# Animal Consciousness Ends the Last Claim of Human Specialness by Kate Jeffery > “We humans have had a tough time coping with our unremarkable place in the grand scheme of things. First Copernicus trashed our belief that we live at the centre of the universe, followed shortly thereafter by Herschel and co. who suggested that our sun was not at the centre of it either; then Darwin came along and showed that according to our biological heritage, we are just another animal. But we have clung on for dear life to one remaining belief about our specialness; that we, and we alone, have conscious minds. It is time to retire, or indeed euthanize and cremate, this anthropocentric pomposity.” > **— Kate Jeffery**, *2014, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [Animal Mindlessness](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25496) — Edge published this exact passage in its 2014 Annual Question collection, *WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT?*. The response page preserves the surrounding argument and qualifications. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2014 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2014 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first record for the complete response cohort and this passage's promotion status. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]] - **Article:** [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Host Infrastructure Overview]] - **Article:** [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Organic-Synthetic Brain Atlas|Organic-Synthetic Brain Atlas]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Consciousness|Consciousness]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Consciousness|Consciousness]] - [[wiki/Charles Darwin|Charles Darwin]] - [[wiki/Evolutionary Theory|Evolutionary Theory]] - [[wiki/Philosophy of Mind|Philosophy of Mind]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “We humans have had a tough time coping with our unremarkable place in the grand scheme of things. First Copernicus trashed our belief that we live at the centre of the universe, followed shortly thereafter by Herschel and co. who suggested that our sun was not at the centre of it either; then Darwin came along and showed that according to our biological heritage, we are just another animal. But we have clung on for dear life to one remaining belief about our specialness; that we, and we alone, have conscious minds. It is time to retire, or indeed euthanize and cremate, this anthropocentric pomposity.” — Kate Jeffery, 2014, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-kate-jeffery-animal-consciousness-ends-last-claim ```