Talk:Human/Archive 25

message: Is there any good reason why 'homo sapiens' isn't the title?
If homo sapiens is one of a group of 'humans', the title 'human' is misleading, as there are other entries for different types of 'homo'.
Also - aren't differing species defined by interbreeding, the lack of ability to do so? What is the evidence we homo sapiens could not interbreed with our fellow homos? So shouldn't the taxonomy here be different 'race'?
Admittedly, I'm no biologist, and I may have misunderstood the science I've been reading lately. Please enlighten me!
--TresRoque 09:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Homo sapiens is a redirect to Human, using the Wikipedia practice of titling the article with the Most common term. Generally, people speak of "Humans" not of "Homo sapiens" - but as they both mean the same thing, Homo sapiens is a redirect here in case someone searches for Homo sapiens. KillerChihuahua?!? 09:54, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's my perspective. If a reader see "Homo sapiens" in an article, what will the reader think is on the other end of the link? They won't suspect that the Human article is there. They're likely to click on the link if they're curious about the term Homo sapiens and human taxonomy in general. Wikipedia could use a page on human taxonomy: our species, genus, family, etc. This page includes that information, but it's too general a page to serve as the destination for a wikilink like "human taxonomy." I changed the "Homo sapiens" page to a page about human taxonomy, but someone changed it back. Maybe "Human taxonomy" would be a better place for the information about the term "Homo sapiens." Jonathan Tweet 15:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: TR, species isn't defined just by ability to interbreed but actual interbreeding. If we didn't interbreed with H. habilis, etc., then we're a different species even if we could interbreed with them (like say at a party, when we'd been drinking). Jonathan Tweet 15:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Technically, Homo sapiens should be a disambiguation page linking to Homo sapiens idaltu and Homo sapiens sapiens (this article). However, due to the relative obscurity of the former, this will likely never happen. Technically, Homo sapiens should be a separate article discussing the two subspecies: Homo sapiens idaltu and Homo sapiens sapiens (this article). Mgiganteus1 15:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh, I see that a separate article on Homo sapiens has been created... Mgiganteus1 15:38, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And I've reverted it to a redirect to this article. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:20, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Care to share your feelings on this topic, Uther? If human taxonomy isn't covered on "Homo sapiens," where is it (or should it be) covered? Jonathan Tweet 16:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On Human. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The standard for species articles is to have the article located at the common name for the species. The taxobox gives the relevant details on the major taxa. Information on intermediary taxa is located on the higher ranking articles. This article has tons more information than any other species article, because of the broad information we have on it, and because of the wide variety of opinion on what "human" is. (Is it just a biological species, is it a divine blessing, etc.) If you are just interested in the taxonomy, you look at the relevant portion of the article. If you are looking or spirituality, you look at te relevant portion of the article. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Why something that is different than other species articles? This article has a "scientific" section. That's where the relevant information about taxonomy should be. If that section gets to be too big, then it can become a separate article, with a summary left in its place on this article. That's how all of the other sections of this article are handled. you haven't given any justification of why a taxonomy section/article should be treated any differently than the other sections of this article. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "If that section gets to be too big, then it can become a separate article, with a summary left in its place on this article." That's a fine solution. The spinoff article will be "Human taxonomy." "you haven't given any justification of why a taxonomy section/article should be treated any differently than the other sections of this article." Because a reader looking for "human taxonomy" deserves and article about human taxonomy, not an article about humans in general. Also, as MG has suggested, this article is about the subspecies H> sapiens sapiens, not about the species H. sapiens. Jonathan Tweet 17:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All other articles about the only extant subspecies are at the species. I can not see an article about human taxonomy being long enough to ever be more that a brief article. If it ever gets to be longer than a stub, I'd be very surprised if its "final" length would be more than one or two paragraphs. That's article section length. And again - any significant discussion of something above the species level would be better dealt with on that taxa's article, not here. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Concur. Please note that, for example, Anura redirects to Frog. Same thing, different animal. KillerChihuahua?!? 17:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Homo Sapiens 

message: What do y'all say? Is this the year to make Human into a truly worthy Featured Article? It's about time Wikipedia got crackin' on making this article one of its cornerstones. It may take dozens of references, months of copyediting and trimming and expanding, and a lot of tiresome debates of what does or doesn't merit inclusion, but I say it's worth it for a Human article we can be proud of. For such an important topic, this article has become surprisingly stagnant over the months; we seem to have forgotten that the article isn't acceptable just because its lead section has finally reached an adequate compromise. There's still the rest of the article to account for. -Silence 07:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Goal for 2007 

message: This claim was recently added to the lead section of Human by User:Wiki fanatic, without any explanation, discussion, or references:
:"Humans are an extreme example of superpredators having directly and indirectly caused the extinction of some plant and animal species. In addition, mutualistic collaborations between humans and other animals (like dogs) in shared hunting make them even more deadly than they would be singly."
When a reference for this claim was requested, the request was dismissed out-of-hand by User:Dionyseus on the grounds that "the fact that humans have caused the extinction of many species is common knowledge". But while this is certainly true, that's not what the addition in question says: it says that humans have primarily caused extinctions only through predation, when in reality pollution, climate change, and development/migration in general are much more important factors in rising anthropogenic extinction rates. In particular, the claim that humans are superpredators could very well be original research, just as much as the claim that they are an invasive species (which was removed not long ago) was. "Superpredator" may also be a neologism; the term is a redirect on Wikipedia to apex predator (which is itself an unreferenced, source-lacking, low-quality stubby page). Linking to such a rarely-used term in the lead section, and possibly in this article at all, may constitute undue weight in that it popularizes an obscure term to push a specific view. To ensure that this is not the case, reliable and mainstream references are vitally necessary.
On the other hand, it is clearly true that humans have caused massive environmental damage, climate change, and extinctions through their activities, though to what extent and in what ways may be controversial. I can't find discussion of this on the article currently, so my recommendation is that we discuss the best place to add this information to the main body of the article; it is not needed in the lead section, which should be primarily concerned with providing a basic understanding of humans themselves, not of their historical and present effect on non-human species. (We may end up adding the information to the lead later, in shortened form and following discussion regarding whether it is necessary, but for now we should be focusing on providing somewhat more in-depth information on this topic in the article body, since lead sections should largely serve to summarize what's already in the article text, not present much unique information.)
So, should we make a new section to accomodate the topic of human effects on the environment? Although that's one possibility, ideally, we should find a way to incorporate it into another section, because we need to keep this article as concise as possible, and because we can probably cover this topic as much as is needed in about 2 paragraphs. So, can this topic fit into any of the existing sections adequately? For example, under "Habitat and population"? Once we've decided on a good place to insert it, we can work on removing non-noteworthy, dubious, or unreferenced aspects of the added paragraph of information, and replace it with more substantive and academically-supported data. -Silence 20:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It definitely comes across as a neologism, and shouldn't be included without references. --Yath 21:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Dionyseus has re-added the paragraph in question a second time without commenting on this problem or providing a source. I'll assume he didn't notice this section and add a link to it in the edit description. -Silence 02:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not notice this section.  I think it's quite obvious that humans are superpredators, I don't understand how there can be any objections to this.  Dionyseus 02:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: An article in the American Science in 1998 says "The foraging hypothesis is supported by data indicating that humans evolved as superpredators and manufacturers of highly complex tools by around 50,000 years ago, resulting in a wave of mass extinctions of large animals." Dionyseus 02:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia does not have an inclusion criterion that says "what is obvious to Dionyseus can be included". It has an inclusion criterion that says "what is noteworthy and verified can be included". References are the fuel that makes that Wikipedia machine work; find some before instituting or advocating a major change to the lead section of one of Wikipedia's most prominent and central articles. So, (1) provide references to demonstrate that superpredator is an accepted, established, commonly-used zoological term, rather than a neologism; (2) provide references to demonstrate it is widely accepted that humans are superpredators; (3) provide references to demonstrate that human predation, rather than environmental destruction, is the primary cause of anthropogenic extinctions, and that this is the accepted scientific view; (4) justify the inclusion of both this fact (including the amazingly trivial sentence about human-dog hunting groups, as though this has central relevance to modern human life when we don't even take the time to mention agriculture in the lead section!!) and this uncommon term in the lead section of Human; (5) justify giving it an entire paragraph in the lead section of Human; (6) stop disregarding the rest of the article in favor of the lead section, and join the discussion regarding where we can spend a couple of paragraphs in the body of the article discussing the environmental damage and extinctions and climate change that humans have caused. That should be our first priority, before we start arguing about what does or doesn't merit further mentioning int he lead section. -Silence 02:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Superpredator 

message: After rethinking the current setup a lot, I'm coming to the conclusion that it would be more useful to have a multisectional article, rather than a bisectional one; although the "Biology/Society and culture" dichotomy served us well for a long time, it seems time to cut things up a bit more specifically. It's always been tough to fit certain topics into one overcat or the other (e.g., "Love and sexuality" isn't really societal or cultural, per se...), and now that "History" has been added (though that can still be discussed in the above section), there seems more reason to consider other possible splits, in the interest of clarity and consistency. My new proposed layout is as follows:
#Biology
##Physiology and genetics
##Life cycle
##Habitat and population
##Diet
#Psychology
##Consciousness and thought
##Motivation and emotion
###Love and sexuality
#History
##Evolution
##Rise of civilization
#Culture
##Language
##Art, music and literature
##Spirituality and religion
##Philosophy and self-reflection
##Science and technology
##Race and ethnicity
#Society
##Government and politics
###War
##Trade and economics
(Note that although "Mind" isn't categorized under "Biology" under the above scheme, this is more a matter of convention than of POV: all three of the subcategories of mind can be viewed in terms of their physical dimensions as well, e.g., thought is neural, emotion and sexuality are hormonal, etc. What matters for the purposes of this section won't be whether something is or isn't biological, but whether it is extensively psychological, emotional, etc. I'm also currently debating the possibility of either renaming "Mind" to "Psychology" or "Biology" to "Body", because there's currently a bit of a disjunct between how the two are named (the main reason I avoided each is because they might be construed as too limiting); if anyone has any opinions or suggestions on this matter, that would be very helpful.
Also, concerning the basic order of the layout I outlined above, it may seem a bit arbitrary at first glance, but my reasoning was as follows: I started with "Biology", "History", and "Society/Culture". I reasoned that one cannot properly understand human society or culture unless one already understands human history and human biology. I then reasoned that one cannot properly understand human history unless one already understands human biology (though human society/culture is not a prerequisite). And I reasoned that it is possible to understand human biology without understanding human history or society/culture. So I placed these three sections, which are currently on Human, into the order which seems best to introduce someone to each topic with a proper grounding. I then split up "Biology" into "Biology" and "Mind" sections (the latter after the former because one can't understand the functioning of the mind without the brain, but the reverse isn't really the case), and split "Society and culture" into "Culture" and "Society" (I don't see any compelling reason to put one before the other, so I just chose the order that the article was more-or-less already in; feel free to make a case for either being first).
So, what do y'all think? -Silence 21:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: These look like sensible categories to me. Jonathan Tweet 14:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New proposed layout

message: The photo of the astronaut using the MMU is overdone because people think it looks neat. In reality the MMU was used a grand total of 3 times, and hasn't been used since the Challenger disaster. It was deemed to be too risky to use when other alternatives can be used that accomplish the same goals with less risk involved. So why are we using a failure as representing science and technology? I suggest we change the picture to something else. 67.76.182.140 18:01, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's perfectly fine, although in fairness the image is not meant to literally represent an important technology, but rather to generally and figuratively represent the exploration of space. Any suggestions for good alternatives? -Silence 18:32, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: A magnified view of a microchip, would be nice. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:19, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Such as this :Image:InternalIntegratedCircuit2.JPG. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I'll change it to that right now. 65.40.239.99 23:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

text: The microchip is absolutely and unequivocally one of the worst possible choices for Human's example of human technology. It provides no useful information whatsoever to anyone who is not already moderately familiar with microchips; for anyone else, it's just a pretty arrangement of colors. The previous image at least provided some actual use, even though (albeit on a somewhat quibbling point) it isn't ideal. The fact that an image is imperfect is reason to find a better image, not to replace it with a terrible one. The reason the image is poor is that it provides no information value to our reader base (i.e., people who know little or nothing about humans): it emphasizes none of the important aspects of technology with respect to humans, by not providing an example of humans using a technology, by not providing a technology that non-specialists will routinely see humans interacting with (for example, clothing, or a cell phone), etc.; it instead tries to provide an essential, "reduced" form of one of the most important modern technologies, in the process sacrificing any utility or value for readers, because the image effectively says nothing whatsoever about microchips except "microchips are in some way relevant and important to a consideration of human technology"; it does not show humans creating or thinking up technologies, using technologies, etc. -Silence 00:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Next time change it to something that IS appropriate instead of whining and reverting when we already discussed that the original picture was NOT appropriate. Anyway I changed it to another space related photo, but this one is more appropriate than the MMU photo. 65.40.239.99 05:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The original picture is appropriate, it's just not ideal. There wasn't really and major or immediate concern with the first space image; we really only removed it on a technicality. -Silence 06:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That wasn't what I asked. Re-read what I said. 65.40.239.99 16:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The only reason no one else chimed in was that it seemed pretty obvious that the space technology, while not perfect was better than the chip. Jossi and an anon IP does not make a consensus, although, it is a good starting point for discussion.  For the record, i hate the chip.  Someone using a computer or cell phone would be more appropirate if a chip needs to be used.  At the end of the day the space theme seems appropirate since many equate NASA and space exploration with new technology.  Just the fact the person is IN space is enough for me. David D. (Talk) 16:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Who cares about the chip? It has been changed to something more appropriate already so why is this discussion continuing? 64.236.245.243 18:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is continuing? Where? David D. (Talk) 18:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Science and technology picture should be changed 

message: If we are going to assert that as a fact, we need to attribute it to someone notable. Otherwise it is an unattributed (and wrong, IMO) opinion. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Read Religion, and find a source that describes that religion is used to "manipulate natural phenomena". ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Read Religion yourself. "Religion is the adherence to codified beliefs and rituals". Beliefs can be explanatory (though in very many cases beliefs are also attempts to manipulate the world, as when the religious believe that they will go to Heaven if they just have "faith"), but rituals are never explanations. They are always attempts or manipulate, not to explain. It would be fair to say that mythology is entirely explanatory, but it is not fair to characterize religion in the same way—particularly if we include ancient religions, many of which had very few attempted explanations, and a plethora of magic-like attempts to influence the world. Likewise, you describe "science and technology" as being attempts to manipulate, rather than explain, phenomena, but clearly this is only true for technology, and is patently untrue for science. "Science" and "mythology" seek to explain, not to influence; in contrast, "religion" seeks both to explain and to influence, and "technology" seeks primarily to influence, but can also be argued to have explanatory aspects as well, depending on how broadly "technology" is defined. -Silence 22:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: manipulate  is a loaded word, and is the context has a bias. by the above explanation everything "manipulates"--HalaTruth(ሐላቃህ) 22:04, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Science, in itself, does not attempt to manipulate phenomena. Scientific knowledge can be used to try to do so, but science itself is just "knowledge". "Searching for answers about self and world" is exactly what the intro is describing when it talks about "understanding". However, I agree that "natural phenomena" is too narrow. I believe all these issues can be entirely resolved by replacing "natural phenomena" with "the world around them", or perhaps just "the world". I would also consider it acceptable, perhaps, to replace "manipulate" with "influence", if there are NPOV concerns about the current word choice. -Silence 05:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That works pretty well, Silence. Care to make the edit? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Prayer is an attempt to change the world by enlisting the help of a god or gods. Sometimes payment for these services are offered as sacrifice. Using gods in this way is no different from using a shovel to dig a ditch. TimVickers 17:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Perhaps if we replaced "religion" with "religious rites" and listed it under ways to manipulate or influence the world along with "technology" (and perhaps "magic" as well, the other famous human activity to try to manipulate the world), we could then list "science" and "mythology" under ways to explain the world, and have organized them in that way. What do you think? Though I still haven't found a satisfying way to make the other sentences "flow" into the last sentence under the new structure... -Silence 19:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

text: That is a reductio ad absurdum of religion, most probably based on the POVs of both editors above as it pertains to belief. I would object to such an assertion. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:52, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you don't think prayer is an attempt to influence the world through an appeal to gods, then what do you think is the intent of this activity? TimVickers 23:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

text: You are misusing the logical term reductio ad absurdum. A reductio ad absurdum takes an argument's premise and shows that it can lead to absurd conclusions. "Religious rites have been used to try to influence phenomena" is not an argument; it is simply a statement of fact. If you disagree with this fact, then explain how this is not so; if you believe this fact is being used in some unstated, implicit argument against religion, then tell us why you think this, what this argument is, and how it is relevant to this discussion or article. As-is, your claim is meaningless, as well as offensive to all practitioners of religion, as it seems to claim that belief in the efficacy of religious ritual is "absurd". Clearly this POVed assumption of yours is not acceptable for Wikipedia itself to make. I would also remind you to assume good faith rather than immediately leaping to the conclusion that every editor who disagrees with you must have an agenda. -Silence 23:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record I think it is correct to say that "Prayer is an attempt to manipulate". Since religious people are quite adament that it works (miracles) one might even say "prayer is used to manipulate", but this would be stretching the POV too much. David D. (Talk) 16:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I will point out that although almost every statistical test of the efficacy of prayer to manipulate many events in the world does not show any evidence that supports it, this is not universally true. There is growing evidence that prayer does influence the biochemical makeup of human brains and even potentially rewires the human brain, as many other experiences do. For example, acquiring language, learning music, studying and meditation also can change human brains. So in a strange way, prayer might influence the world in some demonstrable ways.--Filll 16:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You (TimVickers) have a very primitive view of prayer. Prayer is many things becides asking god to do something, it's thanking god, it's praising god, it's acknowledging that god exists, it's creating a connection between the worshiper and god. In some religions (Jainism for example), they don't even belive in god, yet pray anyway. It's clear you're just trying to rile people up, this is not the place for that. Ariel. 15:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But prayer is not mentioned in the article, just the broad usage of religion. I don't see anyone is trying to minimise the role of prayer.  But can anyone really deny that some forms of prayer do not have the goal to manipulate the world? Many people pray for critically ill patients to be healed, possibly whole congregations. What about laying of hands?  This is not uncommon.  Whether these are successful or not (see Fill above), tey do represent attempts to manipulate the physical world. At the other end of the spectrum, what of sacrifices? Was that not an attempt to please the Gods to bring good crops? And fertility rites? David D. (Talk) 18:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Perhaps a very primitive view, as I know only a little about religion "Give us this day our daily bread" is a phrase that has stuck in my mind. TimVickers 17:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion to manipulate natural phenomena? 

message: *Systema: Naturae
**Superdomain: Biota
***Domain: Eucytota
****Kingdom: Metazoa
*****Subkingdom: Eumetazoa
******Branch: Bilateria
*******Grade: Deuterostomia
********Infrakingdom: Chordonia
*********Phylum: Chordata
**********Subphylum: Vertebrata
***********Infraphylum: Gnathostomata
************Superclass: Tetrapoda
*************Clade: Amniota
**************Subclade: Mammaliaformes
***************Class: Mammalia
****************Sublcass: Theriiformes
*****************Infraclass: Holotheria
******************Superlegion: Trechnotheria
*******************Legion: Cladotheria
********************Sublegion: Zatheria
*********************Infralegion: Tribosphenida
**********************Supercohort: Theria
***********************Cohort: Placentalia
************************Magnorder: Epitheria
*************************Superorder: Preptotheria
**************************Grandorder: Archonta
***************************Order: Primates
****************************Suborder: Euprimates
*****************************Infraorder: Haplorhini
******************************Parvorder: Anthropoidea
*******************************Superfamily: Cercopithecoidea
********************************Family: Hominidae
*********************************Subfamily: Homininae
**********************************Tribe: Hominini
***********************************Subtribe: Hominina
************************************Genus: Homo
*************************************Species: Sapiens
**************************************Subspecies: Sapiens
***************************************Variety: Cro-magnon
****************************************Form: (all the human forms (races) descanting from the Cro-magnon "strain"; like hispanic, caucasian, semitic, etc...) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.3.168.101 (talk) 02:31, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The listing of so many modern human forms as descendants of Cro-Magnons is wrong. "Cro-Magnon" is not properly term in this tree. Cro-Magnon is simply a name applied to the earliest modern humans in Europe. Note that the Cro-Magnon article states that Cro-Magnons were descended from populations in the Middle East. In addition, the 'racial' history of Europe is far more complicated than would be implied by saying Europeans are descended from Cro-Magnons. Btw, "Hispanic" is a cultural category, not a 'racial' one, and "Semitic" is a language family. -- Donald Albury 14:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Technically all racial categories are based on culture because genetic divergence in racial groups isn't significant enough to categorize those racial groups into authentic sub species categories. Btw, "Semitic" is also an ethnic group, which is different from a "racial" group. 64.236.245.243 18:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible Classification 

message: I dont care how! but please change the picture! I dont care that its a drawing! I dont care its encyclopedic! Children go to wikipedia! I'm a children! Please delete the picture, blur the parts out, or change the picture! I encourage my freinds to go on wikipedia but now im having second thoughts! (65.34.72.52 05:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "I'm a children"? Well, if you are offended by human anatomy, don't use Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not censored and it may contain objectionable content. Most children won't be seeing anything new in an image like the NASA one at the top of Human, though. -Silence 06:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Yeah really, Its science and it is for the quality of the article it should stay (plus not most children know whats so bad about this pic anyway they probaly will just say "HAHA naked people *giggle*") --Matterfoot 00:39, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

text: You am a children? Good sir, you most certainly am not a children; I refer you to the first noble truth of the Internet: "On the Internet, the men are men, the women are men, and children are the FBI." (My apologies to everyone for my immature posting.) 75.31.90.244 04:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: yeah like its so wrong to have a picture of human anatomy i know Superior1 22:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change the Picture! 

message: but now inhabit every continent I think it should be changed either to
but now inhabit every continent, excluding Anartica
or
but now inhabit every continent except Anartica which is not permanatly habited--Matterfoot 00:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you'll find that Antarctica is permanently inhabited. People have been born just off its coast, too. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:39, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Location of Humans? 

message: Human refers to any animal in the Homo genus. Homo Sapiens is more precise. This article should use colloquial terms over scientific ones. 64.236.245.243 14:28, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So which is it now? You may have to make up your mind, you know. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:37, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Err, my mistake. I meant this article should use scientific terms over colloquial ones. Title should be Homo Sapiens, not human. 64.236.245.243 14:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Our guideline of naming articles says, "Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." Human fits that criterion bettern than Homo spaiens. -- Donald Albury 01:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title should be Homo Sapiens not human 

message: Re: I agree, Human DOES refer to any animal in the Homo Genus, and yes, I also agree with the Human Inhabitance on Earth. It should be changed to be more accurate rather than saying we live on every continent. Our species would have had to adapt to the increasingly cold weather in order to live in Antarctica, or at least have the intelligence and ability to build certain structures in the dangerously cold lands.
My Question:
As you all have known, Homo Sapiens (Humans/Human-Beings) have had control over this world for Thousands of years. But how have we taken control of this planet? Is it because we have opposable thumbs? Is it because we are able to stand up straight or maybe because we invented hunting tools? Is it because the early humans tamed wolves/dogs to help hunt, to help us find our food? Is it because we discovered fire or invented the wheel? This question has been running through my mind for as long as I could possibly remember. Is it because we built ships, or is could it be because the early Homos (Homo Sapiens) built ships? It might seem as though my question will never be answered.
:Read Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, and possibly The Third Chimpanzee by the same author. Samsara (talk • contribs) 12:29, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ^Answer his/her question instead of asking someone to go out of their way to read some books. It's easier just to answer a question than to tell someone to spend several hours to read a book. The answer is, basically everything you said, and more. Intelligence combined with our physiology (standing upright, hands free to manipulate objects, thumbs, etc). 64.236.245.243 14:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This page is intended for discussions of the form and contents of the article. It is not a reference desk. -- Donald Albury 01:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why do we have control over this planet? 

message: Homo sapiens is not listed in the Red List and therefore should be marked in this article as either Not Evaluated (technically) or Secure (realistically) instead of Least Concern. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CLove3 (talk • contribs) 06:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree --Theymos 07:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree. On the other hand, this could be also NT, for the species could be wiped out by the action of man. 91.153.54.19 06:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, IMO it should be NE until an official body has changed it. ffm ✎talk 23:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conservation Status 

message: Isn't there an inherent bias in this article, seeing as it was written by humans? ffm yes? 00:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's kind of an unavoidable problem. As long as we're not saying that humans are inherently better than other animal species, we're probably ok. 75.31.90.244 18:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I wouldn't worry about bias, theres lots of self hateing humans that beleive people are a force of evil. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.38.99.188 (talk) 01:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias, reverting vandalism 

message: This article has incorrect usage of grammar and punctuation. I don't know who wrote it, but they were evidently so sure of themselves that they wouldn't allow anyone else to edit the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.201.118.165 (talk) 01:45, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why don't you test the water? You can't be sure they are "so sure of themselves that they wouldn't allow anyone else to edit the article" unless you try. David D. (Talk) 04:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar