By FRANS de WAAL: refuted (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, May 30, 2016, 09:23 (3098 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This article disagrees with de Waal, just as I do: - http://swami.wustl.edu/more-than-apes - QUOTE: "Scientifically speaking, humans appear to be genetically-modified apes, with genomes that are more than 98% similar to chimpanzees in coding regions, and about 95% similar overall.2 We are 10 times closer to apes than mice are to rats. As I have previously explained, this is evidence for the common descent of man. Even if common descent is ultimately false (as some religious leaders might reasonably believe), somehow this evidence exists. Now, starting from this striking genetic similarity, some argue that humans are just animals, unexceptional in every way.” - If anyone argues that humans are “unexceptional in EVERY way”, they are just plain daft. This is one gigantic straw man. Would anyone in their right mind honestly deny that homo sapiens has spread all over the planet, has extraordinary mental abilities, and has accomplished feats far, far beyond the range of all other organisms? De Waal's point was that this “exceptionalism” has blinded us to the links between ourselves and our fellow animals, has made us downgrade animal intelligence to “instinct or simple learning”, and dismiss their cognitive abilities and feelings as “anthropomorphism”. Yes, we are exceptional in our mental powers. But there is a direct line that leads back to the mental powers of our ancestors, and as de Waal says “this applies even more to emotional traits”. Respect for animal intelligence does not lessen one's astonishment at human intelligence, and in no way does that astonishment “refute” de Waal's contention that “in our haste to argue that animals are not people, we have forgotten that people are animals, too.”