The difference of Man (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, February 18, 2013, 19:29 (4297 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: In the meantime, perhaps you have forgotten that the trigger for this discussion was "the-great-ape-taxonomy-debate", the point of which escapes me. So let me ask you once more how you define "primate", why you think the term degrades us, and why you think people who are sceptical of your "very special", divine teleology would be converted to your opinions if only you could make them refer to us as humans and not as primates.-DAVID: We may have descended from primate ancestors, but we are so special that we are very different in kind. To insist on still considering us primates tries to avoid the question of why we are so special and how we got that way. Accepting the specialness strongly implies teleology. The skeptical wish to deny the role of God and will not be won over, because they will want absolute proof, which is impossible. For the rest of us the inference from the 'specialness' is overwhelming.-Classifications are man-made. Here is a definition of primate: "a placental mammal, typically having flexible hands and feet with opposable first digits, good binocular vision, and in the higher apes a highly developed brain." Is there anything in this definition that does not apply to humans?-My own view is that the human brain is so highly developed that it means we are very special. Camels are artiodactyl mammals with a number of unique features: their red blood cells, nostrils, hump, immune system, eyelids etc. all differ from those of other mammals, so they too are very special. Does that mean they should not be classified as artiodactyl mammals? The classification does not in any way degrade their specialness, but if you think that calling man a very special primate is degrading, of course that is your prerogative. Perhaps we should also stop calling ourselves mammals.-If by teleology you mean purposefulness, I agree that evolution is purpose-driven, and the purpose is survival. This still applies to man, though his huge brain has taken him far beyond that primary purpose, which indeed makes him very special. But if by teleology you mean divine purposefulness, either this applies to ALL creatures with special features (camels, dogs, spiders etc.) or to none. In other words, if your God-made "intelligent cells" were able to invent the camel's immune system, the dog's nose, the spider's silk, then they were able to invent the human brain, ALL of these being part of the innovative process of evolution. Or are you now arguing that humans did not evolve like the rest of the animal kingdom?-In no way, however, would I wish to oppose your case AGAINST chance as the inventor of the initial mechanisms for life and evolution. But you have always admitted that the case FOR an unseen, unknowable, eternally self-aware planner rests on faith, in exactly the same way as the atheist has to have faith in inventive chance (though he might cloak it in different terms). And so the atheist can repeat your own argument against you: "The skeptical wish to deny the role of chance and will not be won over, because they will want absolute proof, which is impossible." We are back to Tweedledum and Tweedledee.-*********-DAVID: This reference to the mistakes in our primate-modified design makes my point. We are just mis-engineered primates, and unfortunate at that. This is a constant theme of the atheistic scientific deluge that laughs at a God-designed human as a huge mistake. Therefore no god!-http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/02/human-evolution-gain-came-with-p.html?ref=hp-It has nothing to do with our classification as primates, though it seems to me just as pointless as the great-apes-taxonomy-debate. This is an attack on the whole concept of design, and obviously by implication on the concept of a designer, and the word 'primate' is used twice, in totally neutral contexts. 
 
Let me put on my theist hat. Since none of us have a clue how to design a self-reproducing, self-repairing, fully conscious machine of any species, how can we know what designs are possible? On a finite Earth, if a creator god wanted variety, his creatures obviously had to die, which meant things had to go wrong. And do the flaws in our bodies prove that chance assembled the mechanisms for evolution? Of course they don't.
 
However, note the conclusion of this article:-The point of citing all these problems? Evolution doesn't "design" anything, says anthropologist Matt Cartmill of Boston University, a discussant on the panel. It works slowly on the genes and traits it has at hand, to jerry-rig animals' and humans body plans to changing habitats and demands. "Evolution doesn't act to yield perfection," he says. "It acts to yield function."-
I'd go along with that. It fits in with the higgledy-piggledy bush, and the observations themselves seem to me to be accurate enough. Would anyone deny that the human body has weaknesses? But that doesn't prove there's no designer, any more than the conking out of my old VW proves that it was assembled by chance. If there is a designer, it's perfectly possible that he designed life to "yield function" and not "perfection". So I would echo the first sentence of the conclusion: "The point of citing all these problems?" Search me.