Different in degree or kind; language (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, December 28, 2014, 19:23 (3618 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: My question, though, was WHY the distinction is so important to you. Even if humans were different in degree and not kind, you could still say we were the “end point”, since we are so much more conscious/intelligent/ technically advanced than other species [...] 
DAVID: "Difference in kind" means that humans did not evolve by any form of Darwinian evolution. Our animal bodies did change very divergently from apes, but that part of us appears as evolved, or helped directly by God to evolve. On the other hand our intellect and consciousness are currently totally unexplained (See Nagel) and represent to me direct help from God.-dhw: Thank you for this direct, but slightly confusing answer. If our animal bodies appear to have evolved from apes, it's difficult to see how you can argue that humans did not evolve “by any form of Darwinian evolution”. 
DAVID: You are correct. I didn't make that answer of mine clear enough. Our physical bodies appear to have been evolved as with all other animals. I still don't know, for I cannot see any definitive evidence to decide whether it was all coded from the beginning, or assisted along the way. BUT, following Adler, our brain development and the resultant intellect and consciousness is light year apart from the true animal without that attribute. We are different in kind for that reason.-I certainly shan't disagree with you as regards our intellect and consciousness being vastly superior to those of our fellow animals, but the question remains as to why it is so important for you to distinguish between degree and kind. You now seem unsure whether our bodies and brains (which can hardly be separated from intellect and consciousness, even if the source of these remains a mystery) did or didn't evolve by Darwinian evolution. If God didn't create us separately, according to you he either preprogrammed us into the very first cells along with a few million other extinct and extant organisms and lifestyles, or he dabbled. If he dabbled, one might well conclude that either we were not planned from the beginning, or the plans weren't working out. Your dilemma still seems to be unresolved, though it would disappear completely if you weren't so determined to impose your personal patterns on your God, i.e. by making humans the initial purpose of evolution, and insisting he had everything worked out in advance, right down to the flight of the plover and the monarch butterfly.