Our Brains Make Us Human

Pseudointellectual Gary Patton posted on the topic of What Makes Us Human in response to an article posted by Richard Dawkins titled Apes with big brains.

Gary claims that our culture defines us as human. He has it backwards. He's also deeply misunderstood the purpose of Dawkins's post.

A baby chimp raised in human culture will not grow into a human. Why not? Because of genetic differences, and the resulting physical characteristics (like "big brains").

Also, there is no single human culture. People in different countries have different cultures, but are all equally human. Why? Because they all have human genes, therefore human brains, and human minds.

Obviously, it's the human brain that makes us human beings. Our tools, farms, cities, knowledge, etc. came later, as a consequence. Anyone living 50,000 years ago, with none of our modern culture, was still as human as you or I.

Considering some make-believe "human" world separate from the "World of Nature" is useless dualism. It does nothing to help understand the brain or its evolutionary origin, which is the wonderful mystery Dawkins wrote about.