agree or disagree: observing or studying animals can help us to understand human nature
I agree that observing or studying animals can help us to understand human nature. Human actually is a kind of advanced animals. It is difficult to recognize ourselves because we human beings are so complicated. However, it is simple and easy to observe the animals and then help ourselves.
My first reason is that the similarity between animals and human beings. For example, selfishness is expressed both by human and animals. A monkey would fight against each other if it wants to gain the limited food. The successor will win the food and feels happy. Similarly, two hungry children, maybe brothers, will fight against each other for the small cakes. The winner will get the cake and feel happy and enjoy the food. It is obvious for him to have this superiority. Both the monkey and children are expressing the selfish character. By watching the monkey or other animals, many philosophers attempted to find out the merits and shortcomings of human nature.
Another reason is the simplicity of studying animals. Most of Animals usually have simple social structures. Some even do not have any social group system. It is easy to study such animals without consideration about the social influence. Most of their behaviors are resulted from the intuition. They don't have so many education experiences as our human beings. Take the monkey as an example; the basic desires for them are food, sleeping, sheltering, and sexuality, which are similar to our human beings. Most of their behaviors are related to the basic desires. The conditions for them are very simple and so are easy for us to observe them.
Understanding our nature is the long object of our human beings. Animals study is an effective way to help to know about ourselves.