"What a piece of work is man?" exclaims Hamlet in Shakespeare's play,
"How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, and moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet... what is this quintessance of dust?"

Hamlet's question is probably as old as the unique human capacity for self-awareness, a capacity that extends perhaps hundreds of thousands of years back into prehistory.

Modern science can give no simple answer to the question, for we are an extraordinarily complex species - the most intelligent, resourceful, and adaptable that has ever existed on the planet.

Yet today we do know infinitely more about the human species than we did even a few years ago, and we have learned that many traditional ideas about "human nature" are hoplessly naive and misguided.

Our almost total reliance on learned behaviour is the single most important characteristic distinguishing us from other creatures.
We share a number of common characteristics with the higher primates, all of which give us clues to our own evolutionary background.
1) Sociability. 2) Intelligence. 3) Sensitive hands. 4) Vocality.
5) Acute eyesight. 5) Upright posture.

In the course of their evolution, our hominid ancestors developed two additional characteristics. The first, found in few other animals, is the potential for year-round mating. Human beings do not have a breeding season, a fact that encourages mates to form stable, long-lasting bonds.

The second, found to a much greater extent in human beings than in any other animal, is the infant's long period of dependence on adults.
This lengthy dependence provides the young human being with the opportunity to learn the cultural knowledge necessary for survival as an adult.

Fossil records show that the modern human form of Homo sapiens was achieved about 50,000 years ago. The long evolutionary process made us what we are: an almost hairless, bipedal, tool-using, talking, family-forming, self-aware, highly intelligent social animal.

I'm not sure how you can objectively qualify humans as the most "resourceful and adaptable" species on the planet. We haven't had to adapt to anything like the range of conditions that some species of bacteria have, for example. And "resourceful" sounds suspiciously like a subjective, human judgement. All extant species are just as capable of making use of the resources available to them to continue reproducing.

One thing that is worth remembering is that we have been blessed with an extraordinarily long period of stable, very mild climate and low tectonic activity. Actually, it's probably more sensible to suggest that without it, we would never have evolved to the point we have. But that also makes us highly vulnerable to any change in that stability.

"If there are sexists and racists, am I a humanist in opposition to animalists (or insectiviles, virusphiliacs)? Or am I an animalphobe?"

Ok. While these jokes are hilarious, it's to get your head around the argument now, Jack. We're not talking about prejudice — about rating monkeys over humans in the same way some lefties think ethnics are cooler than anglo-saxons — we're having a discussion about the different criteria used to rate biological success. You thought space travel, and wizofaus (who can, incredibly, hold several different ideas in his head at once) concurs with grave qualifications. I think the SAR-11 virus.

Foxy, isn't it a gorgeous speech? I agree it's germane, though I also agree with wizofaus. We're certainly the most intelligent species, but we're not the most adaptable.

Even our power as a species is pretty limited. If we did want to eradicate another species, for the vast majority of them we'd have to eradicate ourselves as well.

The bubonic plague virus still exists, you know.

Ok. let me explain what I meant by the word "adaptable."

Our almost total reliance on learned behaviour is the single most important characteristic distinguishing us from other creatures. Our physical adaptations and the behavioural flexibility offered by our huge and complex brains have made us the most creative species in the planet's history. Homo sapiens has spread to every continent, frequently driving other animal species to extinction in the process.

It has become the most widely dispersed species on the planet, occupying mountains and valleys, deserts and jungles, shorelines and tundra, yet always finding some specialized means of living in these widely differing environments. The total weight of all living members of the species far exceeds that of any other animal, and the human population is now growing so rapidly that, if current rates persist, it will double in about fourty years.

What accounts for the unprecedented success that our species has enjoyed so far? The answer in a word is, culture. We create culture, but culture in turn creates us. We make our own social environment, inventing and sharing the rules and patterns of behaviour that shape our lives, and we use our learned knowledge to modify the natural environment. Our shared culture is what makes social life possible.

Without a culture transmitted from the past, each new generation would have to solve the most elementary problems of human existence over again. It would be obliged to devise a family system, to invent a language, to discover fire, to create the wheel and so on.

Wait now, hang on a minute. Aren't we all arguing different criteria? What do we mean by "successful"? Does our ability to overrun the earth - and perhaps, one day space - necessarily make us successful? As we have only been around for a blink of an eyelash we have no way of knowing. Perhaps, in the Great Scheme of Things the rise - and fall - of the human species will be as transient as that of the dinosaur. Especially if that very ability causes us to deplete and destroy our own environment.

And the intelligence thing? That's pretty subjective really, isn't it? Yeah we can create technology but if that only eventually leads to us destroying our own habitat it will only have worked for us for a comparatively short time.

The learned behaviour thing seems a little bit dodgy to me. Birds don't learn migrating patterns, salmon dont learn to spawn upstream...but these behaviours aid in their survival.

We have no natural protection like claws, carapace, camouflage, sharp teeth, or the ability to secrete poisonous substances. Our bodies are naked and without pelts or feathers, so cannot survive extremes of temperature: unlike species that hibernate, go into suspended animation or, like some frogs and fish completely change their habitat. We are the only species who murder each other: all others kill for food or survival. We haven't even learned that most basic of lessons: not to crap on our own doorsteps.

Sharks, crocs, cockroaches and viruses: I reckon they'll be around when there is no way of marking our brief unsuccessful passage here and nature has eradicated all marks of our being. Perhaps all our vain words and mighty works will avail us of nothing in a vast, eternal universe a thousand thousand years from now?

Foxy, I doubt that humans are the "most widely dispersed species on the planet". There would surely be species of insects, fungi, bacteria or perhaps even fish or crustaceans that would beat us there.
However, I'd allow that we're currently the most successful mammalian species.

Another truly impressive statistic is that amount of solar energy that mankind controls: from memory ~50% of the energy captured by photosynthesis worldwide is used by humans.

However, remember, this has been true for only a tiny proportion of our existence. If you were to measure the total % of energy captured by photosynthesis worldwide over the last 200,000 years, I doubt humans would have made use of more than a few percent of it.

If Homo Sapiens is still as dominant and wide-spread as it is today in another 50 or 100000 years, then sure, we'd have some genuine claims to superiority (indeed, as I mentioned in another thread, I doubt Homo Sapiens as we know it today will last another millenium - in that time period almost certainly we will attempt to start directing our own genetic evolution).