What is unique about humans?

• What can humans do that no other species can do?
• What can humans feel that no other species can feel?
• What “ways of being”
• How did each species gain its capacities and traits?

Natural selection:

Ingredients necessary:

• Multiplication: Individuals that survive can reproduce. copies.
• Variability: Not every individual in a group is the same; they vary. Copies are not identical.
• Heredity: individuals can pass on traits on to other generations

Ecological niches

A particular environment in which creatures with the right capacities can survive.

Species’ traits

A trait that only or a few organisms has will become universal in the species if only those members of the species survive, reproduce and pass on the trait.

Physical and Cognitive Adaptations

If two genetically distinct groups diverge in their traits, they may be seen as different species altogether.