Talk:Human

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Er...

Why does "non-human" redirect here? And what if a child sees this article? I think the article should have a more appropriate picture. Elasmosaurus (talk) 05:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Good question. There are many things that are Non-human e.g. Aliens or machines, so I think that by knowing what human is someone could work out the set of what was not human. Which picture is a problem ?. They all look OK. The taxobox(picture is excellent as it's the Pioneer plaque depiction which was designed to be as neutral but representative of the majority of the human species.Ttiotsw (talk) 06:31, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

God forbid a child should know humans have reproductive organs. Deltabeignet (talk) 04:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid i do not understand your complaint... Do you find any pornographic content or any other unethical information in this article? Or do you think that a child should not have any idea of his/her own anatomy? 82.208.174.72 (talk) 22:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The translation of Homo sapiens

Latin, like most other languages, distinguishes humans, men, and women. Homo sapiens means a wise human, not a wise man. The former may sound awkward because human comes from homo, but the latter is just incorrect. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 02:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the Latin word homo means both human and man so Homo sapiens means both wise man and wise human. 88.112.99.229 (talk) 09:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Who agrees this page should be nominated for Featured Content?

It seems like a good idea, after all, this article is a well written, amazing piece of work. And, wouldn't it seem smart to feature the page for the human race, like going back to basics? This is a good article and no piece of it feels out of place currently. It's pictures are good and display the human race effectively, with its wars, technology and religion. And it cites every piece of evidence it has, look at that long citation list.Zombielegoman (talk)

Humans are atleast Seven million years old

In 2001 scientists found a human skull that was seven million years old placing our species Homo Sapien at atleast 7 million years old. Here are some sources of one this important discovery.

http://www.bananasinpyjamas.com/science/articles/2002/07/15/605620.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2118055.stm

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,31500-12032436,00.html

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Skull+shocker%3A+a+7-million-year-old+skull+has+scientists+asking+%22who+...-a099554847 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maldek (talk • contribs) 03:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Maldek, did you actually read the BBC article you linked above? It says nothing about a human skull or homo sapien [sic] skull. This talk page is newly archived; can we please not fill it up with the same old nonsense? Rivertorch (talk) 04:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

We are Humans

So write the article intended to be read by us, not some aliens! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.34.152 (talk) 23:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It is not policy to write "us" and "our". The article is written from the third person perspective, as is appropriate. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

And, if we were to establish contact with alien civilizations tomorrow, we won't need to rewrite the article. Zazaban (talk) 03:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Let us not exaggerate. All articles on Wikipedia must be written in an objective manner, and from a 3rd person point of view. No article must contain personal opinions what so ever... 82.208.174.72 (talk) 22:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Human post incorrect

"Around 2,000–3,000 years ago, some states, such as Persia, India, China and Rome, developed through conquest into the first expansive empires. Influential religions, such as Judaism, originating in the Middle East, and Hinduism, a religious tradition that originated in South Asia, also rose to prominence at this time."

When I add Greece into this, it was denied.. Why is that so?

Considering the Makedonian Empire was before Rome, and Greece was around 6,000 years ago.

Also the belief in the 12 Gods was formed around this time, and then Christianity came into power via the Greeks 2000's years ago (and became the first and only Christian state during the 3rd - 4th centuries). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Divius (talk • contribs) 23:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

When you talk about Greece I am presuming that you are talking about the Roman Empire, as the Greek city-states had been conquered by the Romans in the early second century. Also the entire Roman Empire had been converted to Christianity (on the surface anyway) by Constantine I in the year 330 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.27.16 (talk) 08:29, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

The article reads as if written by a human. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.100.228.138 (talk) 23:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC) NOTE: +1 FOR HUMOR. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.213.139.175 (talk) 02:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Nice one. 212.183.240.205 (talk) 19:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

It's also conflict of interest for us to write this article. If it's notable enough, someone else will write the article anyway. Flexxx (talk) 12:05, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Film/Video Games/Television

I think all these things need to be added to the Art, Music & Literature section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.96.150.104 (talk) 00:14, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Government

This article begins as an explanation of the human as a species of primate. However, within the introduction it uses the term "governments" to describe human settlement of Antarctica. That seems inappropriate. While thisargument is absurd because only humans would read this article and would surely know either that fact or the fact their own species was the subject of the article, we could clean up the writing (to the otherwise excellent standards) of the article to meet a more universal standard. 98.169.94.215 (talk) 04:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Multiple pages

there appears to be multiple pages of the article "Human". Please correct as some of the other pages contain useless information. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jansta (talk • contribs) 22:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

What other pages? Ben (talk) 23:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I jumped the gun, but it's certainly not a helpful question. It's so imprecise as to be unanswerable, and it came so shortly after vandalism I just assumed it was meant to harass. So Jansta, what specific information in the article do you have issues with? --GoodDamon 23:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Non-homo sapiens art

The following sentence is not entirely true: "Art is one of the most unusual aspects of human behavior and a key distinguishing feature of humans from other species, In fact the only species to do so." Other species have been known to create art. A number of elephants, for example, have been known to create paintings. (See: Elephant_intelligence#Art) Also, I believe hominids other than homo sapiens have created art, in particular Homo neanderthalensis, although I am not entirely sure if that has been definitively established. Voodoo Jobu (talk) 21:10, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Definitely established for Neanderthals. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

sapience?

This sentence in the article bothers me a bit:

Humans are the only known sapient species.

Humans have defined sapience so that only humans are capable of it. I don't think that this round-about way of thinking improves the understanding of the topic, except that humans desire to belong to a unique class or group. My vote would be to remove this sentence from the article, unless there is an explanation or objection. Basically, it just says, 'humans are the only species capable of fitting into this definition of humans' What's that? Tautological thinking? Thanks. Bob98133 (talk) 13:58, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed that this was a recent edit - thought it had been there for a while - so I reverted it for above reasonsBob98133 (talk) 14:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Continuing evolution

Wobble keeps reverting a section on continued evolition. There has been many papers recently written that refute the belief by social planners and even some scientists that evolution has stopped. I think there should be some commentary before such a vital section, in my view, is reverted again. It seems to conform to the sources section, although some have called it "fringe". The NY times has published the article as fact, and they are certainly not a fringe publication, nor was the sources that the claim was based off of. Verwoerd (talk) 23:11, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Since you are probably a sockpuppet of a banned user, I don't see much point is discussing this with you. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that's sure a great reason. Please assume good faith. In today's world, everyone is accused of something. I am supported by a plethora of authors. Going back to the issue, here are a few more sources from the largest journals showing that evolution is still occurring. [1] [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Verwoerd (talk • contribs) 23:21, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

See Talk:Human/Archive_26#Lame_.22Dysgenics.22_Section for last time we discussed this with you. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe you are just angry that many editors support my position. I will not accuse you of being User:Wobble for example even though the two of you have been making similar edits. Like I said, please assume good faith in this important matter. Verwoerd (talk) 23:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's see:

• About two papers report a possible stop to the Flynn Effect. No more.
• The theory of dysgenics as advanced by Richard Lynn has been mostly criticized or ignored.

I don't call that sound scientific bases.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:38, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

That section on human is not exclusively about dysgenics. There are articles on Science, an journal of considerable repute, that mention this finding, yet you are deleting the entire section. I am not in a mood to fight, but instead of accusing me of being another user to stifle me, why not talk about the validity or lack thereof, of what was changed. In addition, where does it say that dysgenics has been discounted? I think you are overreacting. Verwoerd (talk) 23:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

However, you are putting the two together as if the Science references supported the dysgenics theory. That is OR and forbidden by Wikipedia rules, not to mention misleading in the extreme.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:50, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the dysgenic info should not be in the article, but I have no problem with the first part of the Continuing Evolution part - that evolution is continuing should stay in. Bob98133 (talk) 23:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a simple matter of two and two is four. If human evolution is not occurring, then obvious dysgenics is moot. But the fact that humans are evolving shows that the theory can be true, that it cant be discounted. And then there is the mountain of research on dysgenics. Verwoerd (talk) 00:00, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a bit more complicated than that or everyone would agree. I think it can be documented that evolution is continuing, but predicting or even determining what changes or direction that evolution is taking cannot be done with any certainty during the process, which is what I guess dysgenics tries to do. If it were that easy to do, then certainly someone should be able to predict when vestigal organs, such as the appendix, will disappear in humans, or other changes.Bob98133 (talk) 00:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Putting two and two together is WP:OR and not permitted. And there is no mountain of evidence on dysgenics; there are a handful, most of them related to Lynn's book and its reviews. Differential fertility studies, before you ask are not about dysgenics.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's an overview of Lynn's dysgenics research and a critique by another scientist. [3] The research on dysgenics may not be as large as in other unrelated fields, but in the genetics discipline, it is certainly an important topic. Verwoerd (talk) 00:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Funny that of several reviews, you would pick the one by Lynn's staunchest supporter (Marian Van Court), which even shows its bias by offering a 20% discount on the book upon order!!! BTW, neither Van Court nor Lynn are geneticists to start with.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Bob, but this info is already in the article, the last paragraph of the section entitled "Origins" states: "The forces of selection continue to operate on human populations, with evidence that certain regions of the genome display recent positive selection." The NYTimes article by Nicholas Wade is cited. That selection still acts on the human population should not be particularly surprising, selection acts on all organisms. Whether one would consider this "evolution" is a matter of how one defines "evolution". Generally with human differences we are talking about microevolution rather than macroevolution, microevolutionary adaptation to localised environmental conditions is unlikely to produce speciation, whereas major changes due to large environmental change, that could for example lead to mass extinction, would lead to macroevolutionary pressures and more speciation events (punctuated equilibrium). Selection is a more specific and less misunderstood/misused concept. As for dysgenics, it's massively fringe, is never discussed in serious academic circles, and when the occasional biologist does offer an opinion it's usually to simply state that it's bunk. A few right wing psychologists, who appear to have a very tenuous understanding of biology and genetics spout this nonsense for political reasons, there's no reason to include it here except for pov-pushing by right wing idealogues. Indeed I'd say that a user who chooses a username for the "architect of apartheid" (Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd) lacks credibility. Alun (talk) 05:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Sports

Not a sports fan myself until very recently, why sports aren't mentioned, it has to be dug after via culture etcYosef1987 (talk) 15:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Under: Art, music, and literature: Music is a natural intuitive phenomenon based on the three distinct and interrelated organization structures of rhythm, harmony, and melody. Listening to music is perhaps the most common and universal form of entertainment for humans

Sports, games should be included somewhere Yosef1987 (talk) 16:00, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Straw poll on addition of continuing evolution

A continuing evolution section has been proposed to be added as a section after "Rise of Civilization". Is such a section appropiate, whether or not it is in the current form?

• Support There are two very strong sources that state human evolution has been progressing at an ever increasing rate, refuting what many social scientists had said before. In addition, dysgenics and the eugenics movements have been important in shaping the world so far. Verwoerd (talk) 17:56, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
• Very strong oppose

1. The fact of ongoing evolution is already touched upon in the article, at the end of the "Origin" section.
2. So far, dysgenics remains to be proven as a trend in humans, and eugenics is regarded by many as a pseudoscience.
3. Juxtaposing references on continuing human evolution with comments regarding the fringe hypothesis of human intelligence dysgenics is pure synthesis and forbidden by Wikipedia.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - for reasons already stated, reiterated by Ramdrake. Bob98133 (talk) 18:15, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose WP:COATRACK for dysgenics, not actually about continuing evolution. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose, article already adequately reports what is known about recent human evolution, and merging this material with the pseudoscientific topic of eugenics/dysgenics is both original research and POV pushing. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
• Comment - love to see the actual sources; do they mention dysgenics and eugenics, or do they merely discuss allele changes? Saying that 'humans are still evolving' is a bit redundant as all living things are still evolving, though perhaps humans are currently a few Darinws faster than others. I'd say any section based on two sources is bound to be stubby. And isn't dysgenics impossible since evolution is about adaptation based on environment without reference to terms like 'progress', 'better' or 'improvement'? Seems kinda impossible. WLU (talk) 19:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree, I made this point above, it depends what one means by evolution. Are we subject to selective forces? Of course we are. Are those selective forces different today than they were 1000 years ago? Maybe, but there is no way we can possibly know. Do selective forces always lead to "evolution"? Not necessarily, in a stable environment to which a population is already well adapted, selection tends not to change populations a great deal, after all if the population is already well adapted selection should keep it well adapted, therefore it should stay in equilibrium with the environment. Are microevolutionary forces producing localised adaptations within some human populations? Of course they are. A blanket claim about humans "continuing to evolve" is simplistic and is derived from an at best facile understanding of selection. Alun (talk) 05:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The causes of child mortality are probably the major selective forces on humans at present, things like viral diarrhea and malaria. Pseudoscientists always seem to forget that most people in the world live in poverty. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree, this is a point I've made at the dysgenics article and the race and intelligence article, it's absurd to claim that in the past "intelligent" people had a selective advantage and that today they don't. In the past everyone lived in (relatively speaking) disease infested environments, even the wealthy. Diseases like the Black Death (to use an extreme example) were not "intelligence" specific, or at least there's no reason to believe that they were. The discussion about fertility and intelligence is mute in my opinion, fertility is irrelevant, the proportion of children that survive to adulthood is more important, and child mortality has probably always been high and (class/intelligence) indiscriminate, the two or three generations that, in some modern societies, have benefited from antibiotics are the exception rather than the rule. Alun (talk) 20:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose as per Ramdrake, Shoemaker's Hiliday and Tim Vickers. Alun (talk) 05:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. Fringy. Rivertorch (talk) 05:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose of Dysgenics but neutral on Eugenics and OK for "Evolution" as it's logical that natural selection would still be effecting changes in the human genome (thus "Evolution" cannot be left out). Eugenics has been applied to humans (though uncertain if this has had any effect on the genome) but even though Dysgenics feels it should be true, strangely enough there isn't the evidence to support it so it needn't get equal weight with Eugenics so for an article as high level as "Human" thus evolution (natural selection) is fine, Eugenics gets a passing mention but no need to mention Dysgenics. Ttiotsw (talk) 06:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Do we need this?

Delete this article, it sounds like it was written for an alien. Only an ignorant smitten retard would not know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.73.123.156 (talk) 15:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like we might need an article for alien ignorant smitten retards. Bob98133 (talk) 18:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Freud... Really?

Freud may have been influential in the founding of psychology, however, his opinions on human sexuality are generally no longer cited as fact. Ever since the second psychologist (Jung), people have thought Freud's views on this were wrong. It should probably cite someone else in the Love and Sex section.71.7.107.208 (talk) 09:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The only thing Freud founded was his own irrational pseudoscience (think secular religion where "psychoanalysts" are the priests and the unconscious is the devil). I'm astonished he's quoted in this otherwise exceptional article. The quote given in the article is completely meaningless yet it brings the quality of the article into question, well to those who are familiar with Freud. If we quote Freud as an expert where does it end? Do we start quoting other pseudoscience advocates? Midnight Gardener (talk) 23:43, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia article on Freud,

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian physician who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for curing psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Freud is also renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life, as well as his therapeutic techniques, including the use of free association, his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires.

If you would like to re-define him as primarily a founder of a pseudoscience, maybe you should start at the Freud article, rather than here. — goethean ॐ 17:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

He is acknowledged as a founder of psychology, but you would be hard pressed to find a psychologist who takes his actual theories seriously.

Agriculture image

In the discussion of the importance of agriculture to human civilization, there is an image of a person using a horse-driven plow. The caption simply mentions agriculture, not the domestication of animals (which presumably happened later). It seems to me that a better image to illustrate what the caption is about would be one of a human performing an agricultural activity by hand. Does anyone object to the change? LotLE×talk 17:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I added some possibilities here on talk. LotLE×talk 17:42, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the low quality of the proposed photographs are problematic, and it's harder to tell (at a glance) what's going on. While I don't object to changing the image, the image we're using is a featured picture, and I'd like the quality to be similar, if at all possible. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Really? These two look pretty good quality to me. I don't have any attachment to either specifically, but they are ones that I found on the Commons that seem clearly both "human" and "agriculture" (there's one that has sharecroppers that is well taken, but seems to conjure specific socio-historical associations that are not relevant to this use). LotLE×talk 17:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

They're not bad, but not as good, at least from a technical quality aspect: The first has a lot of motion blur, the second has slightly odd composition, and looks a little washed out. =) I'd also prefer something where it's immediately obvious what they're doing, and that it relates to agriculture - e.g. scything wheat, or the like: For instance, without caption information, the first one could, conceivably, be related to commerce instead (taking a purchase home), and the second conceals what the women are doing while bent over. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, the first one is a farmer harvesting grass for his cows - we're right back to domestication. =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I just changed the caption of the horse-plow image to mention "domestication of animals" as well. Those are both early events in human civilization, so illustrating both in the same image isn't bad. I'd still somewhat prefer a picture that was just humans+agriculture though. LotLE×talk 17:33, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Then the 2nd image is better for your mean.--Taranet (talk) 14:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

dubious

I don't think it's at all clear that humans are at the "top of the food chain," or even that the concept of a food chain has any meaning on a global scale. Owen (talk) 04:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Problem with Template:Social Infobox/Human

I just hid Template:Social Infobox/Human at the top of the Culture section because it was severely messing up the structure of the article. I'm not sure what changed in the template to cause the problem, but it was placing a References section at the top of the Culture section. -- Donald Albury 01:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Fixed the template and restored it to the article. A bot had added a References section to the template, which was therefore adding a References section at that point in the article. I'm not completely convinced that there aren't other problems in the article; I can't seem to find the Christmas Seals camp image, which I know is in the article. -- Donald Albury 01:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Got that back, as well. -- Donald Albury 01:34, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Species article

Shouldn't Homo sapiens have it's own article separate from Homo sapiens sapiens, since the species isn't (or wasn't) monotypic? For example, if you were to click on "Homo sapiens" in the taxobox of Homo sapiens idaltu, you would be lead to an article which is largely about Homo sapiens sapiens, and this would be rather misleading. No other Wikipedia article I can think of about a species with several sub-species, extant or not, redirects to one particular sub-species. FunkMonk (talk) 01:43, 15 August 2008 (UTC)