Why dont humans refer to themselves as animals if theyre simply animals?

Question

Why dont humans refer to themselves as animals if theyre simply animals?

Answer 1

Humans are animals, but we are not MERELY animals. Just as a Lambourghini is a car, but not MERELY a car.

We have flesh and blood as most animals do, but we also have a much higher intellect. We also have hands that allow us to manifest what our minds dream up. We also have a sense of spirituality. How often do you see animals praying. Some of them prey all the time, but I have yet to see one pray.

What I think is funny is the fact that anthropologists study primates in order to find out how humans are. Humans and chimps are very different, so how can studying one help us understand the other?

When you say that humans are animals you imply that we don't have intellect, ethics, and morals. You imply that we are slaves to our instincts and lust. You imply that we have no discipline that holds our impulses in check. That is why people don't like to consider themselves "animals".

Answer 2

I don't know about you, but I consider human beings as animals.

Answer 3

Because the proper instance doesn't present itself very often. Unless you are discussing biology, there is usually not a reason for humans to refer to themselves as animals. How often do you refer to your pet dog as "an animal"? Most often you refer to your dog as "a dog".

Answer 4

Human beings are the most dangerous animal, that is what my grandfather, a holocaust survivor used to say.

Answer 5

We do refer to ourselves as animals.  We even have a taxonomic classification of Homo Sapien Sapien.  In the scientific community there is no doubt that we are just an animal like any other on this planet.

Answer 6

Same reason why

- we don't ask for "a furniture" if we want a chair

- we never order "food" at a restaurant

- there are no prescriptions for "drugs."

It is too non-specific and thus impractical to refer to ourselves as animals. If we encountered some sentient plant or non-carbon based life form, then it would appropriate to do so.

Answer 7

Cause we are cool like that?

I don't know...

Lol.

Answer 8

Because the concept is still relatively new and controversial. Many humans including myself, refer to us as animals. Academically speaking it is uncommon for humans to be refered to in some subjects such as Anthropology for this reason. No one wants someone stupid reading their paper and simplifying the issue to the lowest common denominator and that is religion versus science, how primitive!

Answer 9

Technically, we do.  In fact, its been proven in court.

Answer 10

Animals have merely enough brain power to survive and to procreate. Humans use only ten per cent (or less) of the available brain power.

Animals live by instinct. Some can learn through classical conditioning.

We are not merely animals.  Some people choose to act like animals because of what they were taught in school. Then the teachers wonder why.

The human brain is intelligent, and was created by intelligent design, not by accident.

Answer 11

because we think we are smarter and have supreme power over all other animals so we refuse to acknowledge that we are all the same. But personally i refer to humans as animals

Answer 12

Many do.

Some humans don't think we're animals, but that we're different -- cause we were made special and ghosts put in our bodies.

We ARE animals, mammals, primates, apes.

Answer 13

I think they do.  I mean everybody knows somebody that should be classified as a fungus, but for the most part, I'm pretty sure we're animals.

Answer 14

Pride.

Some of us think we are better then animals.

Some of us think we are better then other humans.

Answer 15

Only certain humans do that, the rest of us aren't animals.

We are created in the image of God.

Answer 16

The reason behind us not considering ourselves animals is that unlike animals some humans don't just eat, sleep, hunt, gather and procreate. The higher functioning humans think about stuff before they do it, we have complex ways of thinking. We create things, we build, destroy, we divide and we conquer, we love, we hate, and we have preferences of friends, we mourn....... need I say more?

Answer 17

Because we're the ones doing the labelling.  Of course we want to separate ourselves from the other animals.  h**l, we want to separate our group of humans from all other groups of humans.  See, for instance, all the questions about race in this section.  We want to feel like we're special, different.  We even gave ourselves our own little taxonomic genus, even though it'd make more sense to either make us pan sapiens or make the chimps at least homo paniscus and homo troglodytes, we're so closely related.  It doesn't mean that we _are_ different.

Answer 18

Not all deny. For those who do, couple of reasons: -

1) Pride. It's not exactly an attractive term to label oneself as an animal; we have already been brought up with statements like: "You are such an animal! Stop eating like an animal! Your room's like a zoo!"

2) Not all is susceptible to change; some of us don't take to changes well, and the hypothesis that 'humans are animals' is still a relatively new one.

3) Coz we are the ones who think, talk, argue and make assumptions. Repeat for other arguments.

4) Chicken or egg first?

Answer 19

We're all animals, it's stupid to make a strong biological distinction where there isn't one.  If I do refer to humans as anything other than the word human, it's usually under the classification of ape though, not the general "animal".