Do you feel that you as a human being are superior to any other living
organizm?

When answering, I would like to know what makes you feel that way?

If you don't feel this way, in what way do you think we are related or
relate to every other living organism?

We are all just animals. The only difference is that we know of and
anticipate/fear death. That is what separates us from the animals.

Until some other creature shows capacity for selfless nuturing,
compassion for illness, the ability to record thoughts and expressions
for later generations, and the ability to develop efficient means of
mass murder, I'd say that humans remain top of the pile.

I wanted to add, that "yeah sure animals will nurture their own young,
and maybe sorta look out for a sickly member", but, only a human will go
create medicine, collect foods and see to the well being of a sickly
human who is un-known. Think of Doctors, Nurses, Clinicians, etc.

The ability to communicate ideas, emotions, and express them without the
physical need for interacation sets us way apart. What I mean by that is
we can communicate our thoughts between each other (like email) without
ever actually knowing, seeing, hearing the other person. We can even
communicate with ppl yet to be born (we can write a book that will be
read 100s of years later).

So, we're "top dog" so to speak. We have unlimited potential, for good
and bad.

I don't think we are superior. I think all living things including
ourselves just all have our own way of surviving in this world....All
organisms protect themselves in their own way...just like them we also
are not immune to being destroyed. Everything that is living including
us needs something else that is living to survive...

The idea that we are 'superior' can be falsely used to justify a lack of
compassion and respect for non-human animals, but I'd say we're pretty
unique. No other species on this planet can cast an encoding of their
thoughts across interstellar space.

Hi again, everyone is talking about animals...I thought the question was
about all living organisms? lol

Mike, here's the thing. Is there anything in nature that the human
species provides, adds to, or compliments nature and the natural
surroundings that would make a difference if we were not here? As far
as all that we "create" if we are gone, what good is posterity? Also,
is ther any animal or organism existing on this planet that can add to
the destruction of it's environment, thereby destroying echo systems and
other living beings, other than humans?

If we are so superior, what good do we bring to this world, except to
provide for our own selfish desires?

No other species can cast an encoding of their thoughts across
interstellar space in the frequencies we can see/hear/monitor.

does not mean some other species on this planet is not capable of
casting their thoughts in some frequency we can not detect.

God made us 'a little lower than angels'.

Redykeulous, well put!

Superior, no. Different, yes, in some ways.

We are at one end of a very long line of life forms stretching back
billions of years. (I highly recommend Richard Dawkins' book "The
Ancestor's Tale" for a really thorough breakdown of this process.) But
we are not necessarily THE end.

If we look at ourselves as just another rung on the ladder, and not some
sort of "ultimate culmination," I think we get a better perspective on
our position as just another step in an ongoing process.

Something may evolve from modern humans, as modern humans have evolved
from earlier homo and australopithecine forms, as seems likely.
Something better than we are, something perhaps more specialized.
Something perhaps "superior."

But they, too, will just be another rung (albeit one higher than ours)
on that same ladder. The process is capable of continuing until someone
or something causes a total extinction.

As for the question about how we are related to other living organisms,
I offer this quote from Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan's "Shadows of
Forgotten Ancestors": "If the [DNA] sequences of humans and chimpanzees
are compared nucleotide by nucleotide, they differ by only 1.7%. Humans
and gorillas differ by 1.8%, almost as little; humans and orangutans,
3.3%; humans and gibbons, 4.3%; humans and rhesus monkeys, 7%; humans
and lemurs, 22.6%. The more the sequences of two animals differ, the
more remote (both in relatedness and, usually, in time) is their last
common ancestor."

We are animals just as surely as the chimp and the gorilla and the lemur
are. We just showed up later. That doesn't make us better. It may
make us more adaptable, it may give us the kind of brains we need to
build shelters and vehicles and things that go beyond our knowledge of
anything other animals may have done.

But "better"? That would require a sort of value judgment that we, as
participants in the grand scheme of things, are simply too self-absorbed
to make with any sort of objectivity.

Point Lex.

As we are at this time still locked in realitivity we have no real frame
of reference to measure ourself against.

Can a beam of light measure itself?

Without the introduction of an outside frame of reference we can only
assume.

To answer this question one would have to step beyond the box.

Superior in what way?

When a mosquito lands on my arm I murder it instantly without the
slightest hesitation or compassion for its death.

Am I ‘superior’ to the mosquito? Morally, who knows? But physically I
win.

Some of these comments are starting to sound like riddles that one would
have to try to figure out and crack the code...lol
It is all evolution..every living organism including us will keep
evolving...so there is no set superior organism. Thats just my
opinion...

Abra, so the shark eats you, then what? The shark is "superior"?

I suppose the term would have to be defined more precisely because it
has too many tangential uses in its raw state.

I am assuming that Redy's original post uses "superior" to mean in the
sense of "more advanced" but I might be reading something into that
other than what was intended. As an atheist, I typically do not
consider religious overtones; thus, I cannot see "superiority" in terms
of being a moral issue, because "moral," to me, carries an inherent
religious connotation.

This may be more of a semantic issue than anything else, though; I tend
to substitute "ethic" or personal code, where others use "morals" or
"morality."

I reckon if a shark eats me I must have been selected out for personal
extinction.

but the race will continue.

And my brother will find and kill the shark so it will never prey upon
another human.

I reckon if a shark eats me I must have been selected out for personal
extinction.

but the race will continue.

And my brother will find and kill the shark so it will never prey upon
another human.

Lex,

What does it mean to be ‘more advanced”.

A naked human being without the aid of any technology swimming in the
ocean would be ‘inferior’ to a shark. Sure, the human may have a more
developed brain, but smarts aren’t going to be worth much in that
situation. The shark would be ‘superior’ in its environment.

Give the human a shark-proof suit and a harpoon (i.e. allow the human to
actually use its brain before getting in the water), all of a sudden the
shark becomes dead meat and the human is ‘superior’

So without morals, ‘superiority’ is contextual based.

Like JAG said, It’s all evolution, whoever’s at the top of the food
chain at them moment is the ‘superior’ one.

Abracadabra..its nice to know someone is on the same page..