We are members of the animal kingdom - at least we don't think we are plants. Our phylum is Chordata and our subphylum is Vertebrata. Our class is Mammalia and our Order is Primata and our suborder is Anthropoidea. Our family is Hominidae, our genus Homo and our species is sapiens.
The fact that our genus is Homo refers to the fact that we are linked through common ancestry to other species, now extinct. This Homo group is rather a small group, with various kin (with list updated regularly) only ourselves H. habilis, H. erectus, and H. heidelbergensis and Neanderthal (H. neanderthalensis) having this same genus name.
We are also the only creature to whom, in self-conscious zeal, the word sapiens -- meaning wise -- has been applied. This species name was probably coined to refer to the fact that our brain was larger than that of some of the other member of our genus. The problem here is that our large brains do not have wisdom encoded into them. Wisdom seems to be what we gain from others, often through life experiences, etc. Rather than providing us with ready-to-use wisdom, our large brains, and their associated curiosity and trial and error learning, in the bigger picture, may have caused more problems than they have solved.
