Blueprint by Nicholas A. Christakis

Author:Nicholas A. Christakis [CHRISTAKIS, NICHOLAS A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2019-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

Continuity with the Animal World

Most animals, including humans, have a bilateral body plan (that is, the right and left sides are symmetrical), which is something so basic we do not even consider it remarkable. Most vertebrates also have hearts, lungs, and other organs incredibly similar to our own. Sometimes these similarities are so direct that animals can be used as stand-ins for humans, as when people dissect frogs to learn about anatomy, test pharmaceuticals in mice, use cow insulin to treat diabetes in humans, or replace defective human heart valves with those taken from a pig. In 1985, when I was a medical student, we operated on dogs to learn about anatomy, anesthesia, and surgery. Over thirty years later, practicing on dogs has been, appropriately, phased out at medical schools. But back then, we did clumsy procedures, and I still remember—with great shame—the thud of the dog’s body as I dropped it into the container for disposal after we had performed the assigned splenectomy, which we surely botched.

The similarities between humans and animals do not end with the anatomy and physiology of our bodies, however. Laboratories around the country are now (humanely) using dogs to study animal cognition and emotion in order to gain insight into our own. Slowly but surely, stark, dichotomous statements regarding the supposed differences between humans and animals have yielded to the recognition of countless nonhuman analogues of human behavior. Dogs and even rats have empathy. Crows, crocodiles, and wasps use tools. Gorillas use language. Chimpanzees and elephants form friendships.

These abilities are not precisely the same as ours, but they still amaze and trouble us as we sense our continuity with the animal kingdom in fuller ways. The recognition of this continuity makes it increasingly hard, morally, to ignore that animals’ muscles, which we eat, are guided by their brains, which have thoughts and feelings. As we break down barriers between ourselves and the animal world, the human claims to superiority and dominion, not just distinctiveness, break down.

The idea that human social behavior resembles animals’ is not new. For instance, similarities between human societies and ants’ have been noted since ancient times. In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles commanded an army of fierce, swarming Myrmidons, from the Greek word for “ant.” Ant societies have continued to be a focus of scientific study and popular attention, especially since the 1960s with the groundbreaking work of biologist E. O. Wilson.4 But humans are social in a materially different way than insects are.5 The organization of social insects such as ants, bees, wasps, and termites differs from ours in its extreme division of labor and (most important) in the sterility of virtually all individuals within a colony. Plus, all the members of a colony are clones and therefore genetically identical.6 As we saw, science fiction writers even treat insect societies as the most disturbing contrast to our own.

Human social behaviors have much more in common with early hominids and our primate cousins than with insects, of course. But we have seen

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