Human, Humankind, Human being, Humanity, People有何分別？

please adjust your encoding to unicode before reading this, or some of the words might turn into "monster words"

'human', 'humankind', 'human being'
these three basically have the same definition

'humam' and 'human being' can be used the same way
like in the example you already gave

'human kind', however, is used differently.
It still means 人類 but 'human' and 'human being' usually describes a single man,
while 'human kind' refers to the all of man species (and 'man kind' is usually used instead of 'human kind')
for example, you won't say 'as a human kind, we should...'
instead you would say 'as human kinds, we should...'

'humanity' is yet a different thing.
it usually means 人性 or 人道 rather than 人類
for example, 'the animals were not treated with humanity'
however in some examples it can be defined as 人類
for example 'Humanity has made great progress in space exploration'
same with 'human kind', 'humanity' always refers to the whole of man kind, rather than a single human being.however it is quite rare for it to be used as to refer to 人類

'people' is yet a totally different word.
the word 'people' refers to more than one man
but the word's meaning does not focus on the human species
it focuses on men as many more than one person
so if the word people is translated into chinese, it would definitly not be 人類, but perhaps 人們 or 人民.
for example 'who are these people?' would be translated into 這些人是誰? but not 這些人類是誰?

the word 'people' can also be used to show nationalities by butting a nation's name before it.
for example, 'chinese people' 'british people'
it is true that 'chinese' has the same meaning as 'chinese people'
but 'chinese' also refers to the language chinese, therefore 'chinese people' is a more specific way to express one's nationality.

so in conclusion,
'human' and 'human being' both means 人類 and can be used the same way;
'human kind' still means 人類 but refers to the whole of man species;
'humanity' mostly refers to 人性 or 人道, and is rarely used for 人類; and
'people' focuses on the (more than one) person, but not the human species

it's a bit long.... but It's the answer to your question and i hope it helps :)

2007-02-13 18:47:34 補充：
some of the content still turned into monster words...when you see #39; it just mean it's a closing invert commer '

2007-02-13 18:48:16 補充：
and this answer took me so long to write upI definitly started writing it before the first answer was submited

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Human :
This meat is not fit for human consumption.
這種肉不適合人食用。

Humankind
The scientist made a great contribution to humankind.
這位科學家為人類作出了一項偉大的貢獻。

Human being
Has anybody ever seenhuman being anyfrom outer space?
有人見到過外星人嗎?


Humanity
Humanity has made great progress in space exploration and medicine.
人類在太空研究和醫學上取得了很大進展。

People
Who are these people?
這些人是誰?