What are humans like?

[Chiki]

A person need not right an essay to make clear their meaning to a "reasonable person",

Yeah, it's perfectly fine to write your arguments incoherently and word your statements in ambiguous ways. It might be okay to Narga_Rocks and blah, but if you or most other SF members went and wrote an essay in college on this kind of stuff, they'd get an F. But since on SF, ambiguous wording and insulting rhetoric makes a good debater...

Fine, simple definition is about your dna.

This argument doesn't work for three reasons. The first is that a piece of human skin has human DNA, but it's not a human being. Obviously this can be patched up by saying there has to be a living being with human DNA. But this doesn't work either because there can exist chimeras with human DNA who wouldn't be human. You can also imagine a pseudo-human being that looks, acts and feels just like a human being, who we would consider a human being, but made out of completely different stuff (say, pseudo-DNA, where the acids of DNA such as guanine are replaced by acids such as pseudo-guanine). We humans can't notice DNA such a fine level, so we could be easily deceived by such a creature and still consider it a human.

The second and most complicated reason would be due to the potential conceivability of philosophical zombies, see here. Philosophical zombies aren't really the Hollywood kind of zombies where corpses rise from the dead and eat people. Rather, they're the kind of zombies which are just like us (they are physically identical to us, so they have our DNA) with one fundamental difference: they have no phenomenal experiences, or qualia. As Chalmers puts it it's all "dark inside." They just don't have a consciousness. So, for example, when they exclaim "it hurts!" they don't actually feel the pain. But they act in ways identical to us as well. Now, there are some arguments against the conceivability of such zombies (which I myself agree with) but I'd prefer not to get into a detailed argument on that here. It's not relevant if zombies are inconceivable or not since all I need to prove is the material conditional if A then B, where the falsity of A makes the material conditional true.

The point is that we can be deceived by such p-zombies and still consider them human. I consider you to be a human being, but how can I know you're not a zombie? By definition a zombie has no consciousness, which is by definition a first person subjective phenomenon. I can't prove that you have qualia. The question is this: can a zombie be considered a human being? Probably not. It seems strange to say that such a robot would be a human being when it doesn't have a consciousness. And if we take this result for granted, it also seems to follow that we can be deceived by zombies as to their personhood. A zombie has our DNA, obviously, but it would be strange to say it's a person. So zombies seem to be human beings by your definition, without the ability to feel pain or fear. Seems absurd doesn't it?

The third is the most simple, and it makes your definition look plain dumb: we've only known the existence of DNA for 200 years. So this cannot be used as a criterion for making ethical judgments on what is a human being and what isn't, because we knew whether or not some being x was a human being for thousands of years without needing to rely on the existence of DNA!

This just proves that your "formal definition" of a human being is wrong, as I expected it would be.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Chiki

[dondon151]

As a dolphin is very obviously not a human, equating their worth just because they feel pain and might have the brains of a two year old human is not possible.

you can equate their worth in an abstract way. this whole notion of worth is an almost qualitative measure. for many people, they wouldn't equate the worth of an embryo and a neonate and a grown adult. they probably wouldn't equate the worth of a normal adult and an adult with down syndrome, either (though they'd be loath to express that opinion). and they can equate the worth of an elephant and a dolphin, but probably not a dolphin and a termite.

so chiki's making a good point here, but i can't say that i didn't expect someone to come in and get caught up on a little detail. (no surprise, it's narga.)

[mia_lover]

Um why did you start a psychology thread

[Phoenix Wright]

olwen you are hilarious.

[blah the Prussian]

this is only true from our privileged point of view. there is nothing to suggest that animals or other organisms are "fundamentally" inferior to humans other than our predisposition to favor our own species over other species (i don't even know what exactly is fundamental about this).

Animals are fundamentally inferior to us because we have formed civilizations. We as humans are obviously superior because we have achieved so much more.

There's a contradiction, though for different reasons that are unrelated to blah's previous poor posts.

The reason we care about kiilling other humans is due to their ability to feel fear, pain, empathy, happiness etc. all of which is a consequence of our intelligence. Now I'm not saying that we need to be intelligent to feel fear (many animals can do that) but it seems to matter more when we humans feel fear. This is because we humans have the ability to self-reflect and understand the concept of death and so on unlike other animals. Due to our intellect, we humans can care more about our lives compared to other animals.

On the other hand, children and people with mental retardation are not able to feel fear and pain on the level that we adults do, but we still do consider it bad when they suffer pain. We don't discriminate against them, and rightfully so, despite their lack of intellect compared to us. They can still feel pains at a level that we consider significant.

So, since rationality is the primary reason why committing crimes, going off on this tangent, why should we stop at humans? Aren't the lives of chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants valuable too? Elephants, great apes and dolphins are all self-aware. Human children start being self-aware at around 2 years old. This might be an oversimplification but I think it's accurate to say that these animals are at least as intelligent as 2 year old humans.

So, when the Japanese massacre a bunch of dolphins (who are so intelligent that they seek sex merely for the sake of pleasure) it's no different than killing a bunch of children.

Children of that age can and will become more intelligent than dolphins. Hence, they are superior. The same goes for the mentally retarded.

Um why did you start a psychology thread

Cuz it's fun.

[Randa]

Animals are fundamentally inferior to us because we have formed civilizations. We as humans are obviously superior because we have achieved so much more.

I'm going to just ignore the second half of your post, because I don't wanna dignify that with a response. And I don't think you quite get what fundamental means so I'm just give you the webst definition."A central or primary rule or principle on which something is based."

So lets go over why your usage of the word is wrong in the context of this discussion. Now we can interpret the definition in two ways. The first is how you chose to interpret it. The focus is on the totality of the beings creations and its natural body. Now this is how you have been presenting, particularly in the last sentence, why humans are superior. This is a very shallow and poorly thought out interpretation. How is it that the whole civilization can be the core for itself. It can't it's a self repeating paradox. The base of the civilization is the civilization, whose base is the civilization... And so on and so forth. Do see where this makes no sense.

Now a better way to present or interpret this definition, in context of thos discussion, is : Beings natural body and its ability to survive. All being in the context of you original Might is Right in nature idea. Why bring this up when you've already stated that you don't think that applies to humans. Well at our lowest form humans are part of nature. And if wa are in our most fundamental form we don't have all this fancy technology or guns or home/shelters to protect us. So we return to the original point that Might makes Right in nature. Given that we are at are very most basic form part of nature, and we as species lack the physical abilities that would then make us superior to these predators so in makes sense to say that we as a species are not fundamentally greater than all other animals.

Now if you were to say that we are now greater than other animals then fine, your points have flaws that are easy enough to overlook, but your misusage of the word has caused a misrepresentation of humanity in comparison to the rest of the animal kingdom. We are intellectually superior, to our very limited knowledge, than all other species on Earth. But intellect is only part of the core of every animal.

Now that I got that of my chest I'm gonna actually answer the original question. Humans are, and always be, Avaricious, Wrathfully, Prideful, Envious, Lustful, Gluttonous, and Slothful creatures. We are one of the, if not the only, species whose primary thoughts are survival of the self rather than survival of the species. In fact in more negative light survival of the species is a tertiary objective, behind betterment of self. We are very simply awful selfish creatures.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

If you're interested in some documentation on the matter, I'd suggest to read these: Bandura's Bobo doll experiment, Zimbardo's Stanford University experiment, Milgram's experiment on evil caused by authority.

Can someone explain about the last one to me?

I studied that thing last semester, and I got terrible score for that topic

On the other hand the term "relative" is my choice for this matter, because I think I am a jerk, and some wouldn't even call me a jerk. Okay thats a bad example, but eh

Edited February 17, 2014 by JSND

[blah the Prussian]

I'm going to just ignore the second half of your post, because I don't wanna dignify that with a response. And I don't think you quite get what fundamental means so I'm just give you the webst definition."A central or primary rule or principle on which something is based."

So lets go over why your usage of the word is wrong in the context of this discussion. Now we can interpret the definition in two ways. The first is how you chose to interpret it. The focus is on the totality of the beings creations and its natural body. Now this is how you have been presenting, particularly in the last sentence, why humans are superior. This is a very shallow and poorly thought out interpretation. How is it that the whole civilization can be the core for itself. It can't it's a self repeating paradox. The base of the civilization is the civilization, whose base is the civilization... And so on and so forth. Do see where this makes no sense.

Now a better way to present or interpret this definition, in context of thos discussion, is : Beings natural body and its ability to survive. All being in the context of you original Might is Right in nature idea. Why bring this up when you've already stated that you don't think that applies to humans. Well at our lowest form humans are part of nature. And if wa are in our most fundamental form we don't have all this fancy technology or guns or home/shelters to protect us. So we return to the original point that Might makes Right in nature. Given that we are at are very most basic form part of nature, and we as species lack the physical abilities that would then make us superior to these predators so in makes sense to say that we as a species are not fundamentally greater than all other animals.

Now if you were to say that we are now greater than other animals then fine, your points have flaws that are easy enough to overlook, but your misusage of the word has caused a misrepresentation of humanity in comparison to the rest of the animal kingdom. We are intellectually superior, to our very limited knowledge, than all other species on Earth. But intellect is only part of the core of every animal.

Now that I got that of my chest I'm gonna actually answer the original question. Humans are, and always be, Avaricious, Wrathfully, Prideful, Envious, Lustful, Gluttonous, and Slothful creatures. We are one of the, if not the only, species whose primary thoughts are survival of the self rather than survival of the species. In fact in more negative light survival of the species is a tertiary objective, behind betterment of self. We are very simply awful selfish creatures.

I see where you are going with this. I understand how I used fundamental wrong. However, I still believe that humans are currently superior to animals. I also agree with your ideas about us.

[Chiki]

Animals are fundamentally inferior to us because we have formed civilizations. We as humans are obviously superior because we have achieved so much more.

Children of that age can and will become more intelligent than dolphins. Hence, they are superior. The same goes for the mentally retarded.

Cuz it's fun.

I could easily make it the case such that the child will die a couple months after turning two. Or I could remind you that you have a really poor habit of ignoring people's examples and say that I'm comparing dolphins to a person with Down's syndrome who has no potential for development. Yet for some reason we'll still value that child's/Down's syndrome person's life more.

[dondon151]

I see where you are going with this. I understand how I used fundamental wrong. However, I still believe that humans are currently superior to animals. I also agree with your ideas about us.

Intelligence is only important because of our cognitive bias towards it. Microorganisms are by most metrics "superior" because they have been more reproductively successful over the course of natural history and are more likely to survive a cataclysmic event.

[blah the Prussian]

I could easily make it the case such that the child will die a couple months after turning two. Or I could remind you that you have a really poor habit of ignoring people's examples and say that I'm comparing dolphins to a person with Down's syndrome who has no potential for development. Yet for some reason we'll still value that child's/Down's syndrome person's life more.

Tell me then: what is that reason? One could easily say that the dolphin is more important than the kid because the kid will die anyway, or the retarded person because they have no potential. I already have an answer in mind, but I want to hear your input.

[Chiki]

Tell me then: what is that reason?

Wait, I never said I knew why people value 2 year old children more than dolphins. I don't know. Probably because we know the children are human and the dolphins aren't. But it's incredibly stupid since the thing that makes us persons is our rationality in the first place. I already proved that DNA has nothing to do with ethical judgments on what is a human and what isn't.

What I'm trying to argue is this: the primary thing that makes us human and special is our rationality. But we share this feature with certain animals at certain points of our lives. So it's illogical to go around killing dolphins while at the same time excusing kids with terminal leukemia.

One could easily say that the dolphin is more important than the kid because the kid will die anyway, or the retarded person because they have no potential.

No, they can't. And if they did, it's not a correct answer. The Japanese routinely massacre dolphins but they don't go around killing kids with terminal leukemia and retarded people, because they're more valuable. Simple.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Chiki

[blah the Prussian]

Wait, I never said I knew why people value 2 year old children more than dolphins. I don't know. Probably because we know the children are human and the dolphins aren't. But it's incredibly stupid since the thing that makes us persons is our rationality in the first place. I already proved that DNA has nothing to do with ethical judgments on what is a human and what isn't.

What I'm trying to argue is this: the primary thing that makes us human and special is our rationality. But we share this feature with certain animals at certain points of our lives. So it's illogical to go around killing dolphins while at the same time excusing kids with terminal leukemia.

No, they can't. And if they did, it's not a correct answer. The Japanese routinely massacre dolphins but they don't go around killing kids with terminal leukemia and retarded people, because they're more valuable. Simple.

You can think that. The main thing I wanted to argue was not that humans are superior because of our intelligence, just that humans are superior. And I am not saying that the 2 year old is less important, just providing a hypothetical example.

[dondon151]

You haven't provided a basis for why humans are objectively or subjectively superior to other species aside from our own cognitive bias.

[blah the Prussian]

You haven't provided a basis for why humans are objectively or subjectively superior to other species aside from our own cognitive bias.

Would you save a human, or an animal?

[LuxSpes]

Would you save a human, or an animal?

I don't know what this question is supposed to prove.

As for the point of human superiority over other beings, I blame on the self-centered view of humans. Yes we built machines and are able of complex mental prowess, but that doesn't make us superior. Insects and micro-organism are way more numerous than humans and have existed for far longer and will probably outlive humans. Heck, virus and bacteria could easily wipe the majority of the human race despite our supposed superiority. This sense of superiority also extends to trees. And yet, even thought we live in huge cities out of touch with the rest of nature all of us are completely dependent on it. We need trees to recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen and we need bees to pollinate our crops.

I'd even go as far as to argue that our biggest gifts are also our biggest curse. Humans are more intelligent than any species on Earth and while it allowed us to do great things, it also allowed us to create weapons of mass destruction as machines and infrastructures that destroy our environment. Due to our greed, self-importance and our denial, we could very well be on our way to kill ourselves off the planet while taking a majority of the life forms on it.

Another point I want to bring is our ability of moral judgement and how it apparently makes us superior. Most animals will do things that seems immoral to humans because they don't know better and can't make such judgement. Us humans however have that ability and yet, a lot of us will commit immoral things in the name of selfishness. Companies temper with the genetic code of plant to make it sterile in order to make profit, humans will destroy someones life in order to feel better about themselves. People are fine with people in other countries being treated as near slaves, animal being butchered and forest being destroyed as long as they make money out of it. Despite having the ability of measuring the moral impact of our actions, a lot people, including the majority of the ruling class, will sacrifice the well-being of every one else for the sake of their own.

PS. While this whole post is pretty pessimistic about us humans, I still think that we're not rotten to the bone. We all heard inspiring stories of incredible self-sacrifice for the benefit of another living beings. The sad thing is that the ruling class of the worlds biggest countries are for the majority people looking out for their best interest at the detriment of everything else. And we're content with watching it. Most people prefer to watch sports or reality TV rather than seeing on the news that people in your own country are dying in the streets with no food or money, or that our own government is taking our money and giving it to big corporation that have no interest in our well-being. And this is nothing new, humans have been doing it for thousands of year. But we have the possibility of being better than that, we just have to seize it. We have the possibility of being great, we already did a number of great and beautiful things. So even if I think that right now, we have no right to call ourselves superior, I still hope that humanity can change for the better.

[Chiki]

Would you save a human, or an animal?

Completely irrelevant. If dondon saved a human it would be due to his own cognitive bias. One can still admit to be subjectively biased towards something while admitting objectively that there is no reason to value it over something else. Dondon likes to play Fire Emblem because of his cognitive bias towards it. But you don't see him being so objective that he stops playing video games a a whole because no video game is objectively superior.

[blah the Prussian]

I don't know what this question is supposed to prove.

As for the point of human superiority over other beings, I blame on the self-centered view of humans. Yes we built machines and are able of complex mental prowess, but that doesn't make us superior. Insects and micro-organism are way more numerous than humans and have existed for far longer and will probably outlive humans. Heck, virus and bacteria could easily wipe the majority of the human race despite our supposed superiority. This sense of superiority also extends to trees. And yet, even thought we live in huge cities out of touch with the rest of nature all of us are completely dependent on it. We need trees to recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen and we need bees to pollinate our crops.

I'd even go as far as to argue that our biggest gifts are also our biggest curse. Humans are more intelligent than any species on Earth and while it allowed us to do great things, it also allowed us to create weapons of mass destruction as machines and infrastructures that destroy our environment. Due to our greed, self-importance and our denial, we could very well be on our way to kill ourselves off the planet while taking a majority of the life forms on it.

Another point I want to bring is our ability of moral judgement and how it apparently makes us superior. Most animals will do things that seems immoral to humans because they don't know better and can't make such judgement. Us humans however have that ability and yet, a lot of us will commit immoral things in the name of selfishness. Companies temper with the genetic code of plant to make it sterile in order to make profit, humans will destroy someones life in order to feel better about themselves. People are fine with people in other countries being treated as near slaves, animal being butchered and forest being destroyed as long as they make money out of it. Despite having the ability of measuring the moral impact of our actions, a lot people, including the majority of the ruling class, will sacrifice the well-being of every one else for the sake of their own.

PS. While this whole post is pretty pessimistic about us humans, I still think that we're not rotten to the bone. We all heard inspiring stories of incredible self-sacrifice for the benefit of another living beings. The sad thing is that the ruling class of the worlds biggest countries are for the majority people looking out for their best interest at the detriment of everything else. And we're content with watching it. Most people prefer to watch sports or reality TV rather than seeing on the news that people in your own country are dying in the streets with no food or money, or that our own government is taking our money and giving it to big corporation that have no interest in our well-being. And this is nothing new, humans have been doing it for thousands of year. But we have the possibility of being better than that, we just have to seize it. We have the possibility of being great, we already did a number of great and beautiful things. So even if I think that right now, we have no right to call ourselves superior, I still hope that humanity can change for the better.

The question is intended to prove that he considers humans superior, because he would choose a human over an animal. Also, you failed to mention that humans on average have a much better standard of living than all other animals. I do agree with you that humans in general are bad, but I firmly believe that we are still superior to animals. The reason is that we will always have the potential to change. Animals do not. All animals are ultimately concerned only with passing down their genes. While the human race houses some of the most repugnant living things in history, we also have some of the best people. Throughout history, we have improved. Slavery was mostly accepted, now only a few countries have it. Most of the world are now republics ore constitutional monarchies. Every single major threat to humanity's existence has failed. Humanity will continue to improve. Animals cannot claim that. This is what gives us our superiority over them. And now, with that rousing speech done, I am going to sleep.

[LuxSpes]

The question is intended to prove that he considers humans superior, because he would choose a human over an animal.

This doesn't prove anything though. A member of a social species would save the life of on of its own species before saving that of another. And even then I'm pretty sure some people would save animals over humans and some animals have been known to save animal of another species.

Also, you failed to mention that humans on average have a much better standard of living than all other animals.

I don't see how that makes us superior to animals. In fact, I don't see how one can compare standard of living between species that have vastly different needs.

I do agree with you that humans in general are bad, but I firmly believe that we are still superior to animals. The reason is that we will always have the potential to change. Animals do not. All animals are ultimately concerned only with passing down their genes. While the human race houses some of the most repugnant living things in history, we also have some of the best people. Throughout history, we have improved. Slavery was mostly accepted, now only a few countries have it. Most of the world are now republics ore constitutional monarchies. Every single major threat to humanity's existence has failed. Humanity will continue to improve. Animals cannot claim that. This is what gives us our superiority over them. And now, with that rousing speech done, I am going to sleep.

While I think that our potential to change is an incredible thing, I wouldn't go as far as saying it makes us superior and allows us to lord over the other living things. Yes we have this potential, but we're still linked to the environment around us and cannot lord over it without consequences. As I mentioned earlier, even the tiniest organism has a role in the global ecosystem. Everything is connected. One species going extinct can have bigger consequences than anticipated because of this connection. This feeling of superiority needs to go away if we wish to change. We need to learn to be humble and respect the nature around us. We need to stop exploiting forest and animals more than they can regenerate and we need to consider ourselves as part of this huge network that is life, not as a separate, superior entity.

Edited February 18, 2014 by LuxSpes

[Rewjeo]

The question is intended to prove that he considers humans superior, because he would choose a human over an animal. Also, you failed to mention that humans on average have a much better standard of living than all other animals. I do agree with you that humans in general are bad, but I firmly believe that we are still superior to animals. The reason is that we will always have the potential to change. Animals do not. All animals are ultimately concerned only with passing down their genes. While the human race houses some of the most repugnant living things in history, we also have some of the best people. Throughout history, we have improved. Slavery was mostly accepted, now only a few countries have it. Most of the world are now republics ore constitutional monarchies. Every single major threat to humanity's existence has failed. Humanity will continue to improve. Animals cannot claim that. This is what gives us our superiority over them. And now, with that rousing speech done, I am going to sleep.

This is a rather ignorant post. For instance, last I heard there's something like an estimated 100,000 slaves in the US. There are countries where homosexuality and being raped (not raping, being raped) is punishable by death. The world is still generally a cesspit for humans (see: Balkans, Middle East, North Korea, Africa, basically all of the western hemisphere bar the US and Canada all being rife with violent conflict, and that is by no means an exhaustive list) and meanwhile dolphins do purely altruistic things and my dogs love everyone and want to make people happy despite it not doing anything for their chances of reproducing.

Anyways, the point of this whole discussion has been to establish that value is not an objective thing the way you've implied it is. People generally value people over mosquitoes. That doesn't make mosquitoes objectively inferior to us.

[blah the Prussian]

This doesn't prove anything though. A member of a social species would save the life of on of its own species before saving that of another. And even then I'm pretty sure some people would save animals over humans and some animals have been known to save animal of another species.

I don't see how that makes us superior to animals. In fact, I don't see how one can compare standard of living between species that have vastly different needs.

While I think that our potential to change is an incredible thing, I wouldn't go as far as saying it makes us superior and allows us to lord over the other living things. Yes we have this potential, but we're still linked to the environment around us and cannot lord over it without consequences. As I mentioned earlier, even the tiniest organism has a role in the global ecosystem. Everything is connected. One species going extinct can have bigger consequences than anticipated because of this connection. This feeling of superiority needs to go away if we wish to change. We need to learn to be humble and respect the nature around us. We need to stop exploiting forest and animals more than they can regenerate and we need to consider ourselves as part of this huge network that is life, not as a separate, superior entity.

We need the same things as animals. We both need food, water, and air to survive. We both need shelter and safety. Also, what if you need to exploit them? I really don't want to get into this shitstorm, but what about animal testing? We exploited animals then, and if we didn't, thousands of people with diabetes would now be dead. I consider it a good thing we exploited animals then. Also, understanding that all life is important and thinking that humans and animals are equal do not necessarily go hand in hand I am not deluded enough to think that our actions have no effect on the environment. However, I would object to harming the environment because it harms humans, not animals.

This is a rather ignorant post. For instance, last I heard there's something like an estimated 100,000 slaves in the US. There are countries where homosexuality and being raped (not raping, being raped) is punishable by death. The world is still generally a cesspit for humans (see: Balkans, Middle East, North Korea, Africa, basically all of the western hemisphere bar the US and Canada all being rife with violent conflict, and that is by no means an exhaustive list) and meanwhile dolphins do purely altruistic things and my dogs love everyone and want to make people happy despite it not doing anything for their chances of reproducing.

Anyways, the point of this whole discussion has been to establish that value is not an objective thing the way you've implied it is. People generally value people over mosquitoes. That doesn't make mosquitoes objectively inferior to us.

I do not deny that this world is still a terrible place to be. However, things used to be a lot worse. Change is possible. The question is, if we are not objectively superior to Mosquitos, why do we value ourselves over them?

[Rewjeo]

Because a species (or culture) that doesn't value itself doesn't survive.

[Chiki]

We need the same things as animals. We both need food, water, and air to survive. We both need shelter and safety. Also, what if you need to exploit them? I really don't want to get into this shitstorm, but what about animal testing? We exploited animals then, and if we didn't, thousands of people with diabetes would now be dead. I consider it a good thing we exploited animals then. Also, understanding that all life is important and thinking that humans and animals are equal do not necessarily go hand in hand I am not deluded enough to think that our actions have no effect on the environment. However, I would object to harming the environment because it harms humans, not animals.

I do not deny that this world is still a terrible place to be. However, things used to be a lot worse. Change is possible. The question is, if we are not objectively superior to Mosquitos, why do we value ourselves over them?

This is ridiculous. If Fire Emblem is not objectively superior to Superman 64, why do I value Fire Emblem over Superman 64? People have these amazing things called personal opinions.

If we take for granted there is an objective value of superiority, I'd say ants are more successful and superior to us: they don't have intelligence like we do so they won't make things like nuclear bombs and destroy themselves. They don't have emotions like we do. They don't do horrible things with free will like we do. They're a lot harder to kill off than we are, if not almost impossible. We can easily make ourselves extinct with nuclear bombs but ants would do a lot better than us. They work in teams far better than we do, to such an extent that scientists call ant colonies superorganisms. There's around 1 quadrillion (1000000000000000) ants throughout the world compared to 7 billion humans.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Chiki

[dondon151]

Would you save a human, or an animal?

if you were a dolphin, would you save a dolphin or a human?

others have already explained why your question doesn't prove superiority but only a cognitive bias. i can't communicate or empathize with dolphins or elephants as well as i do with humans, and humans can reciprocate altruism in a way from which i would benefit more. so of course i personally value human intelligence because that's the only kind of intelligence that i'm familiar with (it's also wired that way in our brains to begin with), but it's a big step to use that as a basis for our species being unequivocally superior to other species.

[RJWalker]

A miserable little pile of secrets.

or alternately,

A cesspit of hatred and lies.