Distinguishing characteristics of humans:

  1. Consciousness / Pronounced Self-Awareness / Questioning Existence and Purpose - Not that other entities don't have some of these characteristics, but this blend and its severity is human. Ego - to the point where they can act unjustifidly superior and can be so selfish as to be detrimental to their own existence

  2. The brain - A no-brainer <hee hee>; Though obviously many animals have brains, human's are bigger. At least are bigger insofar as the normal mass and size of body to brain ratio

  3. The opposable thumb - Some other primates have this too, but they're basically on the same evolutionary branch. A big chunk of brain is all about the hands and thumb. Our hands are a huge part of learning about our environment and interacting with it and learning. Kinestedic learning, knitting as anti-depresent, etc..

  4. Speech - This one seems obvious, communication, history, culture, song. (At a mystical level, vibrations and mantras and Sanskrit.)
  5. Sweat glands and pores on almost entire skin surface - this makes a huge difference in increased habitat acclimation

  6. Sexuality:
    1. No bone in the penis - Very convenient and allows for more diverse culture and behaviors. (Don't recall where I heard this one, book?, radio interview? The theory is that this adaptation allows for male humans somehow to multitask and trick females in ways non-humans can't; also just more flexible or something.)
    2. Female humans are not as driven by ovulation as are female aminals who go into "heat," in other words, they can culturally/personally/socially choose their sexual behavior regardless of their cycles of mentration.
    3. In many many species the male is more colorful and decorated, whereas in humans (not 100%, but enough to be noteworthy) the females seem to take this role. (Note: This may be totally the bias of a human observer.) Note also however, that in humans and non-humans alike, the males fight for females, though this is hugely masked and muddied by culture.

  7. Uniquely long adolencence:: David Bainbridge postulates that human's prolonged adolescence is unique and a great evolutionary advantages; he wrote, "Teenagers: A Natural History." Somehow the angist and all is required to re-wire the human brain; started 800K years ago and that's when we became who we are now.

  8. Cooked food / cooking food - Richard Wrangham, the author of "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" puts forth the argument that cooked food packs more energy per volume of food and per amount of time taken in eating and preparing it, also it allows preservation and portability.He feels this is a critical node on our evolutionary branch and a huge distinguishing characteristics (smaller mouth, teeth, stomic, etc.). This is an interesting one to debate insofar as how it clashes with the raw food movement.
  9. This one I'm sketchy on and need tofind the source. Something I heard out of the corner of my ear about humans being able to run longer / more varied as the heart rate / breath rate / locomation stride are not anatomically locked in at some fixed ratios. Whereas in some quadripeds, for example, there are fixed rations, so they are not as flexable as hunters or evading prey.

Taxomitry:

Domain:
Eukarya
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Order:
Primate
Family:
Hominidae
Genus:
Homo
Species:
sapiens

 

Evolution: