• Question: why are we the only species to form civilizations?

    Asked by xX_OldManVeganGains_Xx to John, Laura, Luke, Rob, Ruth on 21 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Ruth Patchett

      Ruth Patchett answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      So this depends on what you count as a civilization. For example ants and bees work together in communities and carry out common tasks for the continuation of their group, they even build structures to live in like nests, termite hills can be thought of as the same. Plenty of monkeys have small communities also with alpha males who are in charge and tasks for all the members of the group that benefit the whole group.
      I suppose we are fairly different that our structures and technologies are so advanced and our communities are by comparison-huge! This must be a product of the way we have evolved we have very advanced brains (one of the largest brain mass to body weight ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio) but also we have evolved with the ability to use tools and perform tasks, we also need some of these things, unlike a lot of animals we are not well adapted to live outdoors and stay warm and dry enough.
      This is a really interesting question and I look forward to seeing other scientists views on it. I am sure you can find a lot of different articles about this online too 🙂

    • Photo: Laura Finney

      Laura Finney answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      I think Ruth has prety much hit the nail on the head with what I was going to say. I guess we think of civilization as something like humans, but that is probably up for debate since animals like ants etc. all work together and are “civilised” in a way I guess!
      There are many different definitions:
      noun: civilisation
      the stage of human social development and organization which is considered most advanced
      -the process by which a society or place reaches an advanced stage of social development and organization.
      -the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area.

      So if you think of more than humans, then other species have reached advanced organisation etc. too!

      But like Ruth said, us being what we are today as a human civilisation is due to our brain size and evolution.

    • Photo: Luke Williams

      Luke Williams answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      Aside from the insects and primates there’s also dolphins which have a complex society as well. Elephants are another example. Wolves and other pack animals too.

      If you mean why don’t they build things, well insects often do. Different types of ant may form alliances or go to war too, for example. Pretty rare, but it happens. Ants can also farm too.

      If you mean why don’t animals use tools, well a whole host of animals do, including some primates and more interesting species such as crows.

      So there’s quite a few different groups out there!

    • Photo: Robert Williams

      Robert Williams answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      That depends on your definition fo civilisation.
      It is possible that [many] other animals create a civilistion – on their terms – such as Ants, Termites, Co-operative Spiders, Weaver Birds colonies, Blind mole rats etc., the list possibly extends to thousands or even million of different animals.
      We judge other civilisations by what we undertsand to be our values.
      For example when the European settleers went to America, they saw the native Indians as savages and ruled and judged them against our values.
      It is a fact that many early civilisations such as the Maya, ancient Egyptians etc., were highly organised and ran a civilised society – but not under the laws and rules that we now use to govern our civilisation.
      If or rather when an Alien species arrives on Earth – or we visit another Planet which has its own civilisation – there will be tensions because they will have differrent values to ours.

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