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Animals in the English language already means any living thing other than humans.

• loup-vaillant 15y ago
  Which is a plain mistake. http://lesswrong.com/lw/nj/similarity_clusters/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/nj/similarity_clusters/ I repeat, if you are right (I think you are) the English language is wrong http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/ We now know that making up a category that includes all fishes, insects, birds, reptiles… and all mammals (including apes), but Homo Sapiens and some of its now extinct cousins isn't reasonable. Unless of course if you believe that humans have immaterial souls and animals do not. That would make us very special. But the probability I assign to this possibility is negligible.
  • jarek 15y ago
    A language cannot be "wrong", especially a language without a strong central controlling authority.
  • chc 15y ago
    Even biologists have such a category: They call it "non-human animals". You might argue that this category is not generally useful, but it's not "wrong." That is itself a sort of superstition.
    • loup-vaillant 15y ago
      Well, at least by putting "non-human" in "non-human animals", they understood that human shouldn't be excluded by default. By "wrong" I essentially meant "you shouldn't do that", here because it is misleading. Using the single word "animal" when you actually mean "non-human animal" suggest we humans are not animals. We are. Now you changed my mind a bit: the "non-human animals" category does have its uses, and it does make sense to think of it. I just think it doesn't deserve the shorter expression "animals".