worship4ever said:
Sili, creationist have lied to us, well that may be truth, but flip it around, your sources could be lying to you. Your sources have alot more to lose if there wrong, creationist either way love God. Plus, i would rather truth a believer of God than someone that rules out intelligent design completely any day of the week.
It doesn't matter what you *wish* were true - it is extremely unlikely that the whole world of science was one great conspiracy.
The evidence is out there - you can either go into a natural history museum of your choice, a library, a canyon or to any paleontological researcher and see the fossil exhibits, calculations, etc... You can touch them (if you ask nicely
), you can do your own measurings, calculations, research, try to prove them hoaxes, whatever you like. And many, many people do that every day, and so far, none of them has brought evidence that falsifies the ToE.
My point is: The chances that all scientific sources are promoting the *same* lie is astronomically small. There is no "evolutionary agenda" - we can't "prove" evolution in the scientific sense, we can only try falsifying it in every thinkable way. So far, we`ve had no success, and it would be a veritable fool who'd let the opportunity slip.
Creationist sources do *not* give you all the data. They hand-pick what fits their worldview and ignore or try to belittle the rest - this is *not* scientific, but extremely biased. I call it lying with intent - as they full square know which questions they cannot answer and have to sidestep diligently.
It's been shown that if a monkey dies, the other monkeys will try to protect if from birds, flies, or other potential threads to the dead body. Is that emotion, are they upset or sad about it, no, they mostly dont understand it. They can't even realize themself in a mirror, or most cant.
I wonder why you keep saying "mostly" - probably because you realise you're not so sure about all that? I like to compare chimps with small children - they're not very intelligent, they jump around a lot and have some remote cuteness about them. They also show great similarities in their behaviour, since children are not yet subject to the extreme self-censorship and self-control that adults have incorporated.
Do small children realise death? They don't. Does that make them animals? No, they simply haven't learned the concept of death yet. I don't know what chimps make of death - maybe to them, it's just an inconvenience, something that simply happens.
The matter at hand is intelligence, though - and thinking of chimps as small children IMO goes a long way in explaining why there are no big ceremonies, speeches etc... Chimps are not as intelligent as full-grown humans, but I doubt they're intellectually less capable than, say, a two-year old. Many can indeed be taught to do simple maths - quite contrary to some people in high school...
And then, there's conscience - how do you define it? For most humans, conscience is probably a way of calculating actions for fear of reprisals. Darn - most pets can do that, so there is at least a basic amount of conscience in the animal kingdom. More intelligent animals like chimps even have moral codices that guide their behaviour - so the point remains, that there is only a gradual difference between humans and animals.
Self-awareness? You bet. Dolphins and Chimps are animals I immediately have to think of when it comes to self-awareness, as has been demonstrated repeatedly. E.g. you project a point of light somewhere on their body where they can only see it in the mirror, and they try plucking away at it. If that's not awareness that the image you're seeing is yourself, then I don't know what will satisfy you. Chimps can learn a complex sign language that has termini like "me" and "you" - and these are used in correct context. How's that?
