By FRANS de WAAL: refuted (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, November 13, 2016, 21:16 (2931 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: My contention, however, is that the vast complexities of our thought and of our behaviour are natural advances on the thought and behaviour that we have inherited from our animal ancestors: they have social structures, they explore their environment, they communicate, take decisions, have emotions, help one another, play games, and even have aesthetic values (mainly for mating purposes) etc. Not the same as ours, and on nothing like the scale of complexity that we have reached with our enhanced consciousness. But in my view these are not minor similarities. They are the foundations on which we have built our own thought and behaviour.

A foundation? Of course. Did we build brick by brick on their foundation? No. We took a giant leap which you always want to diminish in order to suggest a continuity of tiny steps in evolution. You cannot accept our vast difference as a true jump beyond the type of change we see prior to the development of a series of humans. What changed the pace of evolution in the past eight million years? We don't see stress or serious environmental change as the appearance of increased oxygen in the Cambrian. Other primates hardly changed in that period, but we leapt forward. An intervention by God is the best explanation.

DAVID: I understand, to defend your position, similarities are of supreme importance, while ignoring the immensity of the differences.

dhw: There is no reason why one should not acknowledge both. I only stress the similarities because it irks me that so many people fail to recognize them, as a result of which they indulge in appalling callousness towards their fellow animals and, in some cases, towards those fellow humans whom they also regard as “different”. It goes without saying that this observation is not directed at yourself.

Your comment is an excuse to cover your desire to diminish the gap between humans and all other organisms. And thank you for noting that I know my animals and appreciate what they are capable of doing.