50 Wholesome Photos That Prove We Don’t Deserve Animals

Paying attention to animals can teach us not only about the wonders of other species but also about ourselves.

"For centuries, philosophers and scientists have tried to understand what makes us unique. But people often forget that humans are not alone in being unique. Every species on the planet has some features that it shares with other species, and some that make it stand out," Dr. Tom Smulders, Director of Education and Reader in Evolutionary Neuroscience at Newcastle University, wrote.

"What the evolutionary approach allows us to do is to investigate which features or traits are shared with others and what that sharing tells us about the species in question."

Species can share a trait for a couple of reasons: either they are closely related and have inherited the trait from their common ancestor, or the shared trait is an adaptation to similar evolutionary pressures.

Both of these ways of looking at similarities can be enlightening when trying to understand the nature of humans as well.

"Everybody expects chimpanzees (and bonobos) to be similar to us, because they are our closest relatives," Smulders said. "So when we look at them, we usually focus on the ways in which we differ from them. After all, any traits we don’t share with them must have evolved in our own lineage and therefore be uniquely human."

However, there are two problems with this approach.

"First, any differences between us and chimps are just as likely to be due to changes in chimps since our last common ancestor as they are changes in us. So we can only start concluding that a trait has evolved through the human lineage if chimps share their traits with other apes and maybe even other primates, but we don’t," Smulders explained.

And second, just because humans are the only primates that have a certain trait does not automatically mean that trait is uniquely human. "One obvious example is vocal learning. As far as we know, humans are the only primates who learn to make the sounds that comprise their means of communicating with one another. We call this trait 'vocal learning,' and it is the basis for human speech and language. However, there are many other groups throughout the animal kingdom that learn their vocalizations, for example, parrots and songbirds, seals and dolphins. So we're far from unique in this case."

According to the evolutionary neuroscientist, this framework allows us to examine evolution as a natural experiment, helping us understand the conditions under which vocal learning can evolve and how these insights apply to humans.

"In songbirds, for example, song learning might have evolved through sexual selection—from females preferring mates with complex songs. Those males who could mimic sounds composed more complex songs, which gave their genes a better chance of being passed to the next generation. Analogously, some have suggested that human vocal learning may have originally evolved as a male sexual display, in other words, singing. This is just one possibility, but it illustrates how comparative approaches can tell us more about ourselves," Smulders said.

He also said that many animals, from pigs to bees, will act "pessimistically," that is, respond as if they expect the worst following a bad experience.

As you may have experienced, this is a common characteristic among humans in a low mood as well.

"It's still not clear what these animals experience subjectively, but the findings do give us a much deeper insight into why we respond to negative experiences the way we do. Increased caution after a bad experience may well be an evolutionary adaptation that increases our chances of survival," Smulders said.