The Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes (Humans)

by John Clinch , Wednesday, July 08, 2009, 12:21 (5616 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George: "The idea that mankind is qualitatively different from the animals with and from which Homo sapiens evolved is one that I have tried to argue and defend". - I've wrestled with this too. Is the answer, I wonder, to say that this is a distinction without a difference? - By common agreeemnt, human brains are, by several orders of magnitude, more intelligent than even other primates. There seems to come a point with the "runaway brain" effect in evolution that intelliegence just "took off" leaving the others in the dust. But it took off using raw material that is in essence exactly the same as that which is possessed by chimpanzees - or mice, for that matter. A neuron is basically a neuron - it's just that we have so many of them in our pre-frontal cortex that they combine in novel and exciting ways that were extremely useful for our biological evolution and, as a by-product, able to write blogs, do calculus and compose symphonies. - Josef Stalin said (referring to military hardware) that there comes point where quantity becomes quality. On this question, could the old mass murderer, for once, be right?