By FRANS de WAAL on animal cognition (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, April 11, 2016, 13:30 (2931 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Once again I can only thank you, not only for a superb article but also for your integrity in presenting an argument you disagree with. Needless to say, I am delighted to find an expert in the field confirming just about everything I believe concerning animal cognition and the direct link between our ancestors and ourselves.-DAVID: Thank you. de Waal is a famous scientist whose observations are right on. I just disagree with his conclusions about how close we are both emotionally and mentally. I recognize the continuity just as he does in the quotes you have given. The argument is, as always, the size of the gap. Enormously enormous, and for no apparent reason in nature's pressures.-You always dwell on nature's pressures, even though you recognize that nature did not require any advance beyond bacteria. EVERY innovation is therefore the result of a drive towards improvement, while the continuity you recognize can also be found in the progress made from apelike progenitors to primitive cavemen to hunters in the jungle to farmers on the land to artists in attics to businessmen in skyscrapers and to philosophers on the internet.