Different in degree or kind: animal minds (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, January 08, 2016, 12:26 (3242 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: ...if you are now going to argue that the balance of nature is required to provide energy for the living, and not just for humans, nature will be “balanced” so long as there is one organism left alive - probably bacteria.
DAVID: Yes, nature had balance all the way back to Archaea.-I was looking forward, not back. According to you, nature will still be balanced if there is nothing left but bacteria. So why all the fuss about Australians and foreign animals “messing up” the balance? You will still have your balance if the foreign animals eat up all the native animals, including the Australians. -dhw: And so we have now effectively disposed of all the arguments you have used to defend your anthropocentric interpretation of evolution's history: 1) no forms of life beyond bacteria were “required”.
DAVID: True-Thank you. One down and two to go.-dhw: 2) all species (broad sense) are “different in kind”.
DAVID: To some degree if one follows Darwin theory. The giant jump is with human consciousness and intellect.-I don't think even Darwin would deny that we are vastly more intelligent than our fellow animals. However, do you truly believe that the “difference in kind” (it's your phrase, not mine) between chimps and humans is greater than that between elephants, ants, sparrows and gudgeon?
 
dhw: 3) the weaverbird's nest plus a million other innovations, lifestyles and wonders do not and did not serve the purpose of producing/feeding humans through the balance of nature. 
DAVID: No, the balance of nature through all of these contributions supported living organisms with a food supply.-So since human existence “has nothing to do with balance of nature”, we can forget all this stuff about “the food chain that leads up through the balance of nature to the human consumption of foods”. Now it appears that your God designed the weaverbird's nest and 3.8 billion years' worth of natural wonders so that whatever had enough to eat survived, and the rest died. Nothing to do with humans, and yet according to you humans were what God set out to produce and feed! Sorry, but if the “balance of nature” had nothing to do with the existence of humans, and everything to do with survival, you are left with the evolutionary free-for-all that I and most evolutionists have been advocating all along.
 
dhw: This does not mean your God didn't start the process of evolution, and it doesn't even mean that humans aren't special. It just means your divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme (and/or personal divine intervention) for all innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders, specially designed for the purpose of “balancing nature” in order to produce/feed humans, makes no sense.
DAVID: Sorry it makes no sense to you. The induced pain in the nether regions from the picket fence may dull your thought processes.-The pain in my nether regions has nothing to do with the picket fence, since I am simply challenging your logic. So do please apply some intellectual balm by explaining how God's special design of the weaverbird's nest (by computer or personal tuition) provides a balance in nature for the human consumption of foods, although the balance of nature has nothing to do with human existence. Alternatively, have a rethink...