Different in degree or kind: our hands (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 08, 2016, 18:07 (2969 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Who is talking about “winning” and “aesthetic nuances”? You drew attention to the special abilities of human hands. I agree they are special. So are elephants' trunks. All species (broad sense) have special qualities of one sort or another. They are all different in kind. And according to you, your God specially made or preprogrammed them all. Perhaps you want me to say that although your God specially made or preprogrammed them all, he specially, specially, SPECIALLY made or preprogrammed humans and their hands, because the elephant's trunk and the weaverbird's nest and the amoeba community and all the dead dinosaurs and trilobites were specially made for the purpose of feeding and/or producing humans. But I'm afraid I could never say such a thing. -DAVID: You refuse to see or admit that 'differences in kind' have remarkable degrees of difference. An elephants trunk cannot play a Beethoven piano concerto. Yes birds fly, with their given ability but we fly also all together with other folks in marvelous inventions.-I have reproduced the whole comment to which you have replied, since your response is shooting at the wrong target. I have always acknowledged the degrees of difference, most notably in the context of the human mind being vastly more complex than the minds of our fellow animals. And I keep pointing out that all species (broad sense) are different in kind. But you believe ALL the special differences were specially preprogrammed or specially created by your God, so if they are all so special to your God that he must specially preprogramme them or specially create them, what are you trying to prove by insisting that he specially preprogrammed or specially created human hands?