dhw: Is this any different from the mystery of the Cambrian Explosion? When and how did specialized organs appear from nowhere? When and how did one species become another? .... some of us don't know what to believe.
> 
> DAVID: I agree. The gaps are not explained at this time by science or by evolutionary theory. Again I look for inferences to the best explanation/
> 
> dhw: So, of course, do those whose "best explanation" differs from your "best explanation".-But agnostics suggest no explanation


> QUOTE: "Despite the constant drumbeat of media stories announcing the discovery of the latest "missing link," the evidence shows that human-like forms appear abruptly in the fossil record, without any fossils connecting us to our alleged ape-like evolutionary ancestors. This contradicts the expectations of neo-Darwinian evolution and suggests that unguided evolutionary mechanisms do not account for the origin of our species."
> 
> dhw: Is this any different from the mystery of the Cambrian Explosion? When and how did specialized organs appear from nowhere? When and how did one species become another? .... some of us don't know what to believe.-I agree. The gaps are not explained at this time by science or by evolutionary theory. Again I look for inferences to the best explanation/


> dhw: The following is an extract translated from a treatise by Professor Pansy Chim, University of Human Studies, Tanzania:
> 
> "The first problem I encountered with the adult specimens was their extreme reluctance not only to learn our language, but even to recognize that it WAS a language. When I attempted to teach them the rudimentary skills of vocalization, facial expression and physical gesture, they seemed unable to differentiate between our sounds and movements, and on the few occasions when they imitated these, they quickly collapsed into paroxysms of laughter. As far as I can tell, their own language is so complex that very few of them have ever mastered it, and their conversations are frequently punctuated by expressions of non-comprehension. Their younger children, however, seemed more cooperative, which suggests the unusual possibility that the children are more intelligent than the adults. This may, however, be due to the phenomenon known as "interference", whereby the more the learner knows (or thinks he knows), the less capable he is of learning. I have noted this elsewhere, when discussing their adults' opinions and beliefs.
> 
> My conclusion is that very few humans are capable of learning our language. This may be due to lack of intelligence, or it may be due to the fact that they are unwilling to recognize themselves as part of the animal kingdom. (See also the chapters on sex, family life, social life, education, tools, empathy, emotion, humour, hunting, games, war and peace.)"-Nicely done!-Chimps have some rudiments of thought:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130403141442.htm

dhw: But just as I do not believe for one minute that atheists would change their mindset if we stopped calling humans "primates", I do not believe for one minute that calling humans "fellow animals" will change the mindset of those who abuse their fellow animals as well as their fellow humans!-As a human lover and an animal lover I agree with your presentation. Cruelty is wrond at any level, and in Genesis God gave us dominion over animals to do our best to care for them and protect them. Our African trips have all been with cameras in hand.

dhw: I am going to summarize this discussion, because arrows are flying in all directions..... It began with my questioning the point of the great-ape-taxonomy-debate. David, you think that classifying humans as primates degrades their specialness. I agree that our huge brains are special, but I see no reason why the classification "primate" should be regarded as degrading. -Your lack of seeing my point is why the discussion kept going. The key to my objection about clasifying us as primates, is that atheists constantly use the classification to imply we are not so special. We are just naked apes as the book said. But our posture is different, our skeleton is different, our gait is different, our hands are different (opposible thumbs) and our brain is enormously different. We are beyond primate although we came from there.


> Classifications are man-made. Here is a definition of primate: "a placental mammal, typically having flexible hands and feet with opposable first digits, good binocular vision, and in the higher apes a highly developed brain." Is there anything in this definition that does not apply to humans?-No, but it proves nothing. it is a classification, not a truth. however, the classfication is used to remove an concept of specialness in regard to humans. We startd as primates but for some unknown reason we became upright physically and extremely brainy, when evolutionary pressures did not require those changes.-
> dhw: The classification does not in any way degrade their [camel] specialness, but if you think that calling man a very special primate is degrading, of course that is your prerogative. Perhaps we should also stop calling ourselves mammals.-Arguments all off the point. Of course camels are special in their own way. All the disparate species have their own specialness.Try injecting 8 mgms a day of selenium as llamas do, and then die. These are variations all species have. but only one species has a giant brain.
> 
> dhw: if your God-made "intelligent cells" were able to invent the camel's immune system, the dog's nose, the spider's silk, then they were able to invent the human brain, ALL of these being part of the innovative process of evolution. Or are you now arguing that humans did not evolve like the rest of the animal kingdom?-We evolved, but I think I know where the information came from in those intelligent cells, really their intelligent genome. Information cannot come from chance. The information to run the processes of life must come from a designing intellect.
> 
> dhw:And so the atheist can repeat your own argument against you: "The skeptical wish to deny the role of chance and will not be won over, because they will want absolute proof, which is impossible." We are back to Tweedledum and Tweedledee.-Making a choice between chance and God is a personal choice. If one is willing to accept proof beyond a reasonable doubt, then God wins. Absolute proof will never bring an answer, so I assume those skeptics prefer to remain in darkness.
> 
> *********
> 
> DAVID: This reference to the mistakes in our primate-modified design makes my point. We are just mis-engineered primates, and unfortunate at that. This is a constant theme of the atheistic scientific deluge that laughs at a God-designed human as a huge mistake. Therefore no god!
> 
> http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/02/human-evolution-gain-came-with-p.html?ref... 
> dhw: It has nothing to do with our classification as primates..... This is an attack on the whole concept of design, and obviously by implication on the concept of a designer-That was my point. - 
> dhw: However, note the conclusion of this article: "Evolution doesn't act to yield perfection," he says. "It acts to yield function."[/i]
 
 
> I'd go along with that. It fits in with the higgledy-piggledy bush, and the observations themselves seem to me to be accurate enough. Would anyone deny that the human body has weaknesses? But that doesn't prove there's no designer, If there is a designer, it's perfectly possible that he designed life to "yield function" and not "perfection". -Exactly. Life is not perfect design, it is functional design; the exact point of the Intelligent Design theorists. Again to use an old horse, the retina: it sees upside down and backwards, but it all sees one photon with an extremely powerfully efficient use of energy. All primates have it, but only one has that huge brain.

dhw: In the meantime, perhaps you have forgotten that the trigger for this discussion was "the-great-ape-taxonomy-debate", the point of which escapes me. So let me ask you once more how you define "primate", why you think the term degrades us, and why you think people who are sceptical of your "very special", divine teleology would be converted to your opinions if only you could make them refer to us as humans and not as primates.-This reference to the mistakes in our primate-modified design makes my point. We are just mis-engineered primates, and unfortunate at that. This is a constant theme of the atheistic scientific deluge that laughs at a God-designed human as a hugh mistake. Therefore no god!:-
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/02/human-evolution-gain-came-with-p.html?ref=hp

dhw: In the meantime, perhaps you have forgotten that the trigger for this discussion was "the-great-ape-taxonomy-debate", the point of which escapes me. So let me ask you once more how you define "primate", why you think the term degrades us, and why you think people who are sceptical of your "very special", divine teleology would be converted to your opinions if only you could make them refer to us as humans and not as primates.-We may have descended from primate ancestors, but we are so special that we are very different in kind. To insist on still considering us primates tries to avoid the question of why we are so special and how we got that way. Accepting the specialness strongly implies teleology. The skeptical wish to deny the role of God and will not be won over, because they will want absolute proof,which is impossible. For the rest of us the inference from the 'specialness' is overwhelming.