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ekoike's picture

The definition of being "special"

After this week's class, it made me question whether we would find a set definition or a set "answer" on what makes us special. Each individual person has their own definition on what is "special" and what makes you different from other organisms.

Each person's unique set of definition definitely makes it harder for us to find a "correct" definition that everyone can agree upon. Perhaps there is no correct reason why we're different than others. In my Anthropology 101 class, we were talking about the different between the genetic makeup between humans and other primates... and our professor told us that in fact we're 99 percent similar. That made me seriously wonder what in that 1 percent of genetic makeup makes us distinguish ourselves as a superior being over chimps and gorillas?

If we just looked at the genetic information in our system, we can't necessarily say that we're that different or "special" from other primates... so how do we exactly define "special" or the idea of superiority over others?

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