Gorilla DNA (Introduction)
by David Turell 
, Thursday, March 08, 2012, 15:24 (4644 days ago)
Surprise, gorillas DNA is like ours. They wish! Doesn't that just prove we are hairless apes and their close cousins. No it doesn't:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120307132210.htm-I don't look like him at all. I don't walk like him, and he can't think like me.
Gorilla DNA; Gorillas R\' Us
by David Turell , Saturday, March 10, 2012, 14:40 (4642 days ago) @ David Turell
Surprise, gorillas DNA is like ours. They wish! Doesn't that just prove we are hairless apes and their close cousins. No it doesn't: > > http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120307132210.htm > > I don't look like him at all. I don't walk like him, and he can't think like me.-Note this line in the Guardian article; we are only human apes:-"Today, all the non-human apes are really endangered populations, they're living in forest refuges and population numbers are quite low. Humans look like an exception to that ... we're all over the world now and live in places where you could never have had a primate beforehand."-http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/07/gorilla-genome-analysis-new-human-link
Gorilla DNA; Gorillas R\' Us; speech
by David Turell , Monday, June 18, 2012, 14:44 (4542 days ago) @ David Turell
Now the chimps started speech, but anatomically they are not built for it, cannot comprehend it, and what is described is light years removed from it. When is the last time youspoke in clicks, grunts and hoots. too much grant money chasing too little thought:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120531135641.htm
Gorilla DNA; Gorillas R\' Us; speech
DAVID: Now the chimps started speech, but anatomically they are not built for it, cannot comprehend it, and what is described is light years removed from it. When is the last time youspoke in clicks, grunts and hoots. too much grant money chasing too little thought:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120531135641.htm-Once again, David, my thanks for keeping us informed on so many fronts. My view of this subject seems to be far less sceptical than yours, probably because you are convinced that humans are different in kind rather than degree. Other animals are just as dependent on communication as we are, but of course they can only use whatever physical means are at their disposal. We don't know how our speech organs managed to become so versatile, but if gorillas use different face movements and lip-smackings to convey their own meanings, so be it. Bees dance and birds sing and some animals, like elephants, can emit sounds inaudible to the human ear. Recently we even read that plants may have means of communication. What we know for sure is that other animals DO communicate, and the fact that we do not understand their clicks, grunts and hoots, their songs, their movements, their facial expressions is a sign of our ignorance, not theirs. We may be hugely more advanced in language than they are, but their language has proved adequate for their needs, and if we accept that language is a system of communicating information, we must accept that in this as in so many other fields, they have shown us the way ... since we came so late on the scene. We have simply developed what we inherited from them. Our planes are their wings, our houses are their nests, our schools are their games, our meat industry is their hunt, our farm industry is their gathering, and our language is their grunts. Yes, we have art, philosophy and self-awareness to the nth degree, and of course chimps and gorillas R not us. No-one ever said they were. But we owe them, we are more like them than we care to acknowledge, and if all this research leads us to greater empathy with them because of all the common factors, I for one will not begrudge the grant money.
Gorilla DNA; Gorillas R\' Us; speech
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 19, 2012, 18:38 (4541 days ago) @ dhw
We may be hugely more advanced in language than they are, but their language has proved adequate for their needs-Exactly my point. Adequate for their needs, and our abilities are adequate for our needs. But that doesn't tell us why we are so advanced, in kind not degree. We could have survived as they do, but something happened to make us most unusual. -> Yes, we have art, philosophy and self-awareness to the nth degree, and of course chimps and gorillas R not us. No-one ever said they were. But we owe them, we are more like them than we care to acknowledge, and if all this research leads us to greater empathy with them because of all the common factors, I for one will not begrudge the grant money.-Do you want to pay the taxes for that stupid grant money? On the basis of empathy? We owe them proper animal husbandry. We don't owe them for our development, but must use our development to properly protect them.
Gorilla DNA; Gorillas R\' Us; speech
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 01:38 (4541 days ago) @ David Turell
We may be hugely more advanced in language than they are, but their language has proved adequate for their needs > > Exactly my point. Adequate for their needs, and our abilities are adequate for our needs. But that doesn't tell us why we are so advanced, in kind not degree. We could have survived as they do, but something happened to make us most unusual. > > > Yes, we have art, philosophy and self-awareness to the nth degree, and of course chimps and gorillas R not us. No-one ever said they were. But we owe them, we are more like them than we care to acknowledge, and if all this research leads us to greater empathy with them because of all the common factors, I for one will not begrudge the grant money. > > Do you want to pay the taxes for that stupid grant money? On the basis of empathy? We owe them proper animal husbandry. We don't owe them for our development, but must use our development to properly protect them.-I agree with David on this one. The grant money does not save them, does not lead to the protection of their habitat, nor does it prevent their exploitation. While I admit that it does help raise public awareness, until humans change their fundamental outlook on our role on this planet, nothing will change.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Gorilla DNA; Gorillas R\' Us; speech
DAVID: Do you want to pay the taxes for that stupid grant money? On the basis of empathy? We owe them proper animal husbandry. We don't owe them for our development, but must use our development to properly protect them.-TONY: I agree with David on this one. The grant money does not save them, does not lead to the protection of their habitat, nor does it prevent their exploitation. While I admit that it does help raise public awareness, until humans change their fundamental outlook on our role on this planet, nothing will change.-How do you propose to raise public awareness, and what do you propose to make the public aware of? The two likeliest methods are publicity and education, and if humans are to change their fundamental outlook concerning their fellow animals, it will be because they are made aware precisely of the information uncovered by such research. Tell a child to be kind to dumb animals, and you will make little impression. Explain to the child that a chimp, for instance, has language different from ours, but just like us she is communicating her love for her baby chimp, her fear of enemies, her enjoyment of her food, her dislike of being pestered...then there is a chance that the child will grow up with a greater emotional commitment to protecting the chimp. Similarly, any publicity that strengthens awareness of our affinities with other animals can add to the accumulative effect which gradually does change public attitudes. You only have to think of the proliferation of organizations now devoted to the welfare and protection of animals to realize that there has already been a profound change in attitudes. But without the research that uncovers the vast range of these affinities, there would be far more people still locked in their blinkered "them and us" approach. Animal welfare is, of course, the tip of the iceberg. You have talked, Tony, about oneness. It's only through empathy that people can internalize that sense, and without it there is no hope of changing outlooks, towards other humans as well as towards other animals. But empathy requires precisely the sort of understanding that comes about through increased knowledge. So let 'em have their grants.
Gorilla DNA; Gorillas R\' Us; speech
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 18:27 (4540 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Do you want to pay the taxes for that stupid grant money? On the basis of empathy? We owe them proper animal husbandry. We don't owe them for our development, but must use our development to properly protect them. > But empathy requires precisely the sort of understanding that comes about through increased knowledge. So let 'em have their grants.-It still depends on the grant. Grants that try to prove the Darwinist approach that we are simply naked apes are worhtless and there are lots of those. Read Tallis' Aping Mankind to understand that point of view.