We are arrogant. Our world view is anthropocentric. Human’s exceptionalism was a cause of the problem for the planet earth.

According to a book called “The Arrogant Ape – The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters” (2025) by Christine Webb, our human history and world view have been written and formed by our superiority complex against non-human creatures and nature. Even followers of Charles Darwin were trapped in treating nature as a second class and so-to-speak scientific analysis sometimes put us homo sapient on the top of the natural evolution hierarchy. We were taught and trained unconsciously that we humans are unique, advanced, special and intelligent. Webb completely disagree our human exceptionalism.

Webb is a primatologist at Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. She is an expert in social behavior, cognition, and emotion of primates. She spent years in natural settings to observe primates social behaviors. Even at Harvard, she has a class called “Arrogant Ape” for the undergrads. Webb has challenged our way of thinking that has been influenced by human-centered exceptionalism. The book was very challenging and enlightening. It changed our traditional way of looking at other animals and nature where so many intelligent traits were hidden.

In short, we are not unique. All the creatures and nature are uniquely special. The special traits in other animals are, of course, the results of environmental progress. The book is very stimulating not only from biological perspective but also from the social, psychological and neurological ones.

The book forced me to think “Us” v. “Them”, or “Homo sapient” v. “Non-human animals”, and “Animal” v. “Plants.” Our modern Western culture trained our children with an arrogant biased view, according to Webb. Webb said even racial gender prejudices were formed by “Us” exceptionalism.

There are so many things we humans are so behind. We just don’t notice them. What is Intelligence? Observe the nature as is. We can unmask the prejudices from our arrogance and innocence.

The Arrogant Ape. This is a good expression for us to remember of our own ignorance and prejudice. Arrogance always blinds us. We are not unique.