"Is Man Just Another Animal?" Professor Steve Jones says...

[joustmaster]

Joust, do you really think it is possible to do that with such complex phenomena?

I'm yet to see anything showing why you think it is complex.

Why don't you think we are animals?

 

[pk]

Go without food/water for a few days. I guarantee every single one of you will go into animal mode.
Especially those who reject such notions.

 

[Orang Utan]

You did: "We are animals."

Any questions?

Why do you seem to think the question is even up for debate? We ARE animals. This is a fact.

 

[Knotted]

Then, one would need to show that the same quality is present in animal kingdom.

Essences and necessary and sufficient conditions. Can a line be drawn? Whether it can or not (and if it can you haven't been successful - see killer whales), it's just a line. Really, gorski, I'm very disappointed.

 

[gorski]

Not as much as I am disappointed, K, in utter failure to think even minimally. Most geezers here, actually. You are trolling right now but...

This almost radically bloody stoopid reductionism knows no bounds for shameless self-propaganda...

None of you can shine Jones's shoes and yet all of you "think" you have it all figured out...

He mentions umpteen issues for you to grapple with and - what do you do?

Crickey!

 

[xes]

Are you a type of mamal gorski?

 

[Knotted]

Oh deary me.

Any disagreements I have with Steve Jones are just quibbles. He's possibly over-egging it a little, but then he's doing pop science.

Differences without essences. Categories without defined edges. That's what you need to understand. It is central to evolutionary theory. He's not saying that at some point in human evolution an animal gave birth to a creature that had sufficient sense of self, history and a capacity for language and cooking and with sufficiently small testicles that it was a human and not an animal. It's small changes the whole way and yet they produce profound differences.

What adds up to a human being is not some essential difference with chimps such as language. It's not a case of humans spend a small amount of time chewing each day therefore Beethoven wrote his seventh symphony. The point is that there is more to it than that. There is more to us than some categorical line that you have drawn. It was as animals that we evolved and it is animals that we are (perhaps not only just another animal, but an animal nevertheless), drawing a line between us and other animals is a woefully unsatisfactory way of understanding humanity. It's just a line and we know that any line is arbitrary in evolution.

There is another angle here. Really we aren't the only animal with culture. You just have to accept that. But we are the only animal with as developed a culture as we have. We aren't the only animal that uses tools, but we are the only animal that uses tools to the extent that we do. It is no less satisfactory to say that we are more sophisticated culturally/socially than other animals, than to try to find a cut off for minimal sophistication for human status. Perhaps in an alternative reality elephants evolve to be as culturally/socially sophisticated as we are. However they wouldn't be sophisticated in the same way. Our sophistication is related to the animals that we are and the sophistication of these sophisticated elephants would relate to the animals that they are. Perhaps they wouldn't be interested in cooking, perhaps their language would be radically different to ours, perhaps they wouldn't have language at all and would be able to plan and change their society with an eye on their collective future without words. There is something very stunting about essentialist thinking. You aren't satisfied with the answer that we are more sophisticated culturally than other animals and you come up with various criteria for what makes us special, but in doing so you erase other possibilities.

And of course you label humans who are not up to scratch with regards your arbitrary criteria as sub-human animals. I'm pretty sure Steve Jones wouldn't back you on that one.

 

[bubblesmcgrath]

Not as much as I am disappointed, K, in utter failure to think even minimally. Most geezers here, actually. You are trolling right now but...

This almost radically bloody stoopid reductionism knows no bounds for shameless self-propaganda...

None of you can shine Jones's shoes and yet all of you "think" you have it all figured out...

He mentions umpteen issues for you to grapple with and - what do you do?

Crickey!

Nobody has it all figured out...

 

[gorski]

Yep, that's the point - but some have it figured out much more than others and some amongst them are NOT over-egging it, Steve Jones being one of them!!!

On the other hand, there's loads who haven't a clue but with ignorance comes confidence, as we well know...

 

[gorski]

"Are you a type of mamal gorski?"

I am the biggest of them all, yuge follower of mamillae, it's true, they are the best!

 

[gorski]

Sadly, Knotted there is not more than that post in you, I fear... Not any more, if there ever was some potential...

 

[Knotted]

Yep, that's the point - but some have it figured out much more than others and some amongst them are NOT over-egging it, Steve Jones being one of them!!!

He's not saying anything especially controversial. But I would encourage you to watch more videos and read more books even if it is only Steve Jones that you've decided is kosher.

 

[gorski]

Nonsense, he is saying a lot of stuff that most people here, for instance, do find controversial, as it is so obvious to see. What the Hell happened to you?

May I encourage you to start reading a little bit wider and deeper...

 

[Knotted]

Nobody is biting. There is nothing to bite.

 

[Orang Utan]

The only controversial thing said on this thread is your fallacious assertion that man is not an animal.

 

[gentlegreen]

I challenge you gorski to spend some time listening to the moronic theists in a couple of Paltalk chatrooms I visit for Daily_Mail_website-type perverse thrills - it might help you put stuff in perspective.

There's this very nice and obviously intelligent guy on there hanging onto his Christian faith with his fingernails who's constantly clutching at straws trying to "disprove" "Darwinism" (sic) with regards to the human animal. He keeps quoting insanely obscure scientific papers on genetics which hardly anyone on the planet can understand.

 

[gorski]

And why on Earth would I do that? Not a masochist.

On the other hand, have any one of you heard SJ (or me) being a theist? Or saying "we are (nothing but) animals"?

I heard something very different and well founded, much better thought through than any one of you can dream of doing, that's for sure, that we are "unique" and that he is glad to have found he is Human and unique, with many capacities animals do not have, just as we do not have many animal characteristics, i.e. we are no longer qualified to pose as if we are animals (my hat down to a few apes and shit here who are trying desperately to denigrate themselves) or those of us brought up on "popular science" via BBC etc. who do not see anything in us that would qualify as "special".

I have put additional stuff here, stuff he can't do as a geneticist, no one disputed in any way. Hell, no one dares actually deal with any of that. What we see here is just nonsensical insistence on prejudice that needs no effort whatsoever - so no surprise there - ideology infused, needless to say, trying unintelligently to reduce us to something we left a long time ago...

 

[Orang Utan]

Human - Wikipedia

 

[JimW]

And why on Earth would I do that? Not a masochist.

On the other hand, have any one of you heard SJ (or me) being a theist? Or saying "we are (nothing but) animals"?

I heard something very different and well founded, much better than any one of you, that's for sure, that we are "unique" and that he is glad to have found is Human and unique, with many capacities animals do not have, just as we do not have many animal characteristics, i.e. we are no longer qualified to pose as if we are animals (my hat down to a few apes and shit here who are trying desperately to denigrate themselves) or those of us brought up on "popular science" via BBC etc. who do not see anything in us that would qualify as "special".

I have put additional stuff here, stuff he can't do as a geneticist, no one disputed in any way. Hell, no one dares actually deal with any of that. What we see here is just nonsensical insistence on prejudice that needs no effort whatsoever - so no surprise there - ideology infused, needless to say, trying unintelligently to reduce us to something we left a long time ago...

I think it's that your reasoning is so risibly shallow that makes your pretensions all the funnier. Thickest cunt on the internet because you think you're clever.

 

[Orang Utan]

How is it helpful to characterise our species as distinct from other animals? Were the most successful one, that's all.

 

[JimW]

How is it helpful to characterise our species as distinct from other animals? Were the most successful one, that's all.

One species of nematode is distinct from another. It's amazing and unique!

 

[gorski]

Brainless bums should at least know they are brainless, can't contribute and so not be so stoopid so as to advertise it freely... But oh no...

 

[Orang Utan]

Brainless bums should at least know they are brainless, can't contribute and so not be so stoopid so as to advertise it freely... But oh no...

Why do you feel the need to insult those who disagree with you? You're not saying much yourself.

 

[gorski]

I am. You are not. Insults didn't start flying from me.

 

[Orang Utan]

I am. You are not. Insults didn't start flying from me.

I haven't insulted you. You are making claims that are counter to fact. There's not much to say about that, apart from pointing out that your belief that humans aren't animals is catergorically untrue.

 

[gorski]

BS. But you can stop trolling now, thanx.

Btw, I haven't said you did...

 

[Orang Utan]

BS. But you can stop trolling now, thanx.

Btw, I haven't said you did...

how am i trolling? you're the one who's saying something that isn't true. tell us why humans aren't animals? you are denying evolution if you think so

 

[gorski]

It's worse than trolling, it's like a bad version of Monty Python's sketch, but only you are saying "yes we are", whereas I actually make an effort and give reasoned arguments against... So, you can stop your "contributions" now, thanx a bunch, since nothing is actually coming from you...

 

[Orang Utan]

It's worse than trolling, it's like a bad version of Monty Python's sketch, but only you are saying "yes we are", whereas I actually make an effort and give reasoned arguments against... So, you can stop your "contributions" now, thanx a bunch, since nothing is actually coming from you...

we are homo sapiens, a species of the animal kingdom. it's not an argument, it's a fact. you are gainsaying fact. if you have new information, the scientific world will be interested in it, so please enlighten us.

 

[Orang Utan]

btw you haven't made an effort - you're just saying 'no, we're not'. you haven't given us any information that counters evolution.