sally mckay and lorna mills

Lorna Mills and Sally McKay

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Parker Koo Ito - Artist Statement

Screen shot from Artist Statement (click through to see flash movie)

In an ongoing comment thread about evolutionary theory I just posted a link to this excellent Ted lecture on The Uniqueness of Humans by Robert Sapolsky, professor of Biological Sciences, and professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences at Stanford University.

It is apparentlymandatory that everyone who writes anything on human consciousness has to have a chapter or section describing their own version of evolutionary theory, with a paragraph or subsection on what it is that distinguishes humans from other animals. Whatever *it* is, that factor represents the author's central point in their entire argument. It's a pretty funny formula. At first it bugged me. Why is it so important to make this distinction in the first place? And just because something supposedly is uniquely human, why does it follow that it's important? But now I'm kind of getting into it, and thinking that I maybe need to write one of my own. Robert Sapolsky, who has a lot of first-hand experience studying baboons, devotes his entire 37 minute lecture to the topic, and his breakdown is pretty good.

So here's your quiz for the day: What is the single most important thing that distinguishes animals from humans? Mark has already posted his theory in the aforementioned comment thread. I quote:

I suspect that art, language, symbolic thought and social behavior are a set of intertwined developments that distinguish homo sapiens from other hominids, e.g. Neanderthals. The same mental facilities that allow us to create art allow us to create the mythology and propaganda that lead to social structures on a massive scale?

Note: we already had this conversation back in 2008, but Sapolsky makes me think now's a good time for an update. As Sapolsky says, in most physiological respects we're just basic "off the rack mammals." So if you're sick of the old topic here's an alternative quiz for the day: Why is it important to distinguish humans from other animals?

Sunday - The Stampeders