<story><title>Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia</title><url>http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2993/0278-0771-37.4.700</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>meri_dian</author><text>In each of those categories we&amp;#x27;re far and away the best. I really don&amp;#x27;t understand this feeling that humans need to be modest or that describing ourselves as special is wrong. We are special.&lt;p&gt;I think among some people that are frustrated with the human world for whatever - either personal or  abstract - reason, there&amp;#x27;s a feeling of misanthropy that colors their thinking, and so they try to belittle humanity.</text></item><item><author>taneq</author><text>So we&amp;#x27;re not the only:&lt;p&gt;- tool-using animal&lt;p&gt;- fire-using animal&lt;p&gt;- language-using animal&lt;p&gt;- animal which domesticates other animals&lt;p&gt;- animal which builds complex structures&lt;p&gt;Aha! I know! We&amp;#x27;re the only animal which continually comes up with reasons why we&amp;#x27;re special.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>krapp</author><text>&amp;gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t understand this feeling that humans need to be modest or that describing ourselves as special is wrong. We are special.&lt;p&gt;To simply state that humans are best adapted at certain traits is true, but humans have tended to think of themselves as &amp;quot;special&amp;quot; in that &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re not even animals, but beings made in the image of God and given divine right to conquer Nature and do with it what we will.&amp;quot; That anthropocentric bias has led to a multitude of evils and scientific falsehoods, and that&amp;#x27;s what needs to be corrected. It&amp;#x27;s got nothing to do with misanthropy.</text></comment>
<story><title>Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia</title><url>http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2993/0278-0771-37.4.700</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>meri_dian</author><text>In each of those categories we&amp;#x27;re far and away the best. I really don&amp;#x27;t understand this feeling that humans need to be modest or that describing ourselves as special is wrong. We are special.&lt;p&gt;I think among some people that are frustrated with the human world for whatever - either personal or  abstract - reason, there&amp;#x27;s a feeling of misanthropy that colors their thinking, and so they try to belittle humanity.</text></item><item><author>taneq</author><text>So we&amp;#x27;re not the only:&lt;p&gt;- tool-using animal&lt;p&gt;- fire-using animal&lt;p&gt;- language-using animal&lt;p&gt;- animal which domesticates other animals&lt;p&gt;- animal which builds complex structures&lt;p&gt;Aha! I know! We&amp;#x27;re the only animal which continually comes up with reasons why we&amp;#x27;re special.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AnIdiotOnTheNet</author><text>The point of this, I think, is that we justify our behavior towards animals on the belief that they are not &amp;quot;the same&amp;quot; as us. That is, that they aren&amp;#x27;t beings capable of the same rich experiences of the world that we are and, therefore, their suffering is less important than ours. This same sort of rationalization has been used throughout history to justify similar behavior towards other human beings.&lt;p&gt;Evidence is increasingly showing us that the qualities we believed differentiated us from animals, that made our lives more worthy of respect, aren&amp;#x27;t actually unique to us.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re going to come back at that with &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re better at these things than they are&amp;quot;, then that philosophy suggests again that there are lesser classes of human being as well, the ones that aren&amp;#x27;t as good as others at whatever metric you happen to be using.&lt;p&gt;It is natural that we seek to justify behavior on which our living standards are dependent, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t make our reasoning sound.</text></comment>