Cats are the greatest animal known to man.

Nice, I will address your first argument and then move onto the point by point argument. "Your claim is a matter of opinion." >>Ah yes, but is not all debate simply a matter of opinion. You telling me that it is a matter of opinion does not discredit my opinion or oppose the facts I have offered you to support it. "For the sake of argument, I will say that MAN is the greatest animal known to man, as they too are classified as Animalia. (I might've gone with primates, but I like a challenge.)" >>I almost went with this definition, "any such living thing other than a human being." but then decided it would be interesting if you chose to argue the human being. Irony =) Onto the point: 1. "The cheetah does not travel more quickly than a human that is skydiving vertically" >>Ah but the Cheetah skydiving vertically from an airplane will travel just as fast as the human. Not to mention the cheetah skydiving will be able to roar rather loud and let innocent being below know that it is going to crash onto them momentarily. This will give the innocent beings time to clear themselves of the landing pad, thus the cheetah will inevitably save more lives. I would also like the point out that the cheetah in all situation will overall average a quicker speed than that of the human. (Average between skydiving and running = cheetah wins) 2. "Humans can roar even louder than a lion through a megaphone, but that's not as impressive as communicating through speech. Humans do not even have to raise their voices to express great outrage, which I find to be superior to the roar." >>Ah but then it is not the human roaring is it? It would be the microphone amplifying that is beating the lion and no longer the human. Through alien devices unknown to man the lion can roar 100x louder than anything ever heard. However once again it would not really be the lion doing the work, it would be the alien device. Thus we must consider how well man can roar by himself as compared to the cheetah. You also say that humans do not have to raise their voices to express outrage. Yet neither does the lion. The lion can growl, hiss, or just skip the noise all together and kill something with its claws to express outrage. 3. "A tiger may be able to kill many creatures with one fell swoop, but a human need only squeeze a trigger, which requires hardly any movement at all, to put down his prey." >>Ah but once again is it really the human killing with a squeeze of the trigger. Rather isn't it a human squeezing a trigger and a gun that is killing. A tiger equipped with a flame thrower will be able to kill thousands of people by simply running through downtown New York. This however cannot be attributed to the tiger as it is really no the tiger killing people. A tiger and a human in a 1 on 1 fight naturally will lean "slightly" in the tigers favor. 4. "Humans are more intelligent that cats, as we retain and recall more memories and information. We can even record information. Cats cannot." >>Oh really? I challenge you to prove your claim! "The brain size of the average cat is 5 centimeters in length and 30 grams. Since the average cat is 60 cm long and 3.3 kg,[1] the brain makes up one twelfth of its full length, and 1/110 of its weight. Thus, the average cat's brain accounts for 0.9% of its total body weight, compared to 2% of total body weight in the average human. Ultimately, however, there is no conclusive proof of correlation between brain mass and intelligence[citation needed]. The surface area of a cat's cerebral cortex is approximately 83 cmï¿½. The modern human cerebral cortex is about 2500 cmï¿½.[1]" p Wiki (Cat intelligence) I say there is no conclusive evidence and that also cats can record information. They can draw pictures if need be. Also even if you do manage to convince me that Cats are less intelligent it has no bearing as I was simply proving cats to be intelligent. We as humans don't look at other humans of lesser intelligence and call them lesser; we may look at humans with no intelligence and call them lesser. There are many factors that require something to be great, having an intelligence of some form is only one of them. 5. "Humans thinks for themselves and actually have cats as their dependents. You state that cats are independent, but that is not true for those cats that rely on humans to take care of them. How many humans rely on cats for care? Perhaps there are some seeing-eye cats somewhere of which I am unaware." >>Ah but only a portion of cats are "dependent" on humans. It was no fault of the cats that humans took a few of their kind, it was a fault of humans thinking cats were greater than themselves. Look back to ancient Egypt where they adored the cat and built statues to it. Plus you say they are dependent but in all reality a cat can leave very easily and become and alley cat. It is because the cat is so intelligent that it stays and uses humans. We pet, adore, feed, water, and worship cats. Perhaps humans are the dependent race? 6. "Humans are evolving too and are in fact more highly evolved than cats." >>Have any proof on this one? You can argue me that humans are obviously the most highly evolved because of all of our technology. However I find myself back on the same point as my last speech. The cats are using us for our technology and we are blindly letting them. Humans have even made things explicitly for cats (cat food, vets) have any races made things explicitly for humans? Naa, cats are definitely getting the better end of this deal, they are so highly evolved that they exploit us without us even noticing it. 7. "Human babies are the cutest animals ever and they stay cuter for much longer. They progressively learn and adapt and become cuter through their development. Far cuter than kittens!" >> Alas you are lead astray by the adult world. For yes, while it is true that the adult world thinks that babies are indeed cute the baby world does not find their peers to be cute. However both the adult and the baby world find kittens to be cute. Not only this but baby humans find kittens to be far more fascinating than another baby. Baby kittens can be chased and never caught thus increasing their appeal. Baby kittens can make sounds a baby cannot imitate. Baby kittens are fury, and that is indeed exciting. Baby kittens become adult kittens which are scared of babies and exhibit all the same qualities and thus are still cute. 8. A new point. Cats are graceful, incredibly efficient at conserving energy. Now lets quickly look at the down sides of humans. 1. Humans start wars and kill people, environment, animals, which includes cats. Can cats be blamed for killing nearly as many as humans have? Plus, how often does a cat kill for a reason besides to eat? 2. Humans crowd out others environments with their fancy cities. Cats coexist, a truly noble idea. 3. Humans always try to portray themselves as best, as evidence by my opponent, cats just let it hang. They are like the cool hippies you always wish your parents had been. This makes them better. Finally onto my opponents last point: "Cats are not the greatest animals known to man because man knows himself to be the greatest." >> Ah but humans do not even know themselves, humans are always in a quest to gain more knowledge about who they are and how they interact with the world. Here is a quote from one of the greatest men of all time: "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance." -Socrates If even Socrates knew nothing except for his own ignorance how can you claim that man knows himself/herself to be greatest. He/she is ignorant of the truth.