To say that we are more evolved than someone else, or something else, is a misnomer. We are not more evolved, we simply evolved differently. Science, God, God/Science, it doesn’t really matter what your belief system is because it really doesn’t change that we all began our journey “in the beginning” and arrived together “in the today.” All paths have led to this moment.
When we say that we are more evolved than another (person, cow, dog, whale, chimpanzee, black, white, etc.) we diminish the “other” at the core of their being. I think of language I remember from reading various books, “I’ll do with my slave what I want”, “they are just Indians”, and then there was the whole Halocaust thing.
My wife and I work with a dog rescue and I cringe at the number of times I’ve seen dogs that are treated so poorly, because apparently “they are just dogs.” I worry about any children in those pet owner’s lives because after all they are “only children.” This is not to say that I don’t value a human over an animal, say a dog, but I am saying that I have just as much respect for a dog’s life as I do another humans life, and to me, both lives figure into decisions that involve both lives. In fact I sometimes find myself having less respect for humans than dogs, because humans have the capacity to know better.
I feel that for someone to say, or even think, that they are more evolved than a dog, cat, fish, or especially another human, likely precedes, and often attempts to justify an action that harms or otherwise takes advantage of them. Dehumanization has long been a part of war, genocide, abuse, negect, or “harvesting” species to extinction, or near extinction.
And yes, I am saying that we can dehumanize animals… think about it.