By FRANS de WAAL: refuted (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 31, 2016, 13:26 (3097 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: If anyone argues that humans are “unexceptional in EVERY way”, they are just plain daft. .... 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.”-DAVID: Agreed to this, animals are intelligent, but not like us. Ape bodies have similarities but not like us: we evolved from animal bodies with small mental powers to very specialized human bodies with extraordinary mental powers. Our specialized bodies should not be ignored: only we play tennis, basketball, cricket, etc., with our very special shoulder girdle and pelvic structures, upright bipedal motion. I think our physical differences from other primates is so substantial, we are different in kind in that area also. Frankly, I think we don't belong in a primate category, but a special group.-My main concern, as you will have gathered, was to point out that the article you quoted did not in any way “refute” de Waal's arguments, as your heading proclaims. Whether you want to put us in a separate category from the Anthropoidea primates which you believe to have been our direct ancestors is up to you. Primates or prima donnas, we are still animals.