Deciding whether humans have unique qualities which set them apart from other animals is surely the most fundamental question in bioethics. A negative answer restricts the field considerably and excludes how we treat bacteria, beetles and bonobos from weekly updates of BioEdge.

However, the cover story of the current issue of New Scientist, the premier popular science magazine in the UK and Australia, at least, gives a positive response. “It is finally time to kiss goodbye to the idea that humans are qualitatively different from other animals. The notion has been ingrained for centuries, yet in recent years research has found overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We are not as unique as we thought,” the magazine writes.

This insight comes naturally “to anyone schooled in Darwinism”, it continues. And a range of current research cited in the issue is showing that differences between humans and animals are of degree, not of kind. The magazine has selected six articles about “'uniquely' human traits now found in animals”, together with comments from scientists and videos of animals in action. The six features are culture, mind reading, tool use, morality, emotions and personality.

Morality must be the most controversial of these, but Marc Beckoff, of the University of Colorado contends that many other species have rudimentary forms of morality: “during play they learn the rights and wrongs of social interaction, the moral norms that can then be extended to other situations such as sharing food, defending resources, grooming and giving care”.

Although the differences between humans and animals are quantitative rather than qualitative, the magazine acknowledges that they still matter. The job of science is to discover how much each of them matters. ~ New Scientist, May 24