Question: What genetic changes made us uniquely human?

Hannah Little answered on 19 Jun 2013:

Good question! I’m no genes expert, but I know a lot of people would say that the thing that makes us uniquely human is language, and some genetic mutations had to happen before language could happen. We also had to develop some thing called “theory of mind” which is the ability to see from some body else’s perspective, which is almost definitely rooted in our genes too. We also had mutations which made our brains bigger, thus increasing our memory capacity and mutations which gave us things like being bipedal (walking upright on two legs), but I suppose this doesn’t make humans unique because birds walk on two legs too.