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Human has been listed as a level-2 vital article in Science. If you can improve it, please do. This article has been rated as C-Class. |
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) |
- Q: Why does the Human article use the third person? Aren't we humans?
- A: The third person ("Humans are..." or "They are..." as opposed to "We are...") is simply the conventional mode of writing for Wikipedia and other reference works. We realize this may cause some phrases in Human to sound quite strange — "a majority of humans professes some variety of religious or spiritual belief" sounds almost like it was written by space aliens. However, the occasional strangeness this approach may lead to is still preferable to the alternative of inconsistency.
- If we were to use "we" in the Human article, it would mean sometimes switching strangely between persons as we narrow our topic of discussion. For example, even if an editor were female, she would be forced to write things like "We humans, and especially those females...." Whenever a subgroup of humanity became the article's focus, we would need to switch to the third person; a sentence about humans would use "we", but a sentence about adults, Asians, engineers, or heterosexuals would need to use "they". It is far simpler to just consistently use the third person in all contexts, even if this doesn't always seem completely natural.
- A related issue is the fact that, as a general rule, Wikipedia prefers to avoid self-references. In addition to being human, all editors on this site happen to be English speakers — yet we treat our article on the English language the same way we treat every other language article, in order to avoid bias and inconsistency. Likewise, we treat Wikipedia the same as other websites and reference tools. Analogously, we ought to aspire to treat Human in much the same way that we treat every other species article. Ideally, we should make exceptions of Human only where objective, verifiable facts demand that we make exceptions (e.g., in employing a lengthy culture section). This is the simplest and easiest way to avoid bias and to prevent editorial disputes: When it doubt, follow the rest of Wikipedia's lead.
- Another method some editors use to help maintain a neutral point of view is to imagine being an extraterrestrial writing about a strange species called "human". How would your perspective be different?
- Q: Aren't humans supposed to be purely herbivorous/frugivorous despite our modern omnivorous habits? Aren't we jungle apes albeit highly intelligent and largely furless jungle apes? Most jungle apes eat no meat or very little.
- A: No, we really are natural omnivores. Contrary to popular belief, we humans did not evolve in jungles. We actually evolved on open grasslands where fruit-bearing trees are nowhere near as plentiful as in the jungle, where most of our surviving close relatives evolved. Evolving in such a place, we would have always (for as long as we've been humans rather than Australopithecines and other even earlier fossilized genera) had to supplement our diet with meat in addition to plant material. We evolved also eating plant-derived foods to be sure; the Savannah (grassland) has some trees with edible fruit although comparatively few and far between, and grain-bearing grasses are far more plentiful there than any tree. (Some evidence suggests that the first bread and beer were made from these tropical grains long before recorded history.) Even so, the grassland being much less fruit-rich than the jungle caused us to evolve as true metabolic omnivores, not pure herbivores/frugivores. See the Archived Debates on this subtopic for source documents.
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[edit] Replacement of anatomy image
I suggest that the anatomy image shown in the biology-section should be replaced with a new one. Everyone is welcome to participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anatomy#Replacement of human anatomy image. Mikael Häggström (talk) 03:40, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
- Support: This image is clearer. In particular, it gets rid of the camera angle distortion on the female human. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 01:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
They're all awfully white! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.41.121 (talk) 16:07, 6 November 2011 (UTC) Having an entire article on humans with almost nothing but whites would be unacceptable; having a few pictures of white people among many others is acceptable. --152.65.39.146 (talk) 21:29, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Can you give any legitimate reason why we should go out of our way to find pictures of different races? Or are you just trying to purposelessly be politically correct? Not done because there is no reason.--174.49.47.34 (talk) 17:00, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
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- I can. That's what we would do for any plant or animal with several main varieties. Think of it as a report from Dr. Phlox to the Denobulans or some such. They're going to want to know about the basic types of this animal and want to see an example of each. It's not all that different from this picture: It has nothing to do with political correctness.
Chrisrus (talk) 18:09, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
- No. If he wanted to show us all varieties, he woud just do it. Choosing one white female and one Asian male helps nothing, it only confuses people. It looks like the 2 belonged together. --Kmaga (talk) 23:37, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
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- I was talking about the picture of the different races, here:
. I don't know why the artist chose a white and an Asian were chosen for that picture, but maybe it's because those are the two most common varieties of this animal. What would you prefer, that they both be Asian? We have an Asian couple in the infobox. Maybe it was just the two models he had available and didn't think it mattered. You can't show "all varieties" when the picture has to be of two individuals. Chrisrus (talk) 01:28, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
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- But the prupose of the image isn't to show all varieties and races, its purpose is to describe the human anatomy. Both sexes must be of the same race in order not to create confusion. --Kmaga (talk) 11:24, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, I'd thought you were talking about the composite picture of all the different races. About the anatomy picture, what "confusion" does having them be two different races cause? Chrisrus (talk) 16:23, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- This picture is an improvement but I agree with Chrisrus and others questioning whether these pictures of a white 'couple' are close to the ideal. In an article on anatomy, there is no need to be restricted to pictures of a couple (a social concept); given that the aim is to improve accuracy, an image where pubic hair is not shown and the woman is standing with a slightly odd posture are also shortcomings since these are not typical of the human anatomy; the fact that they both appear white is particularly inaccurate when the image is to be used (as suggested) in an article about human evolution. In this case, the idea of excessive political correctness appears to have been used (as it often is) to defeat valid points rather than invalid ones.
- There are several possible solutions, none ideal but all improvements. First, choose different races and body types for the two sexes and label them so as to make it clear that there is variation (eg "Older Caucasian male", "Small body type, African female"). Second, use an outline/sketch rather than a photograph of models to convey the idea that these are generalities. Third, show three variations of both male and female and label them to emphasize the variety of shapes of the human body.--174.7.25.37 (talk) 19:04, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
I suggest that for the Anatomy image, we find a picture of a man with a bigger penis. 108.9.107.14 (talk) 05:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Edit request on 18 December 2011
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Category:Monotypic mammal genera
Rkent9 (talk) 00:00, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- As it doesn't show, the request is to add Category:Monotypic mammal genera to the article. However, while Homo sapiens may be the only extant species in Homo, there are other, extinct, species, so I don't think the category is appropriate. -- Donald Albury 11:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- I've edited this above to a) make the request show, b) stop this talk page being categorised as a Monotypic mammal genera. LukeSurl t c 00:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Disabilities, disorders
Subsection on... how about it, the ones humans seemingly most disposed to and most seriously affected by maybe. Not included at all really at the moment, just isolated mentions re diet (infectious diseases/obesity), the words medical, neurology/psychiatry, mental illness.. did quick search in archives on disability/disorder couldn't see talk about it. Eversync (talk) 10:16, 16 January 2012 (UTC) On the other hand i just realised it doesn't mention sport or play either. Eversync (talk) 10:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Myriad topics --except clothing???
Homo sapiens is the only species to wear clothing, as the article says, yet the article is faulty because it fails to note that homo sapiens CANNOT survive in most parts of the world without clothing. Moreover, at which point in time did humans take the highly unusual step of beginning to wear clothing. Dogru144 (talk) 08:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
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