Anthropocentrism: Why do we Believe we are the Best?

7th June 2023

As a child, in the early years of elementary school, I made a discovery that seemed incredible to me: humans are animals! I asked for explanations from my teacher, and she told me that yes, according to science, we are animals and our scientific name is Homo sapiens, but that we are superior to other animals because we are more evolved.

I was even more confused. My passion for wild animals and nature led me to notice how all animals lived in an orderly manner, in peace and in harmony with the environment, while humans were busy destroying it, waging wars, trading food for pieces of paper, and stressing out all day long. I just couldn’t understand what made us Homo sapiens superior and more evolved than other animals.

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What is anthropocentrism?

Anthropocentrism is the tendency to consider human beings superior to everything else, to believe that everything (EVERYTHING) has been created by and for human beings, that every event is caused or is a consequence of human activity, and that human beings are the most evolved creatures on the planet.

However, Nature doesn’t care about that. For example, after 30 years of abandonment, Chernobyl, a city with over 800 years of history, has transformed into a lush forest, teeming with life.

Some believe that humans are more evolved because they possess reason, others because they have created laws, or because they have the ability to make choices. Still, others believe that humans are superior because they have the capacity to direct their will towards something greater, in a spiritual sense.

In general, it is believed that humans are superior because they no longer rely on instinct. However, it is difficult to distinguish who follows instinct and who does not by simply observing the world around us. Additionally, any trained animal is capable of deviating from this mysterious instinct as well.

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Do we follow instinct or not?

If we observe more closely, we notice that the majority of people are primarily driven by imitation, and very few stand out for their originality. Considering imitation as an instinct, it seems that the ability to not follow instinct is not a characteristic of all human beings, but only a small percentage of them.

Indeed, this characteristic is what allows for evolution in every living being. Living beings are designed to behave in a certain way. However, when a problem arises, only those with a suitable adaptation survive and reproduce, thus spreading the winning characteristic. For this mechanism to work, it is necessary for a population to have a small percentage of individuals capable of adopting different, innovative behaviors. And this is not a prerogative of human beings alone, but of all living beings, each in their own way.

Once, I was shooing away some pigeons from my backyard, trying to scare them off to another place. They all flew away, except for one. It stayed on the fence, staring at me just half a meter away from my face, making a sound similar to a growl. It was challenging me. And it wasn’t following its supposed instinct. Despite being a pigeon.

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What distinguishes us from other animals?

Man does not descend from monkeys. Man IS a monkey. We share a common ancestor with all living beings, and with monkeys a more recent ancestor (just as my mother is a more recent ancestor to me than my great-grandfather). All living beings today have an evolutionary history as long as ours, so we are not more evolved than others. The less evolved ones simply no longer exist; they are extinct.

A species could exhibit more evolved characteristics compared to other living beings, as these traits may be older. For example, the ability to fly in birds compared to flying squirrels. In the case of humans, the most evolved characteristics could include the ability to create and use tools, which, combined with our more recent latent eusociality, has enabled us to develop incredible technologies.

The characteristics of a species do not make it more evolved than another, but simply different. It’s like saying that a pigeon is more evolved than a human because it can fly.

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Well, so what then?

We humans believe ourselves to be so special, but the truth is that we are nothing more than big hairless monkeys, frightened by our own selves. Whether you like it or not.

Anthropocentrism ideologically disconnects us from Nature, but in reality, we are never separate from it. We are pieces of Nature, just like any other animal, living being, mineral, element, planet, star, galaxy, and so on. We can only move in accordance with its perfect balance. And luckily for us!