by 'God'.

That would be really wierd. I think I would hate to liv ein times where there are little camoflage kids running around everywhere! Not elling what kind of trouble they would get into. But, at the same time how much they wouldn't get into trouble for because they couldn't be seen.