Humans are perceived to be the most intellectually advanced creatures on this Earth. So it would seem odd that we could learn anything from species inferior to us. However, most learning is done by observing those less complicated. Sometimes we lose focus of what is natural to us because we want to set ourselves apart from the uncivilized. But what we fail to realize is that it is our primitive nature and instincts which brought us to the point where we are at today. It is human nature - as it is in any other aspect of nature - to be selfless, though society believes otherwise. With this in mind, Lewis Thomas equates and contrasts humans to other animals and insects.
Thomas did not begin to realize that humans and animals were alike until going to the zoo. It first dawns on him seeing the otters and beavers at play. It is for this brief moment where his normal thought process of reasoning is put aside. He feels nothing but "pure elation mixed with amazement at such perfection." (Thomas 539) When normally he would analyze why, Thomas simply observed. This is a natural feeling, a feeling of awe at the beauty of nature. When other animals view nature - though I cannot speak on their behalf - they do not analyze the science of what they see. For some reason though, humans tend to look beyond what should be seen - and that is the beauty. Thomas states, however, that this is a concern that hasn't been unnoticed by society: "Much of today's public anxiety about science is the apprehension that we may forever be overlooking the whole by an endless, obsessive preoccupation with the parts." (Thomas 538) This is a problem with society. People tend to be too concerned with the trivial parts of a whole, and begin to lose focus of what is important: that all the parts work together to make the whole what it is. When one loses focus of the whole, the smaller parts do not mean anything. The reason this poses a problem is because seeing as how over analyzation is instinctive to us, and how along with over analyzation comes loss of focus, it is easy to see how accomplishing a goal could be difficult.
