Are humans simply intelligent animals? (page 2)

tyydyy

Abaddon,

That's almost the same thing that I said. I do agree with you on the technological issue but how do you explain the social advances? Is that merely due to the technological advances? Physically I know it isn't possible to change in a couple thousand years. Or is it? With the advances in medicine, haven't we changed natural selection? Some would say that we are degrading the species by helping the weak survive and reproduce. I don't think it's possible for apes to develop vocal chords to the point that they could communicate with humans within a few thousand years unless there is some way of artificially mutating them physically. I do think they have feelings. I was taught as a JW that humans were the only species that were capable of love but I don't believe that anymore.

TimB

Realist

tyydyy,

what social advances ?

NeonMadman

We are animals. There is no proof the the contrary, after all.

There are little purple guys living on the planet Pluto. There is no proof to the contrary, after all.

tyydyy

Realist,

I don't really think that point needs to be argued unless you think the world is on the verge of a moral collapse. In which case I would guess that you are some form of christian. Most people are aware that we have much higher standards of conduct than say 1000 years ago. We can't assume that just because there were laws in the bible that everyone in the world followed them and if they did they would have been stoning their children for being rebellious or offering their daughters up to a mob of rapists. Invading a country and killing every man woman child and beast. Pleeeeeeease.

TimB

Realist

tyydyy,

hmmm yes and no. western societies are less violent than ancient ones. however you talked about the last 200 years and i can't see a huge progress during that period.

also as was demonstrated by several wars over the last 200 years civilization is only a very fragile layer on top of aggression and hatred.

ballistic

They recently found a body of a small child floating in the river Thames in London. It had been sacrificed in a ritual to the gods to bring good luck. That kind of uneducated behaviour was going on thousands of years ago.

Jerry Bergman

On this topic many will appreciate Richard Halvorson's "Confessions of a Skeptic" at
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=347399

Confessions of a Skeptic
By RICHARD T. HALVORSON
RICHARD T. HALVORSON

Does our culture, like many others, have an unpardonable heresy? Every
culture constructs an idol unto itself, punishing heresy by excommunication.
We can discover the sacred idol of any culture by finding its taboo
question.In Medieval Europe, the peasant was forbidden to question the truth of the
Church. Under Communism, comrades doubting the Party were thrown in gulag
labor camps. Now, citizens must recite principles of Darwinism through
compulsory schooling.

We are encouraged to learn nuances like punctuated equilibrium and
neo-Darwinism, but questioning the universal explanatory power of evolution
is met with intellectual excommunication.

I make no apology for those who blindly reject scientific evidence due to
contrived religious doctrines; I have equally little tolerance for those who
ignore scientific evidence to prop up a naturalistic anti-religious dogma.

Anti-religious prejudice among scientists significantly impeded 20th century
scientific advance. Stephen Hawking wrote in A Brief History of Time that
evidence for the Big Bang was ignored for decades because it "smacks of
divine intervention." For fear of theological implications, there were "a
number of attempts to avoid the conclusion that there had been a Big Bang."

Intellectual honesty requires rationally examining our fundamental
premises-yet expressing hesitation about Darwin is considered irretrievable
intellectual suicide, the unthinkable doubt, the unpardonable sin of
academia.

Although the postmodern era questions everything else-the possibility of
knowledge, basic morality and reality itself-critical discussion of Darwin
is taboo. While evolutionary biologists test Darwin's hypothesis in every
experiment they conduct, the basic premise of evolution remains an
scientific Holy of Holies, despite our absurd skepticism in other areas.

Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins writes: "It is absolutely safe to say that,
if you meet somebody who does not believe in evolution, that person is
either ignorant, stupid, or insane."

Biologists continue to recite the worn credo, "the central, unifying
principle of biology is the theory of evolution." But where would physics be
if Einstein had been forced to chant, "the central, unifying principle of
physics is Newtonian theory," until he could not see beyond its limitations?

Scientific innovations originate outside the dominant paradigm-demanding
orthodoxy invites stagnation. Scientists who question evolution, like
Intelligent Design theorists, do not reject evolution entirely, but argue
that evidence supports a limited explanatory role. Faithful Darwinists,
however, like Teilhard de Chardin, insist that evolution is "a general
postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must henceforth
bow."

Luckily, no one needs a doctorate to separate honest skepticism from
institutionalized dogma. Skip Evans, of the National Center for Science
Education, worried that classroom discussions of evidence against evolution
might "cast seeds of doubt in students' minds."

Professors expressing doubts about evolution are often ostracized, demoted
or fired. A Baylor University professor found research funds rescinded
because his project would undermine evolutionary presuppositions. Other
skeptical professors have resorted to using pseudonyms, fearing for their
jobs and careers if they openly publish contrary evidence.

Evolution skeptics are almost universally dismissed with an ad hominem
charge of "religiously-motivated propaganda." Yet science students and
professors consistently fail to address the merits of critics' arguments.
They cannot answer the relevant evidential questions of: (1) what is the
most compelling critique of evolution; (2) and on which points the evidence
or arguments fail.

Most Darwinists have not read or considered biochemist Michael Behe,
geneticist Michael Denton, embryologist Jonathan Wells, or information
theorist William Dembski. These dissenting voices are systematically
marginalized and silenced by academic McCarthyism.

We must refuse to bow to our culture's false idols. Science will not benefit
from canonizing Darwin or making evolution an article of secular faith. We
must reject intellectual excommunication as a valid form of dealing with
criticism: the most important question for any society to ask is the one
that is forbidden.

-Richard T. Halvorson is an editorial editor.

Copyright © 2001, The Harvard Crimson Inc. All rights reserved.

Jerry Bergman

Our DNA is about 98% the same as apes apparently. Apparently not. The difference is now estimated to be only 95% the same (and 5% of 3 billion DNA base pairs is 150 million, an enormous difference!!!)

Jerry Bergman

I wouldn't say our intellegence has increased per se. For a start, 200 years, even if you had pretty heavy natural selection or sexual selection... Just curious, do you know of any empirical evidence for sexual selection in humans?? Research has found that the number one turn off in men is obesity, and now over 60 percent of American women are overweight. It would seem that selection should work here in view of the genetic involvement in weight.

AGuest

Dearest JH... may you have peace... and may I respond? Thank you!

First, please know that man, in general, is NOT made in God's "image". Only TWO were made in that image: Adam... and Christ. Man, in general, was made just as Eve... from ADAM. And since man, in general, came into existence AFTER Adam's sin, it is THAT "image" which we bear. Adam was made in God's image, so when it says "Let us make man in our image," it was speaking of ONE man. For only ONE man... was made. It was by means of THAT man... and the woman taken from HIM... that all other men... came to be.

Thus, although we NOW bear the image of the one of flesh... Adam... we CAN bear the image of the one of SPIRIT... Christ... and by means of that One, God.

Second, we are not animals: we are "ad-ham"... or "earthling" man... versus "heavenly" or spirit man. The reason we so resemble apes in our chemistry is that there is only a limited number of DNA from which ALL life was derived... and ALL life goes back to that one Source... God.

Does that mean that because we share a 98% DNA similarity with chimps that we are just a notch shy of being apes? No. No more than cats are shy of being dogs. For although dogs and cats are farther apart in the gene pool... they, too, can be traced back to shared DNA at some point.

We, however, are a different GENUS from apes, which genus (apes) has several SPECIES. Of OUR "genus", however, that of "man"... (which we have inaccurately named "homo sapiens" - homo, meaning "genus"... and sapiens meaning "modern" man... vs. primeval)... there are only two (2) SPECIES:

physical... or "terrestrial"... and spiritual... or "celestial".

Do the scientists know this? Not with faith such that they can explain it. So... egotists that they are... they prefer to act as if this is not the case. For "science" says that everything has an explanation (which, in truth, it does), and for them, that which cannot BE explained (by them), must not be.

But, perhaps, they will one day see what they cannot see... and hear what they cannot hear... and thus know... what... and WHOM... they do NOT know. May JAH, through Christ, let it be.

Again, I bid you peace.

A slave of Christ,

SJ

Are humans simply intelligent animals?

Share this