Are Animals More Civilized Than People?

Most recent answer: 06/11/2013

Q:
Are animals more civilized than people?
- Cristy Melson (age 12)
Urbana/Champaign, Il, US
A:

Interesting question, from our home town. There are two reasons why it's not really possible to answer.

1. I'm not sure what you mean by "civilized". There are lots of different sides to group living, and different animals emphasize them to different degrees.

2. Although we people are just one species, we have enormous variability. Still, it's nothing compared to the variability of all the thousands of different species of other mammals. If you start including insects etc. there's just way too much variability among other animals to even begin to make that sort of comparison.

Mike W.


(published on 06/11/2013)