What Does It Mean to Be Human?

Interesting series of quotes about what it means to be human from various scientists over at What Does It Mean to Be Human? | Wired Science from Wired.com.

Often our attempts to define this tend to be linked to particular understandings of the essential core that defines human beings, sometimes called the locus humanus. Typically, this is denoted by a set of attributes that human beings alone possess, such as the religious concept of an immortal soul, but is often a collection of psychological attributes such as reason, language, consciousness and self consciousness. And indeed, in the quotes in the link above some of these crop up.

Hat tip to Nouslife: What Does It Mean to Be Human?