• Question: What makes us human?

    Asked by Supriya to Jackie, Michele, Oliver, Vicky, Yelong on 9 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Oliver Brown

      Oliver Brown answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      Another tough one! I’m no biologist, psychologist, or philosopher, so I’d probably have to say umm… genes and that? Humans are just a species like any other, only we specialised in the creation and use of tools. Over the centuries and millenia, the tools got more complex, and now here we all are! Using a global network of electromagnetic signals to communicate — pretty amazing really.

    • Photo: Jaclyn Bell

      Jaclyn Bell answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      Our ability to think and ask questions is what makes us human. Like Ollie has said – we built tools and learnt how to make them better. We are creative and curious and we ask questions and want to learn as much as we can from the day we learn to speak as children to the day we die.

    • Photo: Vicky Bayliss

      Vicky Bayliss answered on 12 Mar 2015:

      Physics isn’t really helpful in answering this question. Definitely one for philosophy!

    • Photo: Michele Faucci Giannelli

      Michele Faucci Giannelli answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      I would say our genetic material. If you would add (or remove) a chromosome in a human embryonic cell and implant it, assuming it could survive, it would not be human.It would at least be as different from humans ad we are different from chimps.

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