Dogs only make more dogs - really?

[justlookinla]

Okay, I think you and I are done for the moment. I'm tired of getting the same assertions whenever I attempt to prompt a real discussion.

You mean my dozens and dozens and dozens of replies to your posts wasn't a 'real discussion'? Sure wish you'd have said that earlier. Would have saved us both a lot of time.

You think that the differences between humans and other animals are so substantial that we cannot be put in the same category. I think that the multitudinous similarities and the patterns those similarities form are so substantial that it is absurd not to realize that humans are obviously a species of ape. Ultimately both positions are, as you say, subjective when left at that point, which seems to be as far as you're willing to go. The importance you ascribe to the differences is subjective and the importance biologists ascribe to the patterns of similarity are subjective. I agree with this point.

However I disagree that the very existence of these patterns,[ as you have asserted but refused to support, is subjective.

Depends on what criteria you pick and choose to determine the category in which humans are part of.

The variety of independent methods that produce consilient results in addition to the predictive capacity of the resulting classification scheme make it absurd to claim that none of the patterns exist and just happen to produce these results. You are invited to provide an actual counterargument to this point.

I predict that no other life form will be more intelligent, creative, inventive and dominant as humans. That's the criteria I choose to use to differentiate humans from all other life forms. You apparently promote other criteria.

Furthermore, if you were willing to engage in a real discussion rather than bald assertion, we would quickly see that while the importance ascribed to differences and similarities is subjective, the significance ascribed to the latter is justified by the consilient results and predictive powers of various methods whereas the significance ascribed to the former is supported by no more than your belief.

See above for the prediction that humans aren't apes.

It is clear at this point that you want to remain at the first step where we just assert our subjective opinions and I am not interested in doing that. Let me know if you eventually decide to engage substantively with the points raised.

If I haven't satisfied your curiosity by now, I doubt there's anything else I can say which will satisfy you.

 

[PsychoSarah]

The point is, using the criteria I listed, humans can't be classified as apes.

Ape is a broader category than human is. Would you say humans aren't mammals, even though we produce milk, have hair, and are warm bodied, and of the traits all mammals have, we don't have any that defy that category? Being intelligent or not is not a qualification for being an ape. Being a dominant species isn't a trait used to classify at all.

 

[justlookinla]

Ape is a broader category than human is. Would you say humans aren't mammals, even though we produce milk, have hair, and are warm bodied, and of the traits all mammals have, we don't have any that defy that category? Being intelligent or not is not a qualification for being an ape. Being a dominant species isn't a trait used to classify at all.

I'd say that humans are in a class all to themselves, the pinnacle of life forms.

 

[PsychoSarah]

I'd say that humans are in a class all to themselves, the pinnacle of life forms.

Hate to break it to you, but we are a rather sickly species.

 

[DaisyDay]

I'd say that humans are in a class all to themselves, the pinnacle of life forms.

Aha! So you do classify humans in with living beings!

 

[justlookinla]

Hate to break it to you, but we are a rather sickly species.

We dominate the earth unlike any other life form.

 

[justlookinla]

Aha! So you do classify humans in with living beings!

Yep.

 

[mickiio]

Aha! So you do classify humans in with living beings!

And mammals too!

 

[Herman Hedning]

We dominate the earth unlike any other life form.

Oh really? Five million trillion trillion bacteria disagrees with you.

 

[justlookinla]

Oh really? Five million trillion trillion bacteria disagrees with you.

Got any bacterial inventions to share?

 

[mickiio]

Got any bacterial inventions to share?

Or better yet, where they turned into something other then bacteria?

 

[Herman Hedning]

Or better yet, where they turned into something other then bacteria?

Sure, when you show humans turn into something other than humans.

 

[Herman Hedning]

Got any bacterial inventions to share?

World domination does not need inventions.

 

[lasthero]

Or better yet, where they turned into something other then bacteria?

You can find two bacteria with far less in common than you and any ape. Heck, you could find two bacteria with less in common than you and a roach.

 

[mickiio]

World domination does not need inventions.

Haha! my point exactly! Bacteria stay bacteria and humans stay humans.

 

[lasthero]

Haha! my point exactly! Bacteria stay bacteria and humans stay humans.

Humans are a species. Bacteria are an entire DOMAIN.

 

[justlookinla]

World domination does not need inventions.

We're dominating the world with inventions, no so with other life forms.

 

[justlookinla]

Humans are a species. Bacteria are an entire DOMAIN.

Word games.

 

[Herman Hedning]

We're dominating the world with inventions, no so with other life forms.

That's right. Bacteria are dominating the world completely without inventions.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

That's right. Bacteria are dominating the world completely without inventions.

Good point. It's almost as if the dominance of an organism is a completely worthless criterion for categorizing it in a biologically meaningful way!