We’re Not So Special: A new book challenges human exceptionalism
democracyjournal.org118 points by nobet a day ago
118 points by nobet a day ago
Humans developed methods to empirically study the best ways for consoling bereaved mothers, and develop statistically-guided time-frames for normal vs. pathologic grieving periods. Then we use functional MRI imaging to study if monkeys undergo similar brain-signaling patterns (previously academically theorized to be similar, based on other research studies), decoded by advanced software, powered by advanced chips, powered by nuclear power plants. The report is curated by artificial intelligence, and handed by a robot to the human. That's human exceptionalism.
I have a number of issues with your statement.
Firstly, most humans who ever lived didn't do those things. Are they not exceptional? Are they lesser in some form? Did human exceptionalism only start when we invented computers or science? I assure you, many prior civilisations saw humans above animals (source: The Bible), yet hadn't done the things on your list.
Secondly, you listed outcomes. These are value judgements. As the article points out, humans did those things but we can't do basic things like smell water from miles away or see internal organs by just clicking. Animals don't value LLMs or mathematics, in fact many humans don't!
The challenges to human exceptionalism aren't based on outcomes (because that's subjective) but tries look at what makes humans unique in a way that can't be replicated in any form. This has to be more than "we're better at X" or "we can combine X and Y to achieve Z" because, unless trait X or Y only exist in humans, then another species could conceivably replicate it given enough time for evolution.
So problem solving wouldn't make us exceptional because we see it in other species. Language might but we do see rudimentary communication in other animals like corvids and cephalopods so perhaps humans just hyper-specialised in that. Hell, scientists have observed orca pods being unable to communicate across regions, hinting that there is a form of language.
Just being better at these traits doesn't suffice because there are plenty of things other animals are better than humans at. We don't consider that exceptional in the same way.
I didn't interpret GP as trying to give necessary and sufficient conditions for human exceptionalism. I think it's just supposed to be a (perhaps) humorous and ironic example of a way in which humans are exceptional. So yes it's an extreme example because it references the whole of modern science and technology, but it also brings out the irony: the paper challenging human exceptionalism is dependent on this whole network of scientific and technological development which is as far as we know unique to humans
> the paper challenging human exceptionalism is dependent on this whole network of scientific and technological development which is as far as we know unique to humans
I addressed this in my earlier point: that's measuring an outcome. By this logic, humans before 1700AD were not exceptional. Humans who weren't involved in this are lesser.
It's not saying that modern science and technology are necessary for saying that humans are exceptional, only that it's sufficient.
We could also point out the fact that no other animals write books (or even come close), and that arguably takes us back to about 3000BC. That doesn't mean that humans before then weren't exceptional, only that it's enough (sufficient) to point out this feature as one example in which humans are exceptional. We haven't really changed biologically since then - these are cultural developments - but there are features of humans that allow these cultural features to manifest and to build upon previous ones.
Of course as we go back in time towards our last common ancestor with chimps and bonobos there are fewer features of human behaviour that make us exceptional, pretty much by definition. The interesting questions are what those features were and when they emerged that allow the later and obviously exceptional developments to occur.
As an aside, I'm not sure what you mean by measuring an outcome - to me, outcomes are all that we measure. Roughly, outcomes=observations. So I think you're using the word "outcome" in a different way
> measuring an outcome
As opposed to a trait. Let's take writing: most humans for most of human history simply couldn't read or write. At some point, we educated humans to be able to read and write.
Now, you're correct in that we've not taught animals to read or write at the level of a human but that's also a question: is there a fundamental trait that humans have that allow for this? Do we have a part of our brain that no other animal has, or could have, that means we can become literate and no other animal ever could?
Or, is this a hyper-specialisation of other traits that are shared but we have more of it? Is it a result of traits like pattern recognition, socialisation, communication and fine motor skills that combined and specialised to turn into reading and writing? Literacy then becomes an outcome of combining those traits in a certain way. We know that other animals have these traits, just not in the same way.
The reason I say this makes it not sufficient is because it reduces "exceptional" to just mean "things humans can do," without trying to look deeper than the surface level things we see. Dolphins being able to see your organs by clicking is pretty fucking exceptional. But because humans can't do it, it's not "exceptional."
When we ask "what makes us exceptional," we're asking "what makes us different from animals?" The fact that our combined traits allowed for different outcomes doesn't make us fundamentally different any more than a frog is different to a cat.
Ok, I think I see you mean "outcome" as an eventual behavioural manifestation, and by "trait" you mean a biologically inherited property or feature or capability, at least roughly.
> Do we have a part of our brain that no other animal has, or could have, that means we can become literate and no other animal ever could?
I think clearly yes, depending on what you mean by "could have". I wouldn't rule out the possibility that somehow over evolutionary time some other animals might be able to reproduce human behaviours of reading and writing. But I'm not talking about that: I'm talking about what other animals can do now, and it seems none of them can write or read like a human.
Now, let's say there are chimpanzees that we can teach to respond appropriately to things like "Spot has a ball. Spot has a big red ball. What colour is Spot's ball> Blue or Red?" Maybe they can do that. But what about doing the exercises in, say, Loring Tu's Introduction to Manifolds? They're just not doing that. They don't come close. You might say most humans aren't doing that either, which is true, but if you train a human their whole life in an appropriate way then I think most of them can do at least some of those exercises, while no chimp or bonobo has been shown to have this facility. This is just one almost silly example, but I think you can see what I'm getting at.
> Dolphins being able to see your organs by clicking is pretty fucking exceptional. But because humans can't do it, it's not "exceptional."
If this is unique to dolphins, I would say it's definitely exceptional. Even if it's not unique to dolphins, but only a small subset of animals can do it, it's still exceptional to that small subset of animals. There's no reason why "exceptional" should pertain only to one species: different species are exceptional in different ways, and we're asking in this thread about whether and how humans are exceptional. Horseshoe crabs are also exceptional in that they've been physiologically constant for 200 million years or whatever it is. The fact that some species are exceptional in their own ways doesn't mean that humans aren't exceptional in their own ways.
> The fact that our combined traits allowed for different outcomes doesn't make us fundamentally different any more than a frog is different to a cat.
I think I can see what you're getting at: every animal is arguably exceptional in its own way, and picking out the ways in which humans are exceptional as being more significant than others is stacking the deck in favour of finding humans to be uniquely (or exceptionally) exceptional in an anthropocentric way.
It's definitely right to be aware of, and cautious of, anthropocentrism. But this is what I'm trying to get at: the mere fact that something is unique to humans doesn't make it significant or valuable - e.g. being a featherless and relatively hairless biped doesn't seem significant to me. But the fact that we're able to communicate in the way we're doing now, and the fact that we're even capable of sustaining this complex technological society is to me just a clear way in which humans are exceptional. We can look into why that is, and that to me is a very interesting question, and we might find that many of the traits that make this possible are shared in some ways with other animals, but there's just obviously the fact that no other animals come close to being able to replicate it.
Having said that, I do have the feeling that the ways in which humans are exceptional are themselves exceptional: we can consider dolphin sonar or echolocation in bats, or cultural practices like chimpanzees learing from each other how to crack nuts with stones, still it's a long way from creating a sophisticated technological civilization.
> I think I can see what you're getting at: every animal is arguably exceptional in its own way, and picking out the ways in which humans are exceptional as being more significant than others is stacking the deck in favour of finding humans to be uniquely (or exceptionally) exceptional in an anthropocentric way.
This is 100% my point. When people talk about "human exceptionalism," they're referring to this type of "exceptional."
> we might find that many of the traits that make this possible are shared in some ways with other animals, but there's just obviously the fact that no other animals come close to being able to replicate it.
This is true, however I posit this makes us no more exceptional than other animals. Evolution pushed our ancestors down a certain track and this was the result but that also means there's no reason another species can't emerge to do the same thing.
The reason I think this is important is because "human exceptionalism" carries a baggage of divine right (the Bible called it dominion over beasts) that leads us down the wrong path with respect to our understanding of the world and how we treat it. When we engage with other animals on their own terms, we learn so much more about them than if we simply look down on them.
> The reason I think this is important is because "human exceptionalism" carries a baggage of divine right
That is on you, that doesn't mean humans aren't exceptional. The fact that we are even discussing our role in nature and how we shouldn't abuse it makes us that exceptional.
If humans weren't that exceptional we would just go and destroy nature everywhere it benefits us with no thoughts about the future or how this could ever hurt us, just like animals does when they have the power to.