The Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes (Humans)

by dhw, Friday, February 05, 2010, 12:49 (5197 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: 
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/11/richard_dawkins_smart_dinosaurs.php
I'm kind of interesting to see your thoughts on this, it relates to Adler's book.-Like David, I can't see that either the dinosaur or the ET speculation can be of the slightest value, other than to science fiction writers. Darren Naish also raises the question of what Conway Morris apparently calls the "magic human syndrome", i.e. whether humans are special or not (quoted and derided by Naish). David says Adler only discusses "the vast difference in intellectual power, and the philosophic meaning or conclusion it led to." My own thoughts on this are:-1) We don't know the full extent of animals' emotional or intellectual capacities, but the general consensus among people who have studied them is that they feel, behave and communicate in ways not dissimilar to ours. In that respect we are not special ... we have inherited these capacities from them.-2) The degree to which our mental powers (and hence our culture and technology) have developed does make us special. -I don't see any reason why evolutionary theists should object to these two observations. If a god created us, he may have programmed evolution or continued to experiment with it until he got us, in both our physical and our mental form. That simply makes humans the most intellectually and culturally advanced stage (as far as we know) of his project. Of course this view would be anathema to Creationists, while for atheists the discussion is as pointless as the dinosaur and ET speculations.