When the religious view prevailed it used to be thought that we are not animals. We are made in God’s image. We were somehow apart.
Hopefully DNA evidence proves quite categorically that we are animals and have come out of the same evolutionary process that gave rise to our fellow creatures. We are no different and not the products of a divine production line (or lump of rib).
As animals perhaps we should have greater respect for our fellow creatures and start to look after them and the planet a lot better!
Pete, back in 1971, displayed this anthropomorphic tendency to value other living things by their similarity to us. That too is nonsense. Every plant and animal, including us, started from that same one single cell. We are all equally evolved but different (in complexity and adaptation). There is no hierarchy of importance. No animal or plant is better or worse than any other. We are all equally miraculous – against all the odds we formed on this jewel of a planet. That is almost a miracle!