Criteria for being classified as human are diverse, most of the criteria we use for classifying living people (some of which are actively being used to commit g

Criteria for being classified as human are diverse, most of the criteria we use for classifying living people (some of which are actively being used to commit genocide) cannot be applied to our ancestral lineages, we give our genes too much credit relative to our memes, and cladists will use whatever evidence they can find to support their cladism. If the splitters in the lumper splitter debate are using splitting as an excuse to murder and disenfranchise people then it is hard in good conscience to openly articulate the truth and ethically is probably better to attempt to slow the splitters' efforts by confusing the whole field with alternate hypotheses. On the whole lineage does not imply capability, skeletal anatomy is not predict cultural level, etc. but because the great chain of being continues to drag our civilization down to its lowest basest form we belittle anything and everything that looks even slightly different than us. The fact that the null hypothesis in life sciences is that other species do not feel pain, do not have emotions, do not have cognitive process, etc. is derived from the abhorrent idea that only human beings have souls, or that the abhramic god gave man dominion over the animals. Is it a surprise then that some scientists have fooled the bigots by classifying everything as human? They know that by some criteria the lineages are sufficiently different to be classified as such, but there is no reason to give bigots ammunition for public policy.