&gt;<i>The former statement uses rodents and humans, the latter humans and animals.</i><p>One just uses &quot;animals&quot; as the universal (generic) thing we all participate in (as a continuum), while the other uses &quot;humans&quot; (or &quot;humanity&quot;) for that.<p>Sure, we&#x27;re animals too, but not &quot;just another animal&quot;, but (what we know of as the) pinnacle of the thinking&#x2F;empathy&#x2F;etc spectrum&quot;.<p>We can think of being human-like in this sense as the top degree in that scale that animals can participate too.<p>(So, &quot;human-like is used a stand-in for &quot;empathetic&#x2F;thinking&#x2F;conscious&quot;, not as &quot;like an actual human person&quot; -- as it doesn&#x27;t concern other human attributes -- physiology, looks, etc, only emotional and cognitive ones).