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Sarah, I really like what you said about similarities, but I am going to take a different angle. Equally as powerful as looking at how similar we are is looking at how different we are. I took a class on vertebrate evolution over the last couple hundred million years and the idea of conservation was stressed. Natural selection finds a pattern that works for it and it uses it over and over again. It might change size (mice vs. elephants) or location (fish vs. toads), but all in all we are pretty predictable when it comes to development (and of course including our brains). And not to discount the amazing fact that the development and functioning in mice and human brains is 90% the same, but honestly, it doesn’t really surprise me.

But what about that last 10%? That is really what I am interested in. What is it about the 10% of our brains that is different that distinguishes not only humans from one another but humans from mice and all the other vertebrates that are out there. Is there some gene/molecule/essence/whatever in that last 10% that is “human?” Here is where I think we get back to the good ol’ nature versus nurture debate. We all learned to draw, but what is it that makes me not be able to color inside the lines? Is it because I was raised in that way or is it because there is something in that last part that distinguishes me from those that can color in the lines? I think there must be something in that 10%. Something that distinguishes me from you and distinguishes the frog from the bird, and I think that 10% is exposed and expressed in different ways depending on development both inside and outside of the womb. I think we are looking at two sides of the same coin: you at the similarities and me at the distinctive attributes of what makes us human.