(Tourney #22) Cats are the greatest animal known to man.

First, I am going to address the definitions: I believe my opponent's definition of human is erroneous, thus, I will provide a superior definition. Oxford English Dictionary: Human: "1. a. A living being; a member of the higher of the two series of organized beings, of which the typical forms are endowed with life, sensation, and voluntary motion, but of which the lowest forms are hardly distinguishable from the lowest vegetable forms by any more certain marks than their evident relationship to other animal forms, and thus to the animal series as a whole rather than to the vegetable series. [1398 TREVISA Barth. De P.R. XVIII. i. (1495) 735 All that is comprehendyd of flesshe and of spyryte of lyfe..is callyd Animall, a beest. 1513 DOUGLAS ï¿½neis Comm. (1839) 1 As for animal and homo..undyr animal beyn contenyt all mankynd, beist, byrd, fowll, fisch, serpent, and all other sik thingis. 1594 T. B. La Primaudaye's Fr. Acad. II. 581 Many men, by reason of their ignorance in the Latine tongue, think that Animal is a beast, whereas it signifieth a liuing creature.] 1602 SHAKES. Ham. II. ii. 20 What a piece of work is a man!..the Parragon of Animals. 1667 MILTON P.L. IV. 621 Man hath his daily work..While other Animals unactive range. 1678 CUDWORTH Intell. Syst. 75 The Deity is generally supposed to be a Perfectly Happy Animal, Incorruptible and Immortal. 1736 BUTLER Anal. I. iii. 82 Man is the acknowledged governing animal upon the earth. 1860 OWEN Palï¿½ont. 4 When an organism receives nutritive matter by a mouth, inhales oxygen and exhales carbonic acid, and developes tissues, the proximate principles of which are quaternary compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, it is called an animal. 1869 HUXLEY in Fortn. Rev. Feb. 138 An animal cannot make protoplasm, but takes it ready made from some other..animal..or from some plant." As you'll note, this definition does not by any means exclude homo sapiens, contrary to the idea my opponent gives you. You must consider my definition as being superior to his definition for two reasons: 1)It is provided by an unbiased source (or rather in the context of this debate, I did not craft this definition). 2)Oxford English Dictionary is one of the most credible dictionaries in the country. Furthermore, even by the source which my opponent condones (wikipedia), humans are insinuated as animals: "Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin: "wise man" or "knowing man") in the family Hominidae (the great apes)"- http://en.wikipedia.org... As for my opponent's definition of cat, I have no problem with it and hence accept it as the standard definition for the remainder of this debate. In this debate, I insist that humans are the greatest animal known to man. I will start by rebutting my opponent's arguments. 1) Humans can be independent and take care of themselves. However, they also can choose to be dependent on other humans. In other words, humans can act in whichever means is more beneficial to their environment. Also, humans can do everything else which my opponent has brought up here. Finally, most of the domestic cats in the US are actually DEPENDENT on humans for survival, 2) Humans are by far superior to cats in the department of intellectualism. Whereas it may be considered intelligent for cats to communicate with one another, learn tricks, use toilets, predict death and presidential caucuses, these are merely feats which a human toddler can accomplish with ease. In fact, the intelligence of a human goes much further. Humans have shown themselves able to solve complex equations, cure diseases, travel to space, and create technology to make life easier. Also, humans surpass cats in that they can maintain more memories and information. So in terms of intelligence, humans clearly surpass cats. 3) Although certain cats may be able to travel at amazing speeds or jump 3 time their height, humans match or surpass any record made by cats with technology they have created. Sure, a cheetah can run 70 miles per hour, but a human can build a car and easily drive double that speed. Whereas cats can merely jump 3 times their height, humans can use their technology to travel past the earth's gravitational pull and into space itself. As for humans having been killed by cats, humans have managed to do far worse damage to the cat population. It is because of humans that tigers are close to being extinct. In other countries, cats are even considered a delicacy. With our weapons, we can instantly eliminate any kind of cat with a single pull of the index finger (in other words, a gun). As for booming roars, a human can easily produce a louder sound with a megaphone or an aircraft. As for opening doors and windows, humans invented doors and windows and have thus been doing this far longer than cats have. Not to mention that such feats aren't considered anything special to humans. 4) My opponent suggest that all domestic cats are cute, cuddly, and graceful, but do these cats look that way to you? http://img524.imageshack.us... http://img241.imageshack.us... http://img507.imageshack.us... Furthermore, since this is under a human perspective, he insinuates that humans have the ultimate authority on what is to be considered cute, cuddly, and graceful. Thus, I insist that human babies are certainly more cute, cuddly, and graceful. Chances are, when you cuddle with one, you won't get scratched or bitten. Also, when we take adult humans into perspective, well, as a heterosexual male . . . http://www.victoriassecretreviews.com... Yowzer! :D 5) Humans created this brand of humor in the first place, thus the most credit goes to humans. Again, this is suggesting that humans have the ultimate authority on something. Speaking of humor, humans are responsible for comedy centric programs and films, so most of our humor is indeed crafted by humans. 6) I'm willing to grant the notion that cats have some similarities to humans, but all this manages to do is concede to my case as it would suggest that cats are inferior to humans. As for my own reason: Humans have something which other animals can't even began to utilize in comparison; we humans utilize both knowledge and technology to compensate for any of our natural limits. With the two aforementioned qualities, we've managed to go to the moon, we've managed to create a means of traveling from one side of the planet to the other within hours, we've created devices which can literally level city size landscapes within seconds, we managed to create a means of communicating with each other on opposite sides of the planet, and we've tamed nearly every other animal we know of. What have cats done that can even come close to comparing to these feats created by humans? With all of this being noted, I now await my opponent's first rebuttal.