There is no room in biology for a contrast between man and animal. In life sciences there is
space, however, for a plurality of animal species, one of which is the human one. The place
of humans, alongside monkeys, within the class mammalia and, in particular, within
primates, was already recognized by Linnaeus a hundred years before the publication of
the Origin of Species. Furthermore, biological species have not essences: they are not
natural kinds in the conventional sense of the term. Thus, biology has no room for the
concept of humanity, understood as the essence of Homo sapiens, let alone for that of
animality, which should capture the essence of a highly heterogeneous plurality of species.
