Talk:Human
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Q1: Why does the Human article use the third person? Aren't we humans?
A1: The third person ("Humans are..." or "They are..." as opposed to "We are...") is simply the conventional mode of writing for Wikipedia and other reference works. We realize this may cause some phrases in Human to sound quite strange — "a majority of humans professes some variety of religious or spiritual belief" sounds almost like it was written by space aliens. However, the occasional strangeness this approach may lead to is still preferable to the alternative of inconsistency.
If we were to use "we" in the Human article, it would mean sometimes switching strangely between persons as we narrow our topic of discussion. For example, even if an editor were female, she would be forced to write things like "We humans, and especially those females...." Whenever a subgroup of humanity became the article's focus, we would need to switch to the third person; a sentence about humans would use "we", but a sentence about adults, Asians, engineers, or heterosexuals would need to use "they". It is far simpler to just consistently use the third person in all contexts, even if this doesn't always seem completely natural. A related issue is the fact that, as a general rule, Wikipedia prefers to avoid self-references. In addition to being human, all editors on this site happen to be English speakers — yet we treat our article on the English language the same way we treat every other language article, in order to avoid bias and inconsistency. Likewise, we treat Wikipedia the same as other websites and reference tools. Analogously, we ought to aspire to treat Human in much the same way that we treat every other species article. Ideally, we should make exceptions of Human only where objective, verifiable facts demand that we make exceptions (e.g., in employing a lengthy behavior section[broken anchor]). This is the simplest and easiest way to avoid bias and to prevent editorial disputes: When in doubt, follow the rest of Wikipedia's lead.Q2: Aren't humans supposed to be purely herbivorous/frugivorous despite our modern omnivorous habits? Aren't we jungle apes albeit highly intelligent and largely furless jungle apes? Most jungle apes eat no meat or very little.
A2: No, we really are natural omnivores. Contrary to popular belief, we humans did not evolve in jungles. We actually evolved on open grasslands where fruit-bearing trees are nowhere near as plentiful as in the jungle, where most of our surviving close relatives evolved. Evolving in such a place, we would have always (for as long as we've been humans rather than Australopithecines and other even earlier fossilized genera) had to supplement our diet with meat in addition to plant material. We evolved also eating plant-derived foods to be sure; the Savannah (grassland) has some trees with edible fruit although comparatively few and far between, and grain-bearing grasses are far more plentiful there than any tree. (Some evidence suggests that the first bread and beer were made from these tropical grains long before recorded history.) Even so, the grassland being much less fruit-rich than the jungle caused us to evolve as true metabolic omnivores, not pure herbivores/frugivores. See the Archived Debates on this subtopic for source documents. Q3: How was the lead image chosen?
A3:  Q4: How should the infobox image best represent humanity?
A4: The lead image should illustrate important features of the subject — in the case of Human, these include an upright bipedal gait, hands specialized for manipulating tools, and use of cultural products such as clothing.
Lead images can attempt to encapsulate the broad strokes of the diversity and variation in its subject (e.g. Frog, Primate). The current consensus is that attempting to do further like that for humanity is not practical. There is a guideline MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES that exists due to issues on this topic in the past, stating that we may not assemble a gallery of many images into the infobox. And regardless of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES, by picking just one image, we leave space for showing important details of that image which would be obscured if we shrank it in order to fit multiple photos in. Sometimes, what a collage gains in diversity, it loses in detail and clarity. In this case, the current consensus is that the topic covered at Human is best served with a single image — a collage of faces, for example, would fail to illustrate the human body.Q5: Shouldn't the lead image show more major groups of humans?
A5: There is no good way to decide which groups of humans are the "major" ones. The consensus is that showing more groupings (such as along ethnic lines) is contentious due to the risk of unverifiable species-wide generalizations. As a middle ground, we currently just show examples of a male and a female human to represent sexual dimorphism in humans.
While many Wikipedia articles on diverse subject matter (e.g. Spider, Bird) do attempt to encapsulate that variety through galleries and selections of images, we are prohibited from doing so on this article per MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES even if we wanted to. Other articles on diverse subject matter sometimes similarly have few examples, or even one example, rather than a collage in their infobox (e.g. Whale). Q6: The current image is blurry/low-resolution/JPG-artifacted. Shouldn't it be replaced?
A6: The current consensus is that this isn't that big a deal. When viewed as normal at thumbnail size at a glance, you can't really tell. Q7: The current image shows two people, not one. Doesn't that violate MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES to begin with?
A7: The current consensus is that group photos probably do not violate MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES. That guideline is based on an RfC, and is to be interpreted narrowly. It specifically only prohibits galleries or photomontages to illustrate ethnic groups or other similarly large human populations. The consensus on this page is that a group photo does not count. Past discussion of this can be found here. Q8: Could the lead image be a different photo? Perhaps a group photo with more than two people in it? Or a photo of an individual?
A8: There is nothing prohibiting that, it is just not the current consensus to do that on this page. It would likely take a large discussion and very strong arguments for why the alternate image is an improvement. Q9: Other ethnic groups have lead images such as a flag or map (e.g. of population density). Could that be the lead image (instead of any image(s) of humans)?
A9: There is nothing prohibiting that, it is just not the current consensus to do that on this page. There already is a population density map at the bottom of the infobox. Q10: Why isn't the lead image more abstract or symbolic?
A10: Because any attempt to symbolically or nonliterally depict humans will subtly express an editorial opinion about what the "essence" or "nature" of humanity is. Even if we pick a famous artist's work to put at the top of Human, the fact that we chose that particular work, and not another, will show that we endorse certain non-encyclopedic points of view about humanity. The only real way to avoid this pitfall is to not pick an image that is even remotely symbolic or nonliteral — a completely literal, straightforward photograph simply depicting a human, with no more "deep meaning" than our lead image for Brown bear has, is the most neutral option available.
It is also worth noting that most abstract depictions of humanity remove a great deal of visual information. Wikipedia's purpose is educational, and our readers include non-native English speakers, young children, neurodivergent people, and other readers who will be best served by a clear, unambiguous, and factually rich depiction of the topic at hand. Imaginative works also tend to be much more subjective and idiosyncratic than photographs, reflecting the creator's state of mind as much as the subject matter itself. The purpose of an article's lead image is to accurately depict the article's subject matter, which in this case means accurately depicting a human. |
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Why is there an entire section dedicated to psychology?
It even has multiple subsections, I understand that psychology is more relevant to homo sapiens than other hominids but it only warrants a passing mention. Cognsci (talk) 15:37, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
- If the topic relates to homo sapiens, then the topic should stay in the page. If the topic is related to physical qualities of homo sapiens, then the topic should also stay in the page as is. In other words, mass deleting an entire section without the basis of reason or proper judgement is not how you should edit articles in Wikipedia. Daniel6201 (talk) 16:08, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
- Be bold and be mindful to not become reckless. Content disagreement is natural and no need to take it personal.
- Wikipedia accepts the concept of the silent approval - long-standing content (especially ones surviving many revisions) are presumed to be tacitly approved by the community. This presumed approval last until it was challenged - as in your case. If the approval is actually there (eg editors really do agree with the inclusion of psychology in this case), these users will respond to / defend the challenge.
- tl;dr - Content disagreement is part of Wikipedia's procedural and mundane and no need to perceive such as an argument about individual users' rightness and wrongness 海盐沙冰 / aka irisChronomia / Talk 18:04, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
- Well, since there is a lack of consensus to remove the whole psychology section, I'll just remove the subsections. Cognsci (talk) 08:01, 5 March 2026 (UTC)
- The section has been a part of the article in a similar format for over ten years now. While that is not a good reason to keep it per se a decent reason needs to be provided to remove it en mass. Aircorn (talk) 19:00, 5 March 2026 (UTC)
- There are a lot of sciences that study homo sapiens, I would argue a decent reason needs to be provided for why psychology is exceptional to the point that it is almost on par with biology in terms of detail in this article. I do not accept Esolo5002's reasoning of psychology being the reason "why Humans are the way they are". Cognsci (talk) 20:54, 6 March 2026 (UTC)
- I suppose a better question is, which topics merit more weight? Personally I think the article leans too heavily into evolutionary biology over concepts such as self or the human condition. Despite the taxobox, we can’t just view this article as any other creature article. As for the Psychology section, I am also unhappy with how it stands, seems to be more of a keyword dump than explanation of these concepts (no offense to the writer, there is a lot to unpack) Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 22:49, 6 March 2026 (UTC)
- The why not improve the section instead of mass removing it? I see you stated that the article has leans heavily over evolutionary biology rather than concepts such as the self/human condition. The issue here, is that all of the topics are related to the article title human. You can add sections, but removing topics related to humans [the self or the human condition is psychological] is not advisable. Unless the topic is not related or semi-related to humans, the content should just be left alone as is. Daniel6201 (talk) 16:32, 7 March 2026 (UTC)
- I suppose a better question is, which topics merit more weight? Personally I think the article leans too heavily into evolutionary biology over concepts such as self or the human condition. Despite the taxobox, we can’t just view this article as any other creature article. As for the Psychology section, I am also unhappy with how it stands, seems to be more of a keyword dump than explanation of these concepts (no offense to the writer, there is a lot to unpack) Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 22:49, 6 March 2026 (UTC)
- There are a lot of sciences that study homo sapiens, I would argue a decent reason needs to be provided for why psychology is exceptional to the point that it is almost on par with biology in terms of detail in this article. I do not accept Esolo5002's reasoning of psychology being the reason "why Humans are the way they are". Cognsci (talk) 20:54, 6 March 2026 (UTC)
- The section has been a part of the article in a similar format for over ten years now. While that is not a good reason to keep it per se a decent reason needs to be provided to remove it en mass. Aircorn (talk) 19:00, 5 March 2026 (UTC)
"Human" is a GENUS, not the species named "Homo Sapiens", which is "MODERN Humans".
This article would be correct if someone checked all of the words "human" and changed most of those words to "modern human". That is the name of one SPECIES that is in the GENUS "Homo", i.e. "humans". The name of our species is "Modern Humans" which is a name coined to differentiate us from all of the earlier Humans who were not Modern. When you say "Modern Humans" the emphasis should be on the word "Modern", because what you're doing is marking the differentiation from other (non-Modern) Humans. If you send someone to get the RED apples then you're trying to exclude apples that are yellow or green etc.. But if you ask for the red APPLES then you intend for them to exclude the red fruits (strawberries etc.) that aren't apples. "Modern Humans" isn't starting from Modern things such as cheetahs and horses and excluding the ones that aren't Human. It's starting from all Humans (which must mean that NOT all Humans are "Modern Humans") and excluding those that aren't Modern. So it's like RED applies ("MODERN Humans"), and NOT like "red APPLES" ("modern HUMANS").
- It's right there on Wikipedia's Disambiguation-page for the word "Human""
- QUOTE:
- Humans are a superfamily of highly intelligent apes.
- UNQUOTE
- QUOTE:
- It doesn't say that the word "Humans" refers to ONLY Homo Sapiens. It's the whole superfamily. But then the word "Humans" IN that sentence "Humans are a superfamily of highly intelligent apes" is blue-linked to this talk-page's subject, i.e. "Modern Humans" but mis-titled as "Humans". This is incoherent.~2026-14597-90 (talk) 21:09, 7 March 2026 (UTC)Christopher Lawrence Simpson
- It's a classic example of the context-dependency of everyday language. "Human" does sometimes refer only to modern humans (e.g. when many years ago I studied "human physiology", I only studied modern humans), but also sometimes to the genus Homo, and sometimes to higher level taxa. It does mean that wikilinks need choosing with care. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:35, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
- See polysemy? Words are often ambiguous with multiple possible and plausible interpretations, that humans resolve subconsciously. 海盐沙冰 / aka irisChronomia / Talk 10:13, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
- Exactly. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:17, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
Changing the image
What do you think of changing the lead image to this one? Please state your thoughts below. The discussions over the years have showed dissatisfaction with the current image, so I was hoping we could see if this image or another image would be best. Interstellarity (talk) 11:51, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- In what way is the above image better than the current one? Vpab15 (talk) 12:16, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- It’s a newer image with a higher resolution. Interstellarity (talk) 14:05, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- Please note that they are both women. Better to present an image which contains a male and a female human, as represented in the current long-term image. Another factor may be that Asians are the most populous people on Earth, and humans being represented in the lead image by Asians contains unsaid but accurate data. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:11, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- Please note that the image description says that they are a couple and it is categorized as 1 man and 1 woman. Interstellarity (talk) 14:46, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- The description says "English: A Dagomba couple from a farm. One carries a basket under her arm, and the other a bowl with two wooden trunks." Randy Kryn (talk) 15:10, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- The lead image should probably show a man and a woman to illustrate sexual dimorphism (and probably also clothing, tool use, a rural agrarian environment, etc). Honestly until just now I thought that image was a man and a woman. Even though I suggested using a crop of that image some time ago, now looking again I fear that the image isn't much of an improvement: it's actually still rather blurry, and now it's unclear if it actually is a man and a woman... :( :( Leijurv (talk) 18:31, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- I have asked the photographer. Leijurv (talk) 18:39, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- See File:A Dagomba man from farm.jpg. Same person, described as male, and I see nothing that really suggests the contrary. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:21, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- Good point. Perhaps it's just a simple error introduced by an editor who was not the original uploader/photographer. Leijurv (talk) 20:30, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- See File:A Dagomba man from farm.jpg. Same person, described as male, and I see nothing that really suggests the contrary. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:21, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- I have asked the photographer. Leijurv (talk) 18:39, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- The lead image should probably show a man and a woman to illustrate sexual dimorphism (and probably also clothing, tool use, a rural agrarian environment, etc). Honestly until just now I thought that image was a man and a woman. Even though I suggested using a crop of that image some time ago, now looking again I fear that the image isn't much of an improvement: it's actually still rather blurry, and now it's unclear if it actually is a man and a woman... :( :( Leijurv (talk) 18:31, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- The description says "English: A Dagomba couple from a farm. One carries a basket under her arm, and the other a bowl with two wooden trunks." Randy Kryn (talk) 15:10, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- Please note that the image description says that they are a couple and it is categorized as 1 man and 1 woman. Interstellarity (talk) 14:46, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- Please note that they are both women. Better to present an image which contains a male and a female human, as represented in the current long-term image. Another factor may be that Asians are the most populous people on Earth, and humans being represented in the lead image by Asians contains unsaid but accurate data. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:11, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- It’s a newer image with a higher resolution. Interstellarity (talk) 14:05, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- The suggested image is worse. It is busier and the humans blend in with the background. The existing image is simply iconic. The couple stand out from the background and their expressions look less posed. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:54, 13 March 2026 (UTC)
pronoun change
changing they, their, etc to we, our , etc? ~2026-15724-07 (talk) 17:46, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- that would piss off the ChatBots that crawl Wikipedia, I suppose.
. Seriously though, it wouldn't be consistent with the way we write about other topics, or the way other encyclopaedias write about this one (see e.g. ). So no, not a good idea in my opinion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:06, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
- But I feel like for other topics, it doesn't hit the same when you read "All Wikipedia contributors are personally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest and neutral point of view" in the disclaimer. So it makes sense to acknowledge that the original writer shares the same humanity as the reader. I like it. Orangeblossom6136 (talk) 03:33, 13 March 2026 (UTC)
- I don't think that the 'disclaimer' is intended to be taken seriously. I don't, since it is based on an absurd premise. There is no CoI, since we are writing about ourselves (humanity), for ourselves (also humanity). There is no external 'interest' to be in conflict with. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:36, 13 March 2026 (UTC)
- But I feel like for other topics, it doesn't hit the same when you read "All Wikipedia contributors are personally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest and neutral point of view" in the disclaimer. So it makes sense to acknowledge that the original writer shares the same humanity as the reader. I like it. Orangeblossom6136 (talk) 03:33, 13 March 2026 (UTC)
