Are Humans Animals?

Hard Core Truth

Are Humans Animals?

by Lonnie Lee Best

Ask these nerds:

No! nerd
nerdYes!

It is true that humans differ from other animals in terms of intelligence. However, from a biological perspective, humans are classified as animals! Why does this bother people, and why do people take great measures to prove that they are not animals?

If you think about it, it is only a classification system anyway. It is a biological classification system designed to classify any living organism it encounters into groups according to the organism's characteristics.

Therefore, biologically we are members of the Animalia Kingdom; we are animals (see definition 1 later in this document). Biblically, the word animal was used in a way that made distinctions between humans and other organisms (see definition 2).

Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary:
animal:
  1. any member of the kingdom Animalia, comprising multicellular organisms that have a well-defined shape and usually limited growth, can move voluntarily, actively acquire food and digest it internally, and have sensory and nervous systems that allow them to respond rapidly to stimuli: some classification schemes also include protozoa and certain other single-celled eukaryotes that have motility and animal like nutrition modes.
  2. any such living thing other than a human being.

Therefore, whether humans are animals or not depends on which definition you use. So next time you hear someone bickering over this issue, tell them that they are arguing over terminology. That is the Hard Core Truth.