If you’ve ever been to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, you might remember their “Hall of Human Origins.” I haven’t been there (please let me know what you thought of it if you have!) but fortunately they have a good website to accompany it. As you can probably guess, they look broadly at the evolution and definition of Homo sapiens. The website offers a nice, broad background of the scientific side of defining the human, although it focuses more on biological contrasts than objects, as Ambiguously Human does.
I’m posting about it, though, because I would definitely recommend participating in, or at least browsing through, their public poll on the question “What Does It Mean To Be Human?” The responses, from a huge range of people, raise many of the issues this project is looking at (as well as some that are outside its scope but still fun to think about). Here are a few that cover some of that spectrum: