Barbarian asks:
What mental process found in humans is not present in chimpanzees?
No one else can find one, either. I looked at your list, BTW, and if that's the requirement, then most humans aren't human. I repeat, what mental process, found in humans, is not found in apes?
If you don't know what a "mental process" is, you can look it up, or you can ask me.
Hold it right there pal.
You've produced some weird definition of 'mental process' which you 're going to milk for all it's worth.
Let's not play that game. Let's get serious, shall we? Because some of the following responses are little short of a joke.
Other animals can count. So it's merely a difference of degree.
Pure nonsense, and you know it. Maybe your degree could have been obtained by a chimp - is that what you're saying?
A religion is not a mental process. Try again.
Oh no you don't. It is something pretty major that man has, and that no chimp can have. Or have you got proof to the contrary?
Turns out, both chimps and dogs have been shown to have a sense of fairness. Would you like to learn about it? So matter of degree, again.
We were talking about a 'moral sense', remember? Do you know what that is? If not you can ask me and I'll elucidate.
Sounds interesting. Show us that one. Since Jane Goodall has recorded the attraction of chimps to beautiful sunsets, you're down again.
Has she recorded anything about paintings, music, landscapes, features, mathematical elegances and such like? Such slithering, Barbarian, tut tut.
[FONT="]Man is the only creature with the ability to have a complex language.[/FONT]
Apes can communicate in sign language, and apparently, have a rudimentary languages differing among different groups. Again, a difference of degree.
So an ape could write what you're writing, because it could obtain the degree you've got? Let's not be silly, Barbarian.
You did notice the word 'complex' didn't you? Here:
[FONT="]
Man is the only creature with the ability to have a complex language.
Try again.[/FONT]
Some humans don't. By your measure, some people aren't human.
Maybe, maybe..
Man is the only creature with the ability to reason abstractly
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Chimps have been shows to have the ability to infer mental states in others, and to act effectively on them. Again, only a difference of degree.
You missed it again. Getting to be a habit now.
'Reason abstractly' is not quite the same thing, is it?
If you don't know what it means, please ask me, and I'll try to help you out.
Chimps manufacture tools to exploit termite nests, and make sharp sticks to hunt pottos in tree holes.
Oh yeah. Like hammers, chisels, tractors and microscopes too. Wonderful B, just wonderful, the amount of nonsense you have managed to produce so far. Doubtless, there's more to come. Let's see.
[FONT="]Man is the only creature with the ability to make articles of dress and adornment[/FONT]
Not a mental state. And chimps primp before mirrors. Again, a difference of degree.
A mental state? No, we were discussing 'the ability to do...' Don't change the subject.
But talk to your wife about that one, if you have one. She'll be very pleased, I'm sure. Another dismal failure.[FONT="]
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Man is the only creature with the ability to make fire
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By this measure, the Tasmanians were not human. Nor is that a mental state.
As I said, we're not discussing a mental state - we're discussing the ability to make fire, in this instance. Are you denying that the Tasmans (who I've never heard about BTW) had the
ability to make fire - or that they simply never did?
Man is the only creature with the ability to sow and reap
By that measure some people are not human. Not a mental state.
Shall I mention the 'not a mental state' again? And again, whoever you may be thinking about, are you denying their 'ability' - note the word - to sow and reap? And which chimp does so?
Man is the only creature with the ability to improve its appearance
You mean, demolished above, don't you?
Man is the only creature with the delicacy and precision of touch that enables eye surgery as an example
Chimps can pick locks and make tools. Not a mental state, and only a difference of degree.
Sorry, we aren't discussing a mental state, but the
ability to do these things. Perhaps you'd like a chimp to operate on your eye? Might help you see a few things.
For example, the grasp instinct in human babies is the basic grasping instinct in all primates. Those with better grasping instinct tended to survive.
Ah, you've mentioned the magic word 'instinct'. Now how did you say that instinct (or any other) evolved?
This is your poorest effort to date. I can't give less that zero out of 100, or I would.
But the effort is only so pathetic because there is no real answer to these points, is there?
And the fact that there is no answer, is absolutely disastrous for the theory of common descent.
Men's mental and spiritual capacities are so much greater, and so completely different from anything else in the whole of creation that we should be in a separate kingdom, not merely a phylum.
We are made in the image of God, :angel3 and that alone separates us from everything else.
Pity you can't agree, but insist that you are related to chimpanzees. :bounce
If you really think so, then perhaps you deserve to be...