Republic of the Philippines

State Universities and Colleges

GUIMARAS STATE COLLEGE
GRADUATE SCHOOL
Buenavista, Guimaras

EDUCATION 213- SOCIOLOGICAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL

FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION

MODULE 2- ANTHROPOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF

EDUCATION

LESSON 14- THE SUPERIORITY OF MAN OVER OTHER

ANIMALS

THE ROLE OF HEREDITY IN DEVELOPMENT

ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

MELVIN A. VILLARUZ

ME - 1A

DR. CECILIA N. OBON

Professor
 Republic of the Philippines
State Universities and Colleges
GUIMARAS STATE COLLEGE
GRADUATE SCHOOL
Buenavista, Guimaras

EDUCATION 213- SOCIOLOGICAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL

FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION

I. MODULE 2 - ANTHROPOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF

EDUCATION

II. LESSON 14 - THE SUPERIORITY OF MAN OVER OTHER ANIMALS,

THE ROLE OF HEREDITY IN DEVELOPMENT AND ORAL AND

WRITTEN LANGUAGE

III. INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

1. Know the superiority of man over other animals.

2. Explain the role of heredity in development of an individual.

3. Differentiate oral from written language.

4. Recognize the superiority of man over animals, the role of

heredity in development and written and oral languages as basis of

classroom instruction.
IV. SUBJECT MATTER CONTENT

SUPERIORITY OF MAN OVER OTHER ANIMALS

THE ROLE OF HEREDITY IN DEVELOPMENT

ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

A. Introduction

The justification for human primacy over animals came

from religions that stated that humans are superior to animals

because they have an immortal soul, and that God commanded

humans to rule over animals. However, the Theory of Evolution

and modern physiology have pushed back against those beliefs,

showing that there is an evolutionary continuum between

animals and humans and that there are no fundamental

differences between physiology of the humans and other

mammals (Rachels, 1990).

Modern neuroscience has in fact uncovered many

differences between humans and the rest of the animals that

makes us unique. These differences are not limited to a

quantitative difference in intelligence but extend to many other

mental and behavioural abilities that make us completely unique

(Penn et al., 2008)

 B. Body

THE SUPERIORITY OF MAN OVER OTHER ANIMALS

1. Theory of Mind is the ability to understand what other people are

feeling and thinking [pp. 172-178 in (Blackmore, 2004); pp. 48-54

in (Gazzaniga, 2008)]. We do that by running inside our heads a

model of what is happening in other person’s mind. Of course, the

model is not always right, but nevertheless it is extremely valuable

because it lets us predict the behavior of people around us.

2. Episodic memory. Episodic memory is remembering things that

happened to us. That is, episodic memory retains events as they

were experienced by ourselves in a particular place and time.

 Episodic memory appears to be uniquely human, because it involves

subjective experiences, a concept of self and subjective time. This is

important because it allows us to travel mentally in time through

subjective experiences, while animals are locked in the present of

their current motivational state.

3. Humans emotions. Mammals, birds and some other animals have a

set of six basic emotions listed by Ekman: anger, fear, disgust, joy,

sadness and surprise. However, we humans are able to feel many

other emotions that regulate our social behavior and the way we

view the world: guilt, shame, pride, honor, awe, interest, envy,

nostalgia, hope, despair, contempt and many others. While

emotions like love and loyalty may be present in mammals that live

in hierarchical societies, emotions like guilt, shame and their

counterparts pride and honor seem to be uniquely human. What is

clear is that many of the emotions that we value as human are not

present in animals.

4. Empathy and compassion. Empathy is defined as the capacity to feel

what another person is feeling from their own frame of reference. It

is a well-established fact that many animals react to distress by

other animals by showing signs of distress themselves. However,

this does not seem to represent true empathy as defined above, but
 a genetically encoded stress response in anticipation of harm. Since

empathy requires feeling what the other person is feeling from their

own frame of reference, it seems to require theory of mind.

Compassion is currently thought to be different from empathy

because it involves many other parts of the brain. It seems to be

associated with complex cultural and cognitive elements. Therefore,

it seems safe to assume that animals are not able to feel

compassion.

5. Language and culture. Although animals do communicate with each

other using sounds, signs and body language, human language is a

qualitative leap from any form of animal communication in its

unique ability to convey factual information and not just emotional

states. In that, human language is linked to our ability to store huge

amounts of semantic and episodic memory, as defined above. The

human brain has a unique capacity to quickly learn spoken

languages during a portal that closes around 5-6 years of age.

Attempts to teach sign languages to apes has produced only limited

success and can be attributed to a humanization of the brain of

those animals, raised inside human culture. The effectiveness of

spoken and written language to store information across many

generations gave raise to human cultures. The working of the

human brain cannot be understood without taking culture into

 account. Culture completely shapes the way we think, feel, perceive

and behave. Although there are documented cases of transmission

of learned information across generations in animals, producing

what we could call an animal culture, no animal is as shaped by

culture as we are.

6. Esthetic sense or the appreciation of beauty also seems to be

uniquely human. Of course, animals can produce great beauty in the

form of colorful bodies, songs and artful behavior. What seems to be

lacking is their ability to appreciate and value that beauty beyond

stereotypical mating and territorial behaviors. Even attempts to

teach chimps to produce art by drawing have largely failed.

7. Ethics is the ability to appreciate fairness, justice and rights. It is at

the very core of our ability to form stable societies and to cooperate

to achieve common goals. It depends on theory of mind (which

allows us to “put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes”); on social

emotions like guilt, shame, pride and contempt; on empathy and

compassion, and on cultural heritage. Lacking all those mental

abilities, animals have no sense of ethics. Even though some studies

have shown that monkeys have a primitive sense of fairness

(particularly when it applies to their own interest), it is but a pale

anticipation of our sense of justice. It simply goes to show how that

 ethics is rooted in our evolutionary history. The fact that animals

cannot even remotely comprehend the concept of rights is a strong

argument for why they should not have rights. What sense does it

make to give animals something that they do not know that they

lack?

8. Extended consciousness. Humans possess a kind of consciousness

that no other animal has: the ability to see ourselves as selves

extending from the pass to the future [pp. 309-321 (Gazzaniga,

2008)]. This special kind of consciousness has been called by

neuroscientist Antonio Damasio “extended consciousness” [Chapter

7 in (Damasio, 1999)] and allow us a sort of “mental time travel” to

relive events in the past and predict what may happen to us in the

future (Suddendorf and Corballis, 2007). Extended consciousness is

based on our ability to have episodic memory and theory of mind.

Episodic memory configures remembered events around the image

of the self, whereas theory of mind allows us to create a model of

our own mind as it was during a past event or to hypothesize how it

would be in a future event. I should also point out that a few

animals (apes, dolphins and elephants) may turn out to have

episodic memory, theory of mind and hence extended

consciousness. However, this is still very much in doubt.

9. Suffering and happiness. It is a common mistake to confuse

suffering with pain and happiness with joy. Pain is the

representation of a bodily state and the emotion associated with it

(Craig, 2003). Likewise, joy is an emotion associated with an

excited but pleasant body state in an agreeable environment.

Suffering and happiness are much deeper than that, and refer to the

totality of a mental state, encompassing cognition, emotion and

state of consciousness. Although suffering and happiness are

normally associated with certain emotions, there is not always a

correspondence with them. For example, one can be happy while

feeling scared or sad, or suffer even in the presence of a passing

joy. Arguably, happiness and suffering require some continuity in

time, which would seem to require extended consciousness. In view

of all this, we need to wonder whether happiness and suffering can

exist in beings that have no episodic memory, no extended

consciousness, no sense of self, and no culture. Iit is quite clear

that we humans have a capacity to be happy and to suffer that goes

far beyond what animals can experience. So human suffering counts

more than any suffering than an animal could have.

THE ROLE OF HEREDITY IN DEVELOPMENT

Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is

the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either

through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the

offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their

parents. Through heredity, variations between individuals can

accumulate and cause species to evolve by natural selection. The

study of heredity in biology is genetics.

Heritable traits are known to be passed from one generation to

the next via DNA, a molecule that encodes genetic information. (DNA –

Deoxyribonucleic Acid)

Role of Heredity

The personality pattern is inwardly determined by and closely

associated with the maturation of physical and mental characteristics

which constitute the individual’s hereditary endowment. Although

social and other environmental factors affect the form a personality

pattern takes, it is not instilled or controlled from without but evolves

from the potentials within the individual. The principal raw materials of

personality-physique, intelligence and temperament are the results of

heredity. How a person will develop depends on the environmental

influences within which a person grows.

 The significance of hereditary foundations in determining the

personality pattern has been stressed by many researchers. It is

generally held that personality is formed from the interaction of

significant figures (first the mother, later the father and siblings, later

extra familial figures) with the child. The child brings to this interaction

biological constitution, a set of needs and intellectual capacities which

determine the way in which a person is acted upon by the significant

figures in her environment. In the course of interaction of hereditary

and environmental factors, the individual selects from his environment

what fits his needs and rejects what does not. Thus personality pattern

develops through interactions with the environment which an

individual himself has initiated. One reason for stressing the role of

heredity in the development of personality is to recognize the fact that

personality pattern is subject to limitations. A person who inherits a

low level of intelligence, for example, cannot, even under the most

favourable environmental conditions, develop a personality pattern

that will lead to adequate personal and social adjustment, than a

person with high level of adjustment. Thus heredity sets limits to a

person’s development. Furthermore, recognition of the limitations

imposed by heredity underlines the fact that people are not totally free

to choose and develop the kind of personality pattern they want. Using

intelligence again as an illustration it may be said that a person with a

lowgrade intelligence cannot develop the personality pattern of a

leader even though he wants to do so and even though he has a

strong motivation to try to develop the personality traits essential for

leadership.

ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

Language is the means which people use to express their thoughts; it

is both oral and written.

Oral language is a combination of sounds used to express thought.

The sounds used to express thought are grouped in spoken words. A

spoken word may be a single sound or a group of sounds. The sounds

of oral language are represented by letters to form written language.

Words of oral language have their equivalent words in written

language. Single words, whether oral or written, express ideas. Words

must be properly grouped to express thought.

Written language is composed of written words, so combined as to

express thought.

The sole purpose of language is to express thought.

 Written vs Oral

 Long, complex  Short sentences

sentences  Conversational
 Formal language
language  Repetition used for
 Avoid emphasis
repetition  You can use non-
 Entire message verbal features and
in the words improvise

C. Conclusion

Human showed superiority in many ways to animals. This

superiority should be used to understand animals and treat them

 well. This capacities and abilities of human should be used for

advancement.

Human intelligence is affected by genes. This gene carries

unique traits passed from generation to generation, as it

improves its chemical make-up through combination with other

gene traits, new and superior genes are developed and nurtured

by education that brought advancement to our fast changing

world.

V. EVALUATION/EXERCISES

1. What is the capacities man that made him superior over other

animals?

2. What is the role of heredity in development?

3. Differentiate oral language from written language.

4. What have you learned on the topics superiority of man, role of

heredity in development, and written and oral languages in

classroom instruction?
VI. REFERENCES

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Neuroscience: A Duty to Engage. Neuron 92:653-657.

Blackmore S (2004) Consciousness: An Introduction. Oxford, New

York: Oxford University Press.

Call J, Tomasello M (2008) Does the chimpanzee have a theory of

mind? 30 years later. Trends Cogn Sci 12:187-192.

Craig AD (2003) A new view of pain as a homeostatic emotion. Trends

Neurosci 26:303-307.

Craig AD (2010) The sentient self. Brain Struct Funct 214:563-577.

Craig AD (2011) Significance of the insula for the evolution of human

awareness of feelings from the body. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1225:72-82.

Damasio AR (1999) The Feeling of What Happens.

Gazzaniga MS (2008) Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us

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Penn DC, Holyoak KJ, Povinelli DJ (2008) Darwin’s mistake: explaining

the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. The

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Preis MA, Schmidt-Samoa C, Dechent P, Kroener-Herwig B (2013) The

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Rachels J (1990) Created from Animals: The Moral Implication of

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https://www.testden.com/toefl/english-grammar-for-

students/Language-Oral-And-Written.html

Prepared by:

MELVIN A. VILLARUZ

ME – 1A

Submitted to:

DR. CECILIA N. OBON

Professor