WHy have other species not evolved intelligence

[JohnR7]

why are we the only really intelligent beings on earth? Why has there not been any other species that developed along our lines to survive by ever-increasing intelligence.

Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Because God did not create them that way. He only created man in His image and likeness. HOW He did that maybe a little more complicated to explain.

 

[Deamiter]

... of course that quote in no way indicates what "in God's image and likeness" includes and what it does not include.

Clearly at least much of intelligence and use of tools and even emotions such as mourning and love are not unique to humans so we can rule those out as the bits of us created in the image of God.

 

[busterdog]

Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Because God did not create them that way. He only created man in His image and likeness. HOW He did that maybe a little more complicated to explain.

Good point.

Apparently evolution would suggest that it is at best a coincidence that man is the only intelligent species. However, I am just in awe of this scripture.

 

[busterdog]

Wow. I'm preparing a thesis defense right now, and one of my advisors constantly asks whether my experimental data fits with my predicted data. He asks because without the connection there's no way to verify that my experimental data is correct and no way to verify that the model is accurate.

I suppose not everybody comes from such a culture -- I know many people approach life trying to learn a minimal amount to get by. They don't want their understanding of ANYTHING challenged, and I suppose they wouldn't care one bit if their beliefs were backed up by evidence (or if their beliefs predicted what evidence should be found in the future).

Luckily there are schools that train people to back up their assertions and help them to create predictive models that are actually useful in helping us to understand and use the world God gave us.

A literal word would predict that man alone is intelligent. Genesis predicts alot about man. The knowledge of good and evil. Made in the image of God. Man has dominion. Animals are afraid of man. All of the above sound too obvious to have meaning, excep that evolution has a much harder time predicting such traits, as the OP suggests.

That being said, it is not difficult to reason against, if not trivialize, this position. That is a pattern that fits most assertions out of the Word, including the resurrection itselt. Pure reason is not enough. And if that is what is required as the only test, again I think the predictive capacity of creationism is just a non-starter for academic discussion.

As for intelligence, only man can build a Babel or choose the knowledge of good and evil. That is one meaningful test.

 

[mark kennedy]

As far as man being in the image of God, did you know that apes cannot lie. They never learn the art of deception, that's because a lie is actually a creative minipulation of the truth.

That's all I have, now back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

 

[Deamiter]

As far as man being in the image of God, did you know that apes cannot lie. They never learn the art of deception, that's because a lie is actually a creative minipulation of the truth.

That's all I have, now back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

Eh? Deception in order to advance social status in apes is rather well documented not only in labs (subject to the possibility of human interference) but in the wild. A quick Google search brings up dozens of discussions on the topic -- most describing cases where apes do attempt to deceive each other.

Of course, there's no doubt that attempting to read chimp intentions isn't particularly easy but it has indeed been done rather carefully.

Here's a conservative Christian article that's very critical of scientific conclusions (especially where they are based on evolution) which says the following:

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/ape-language.html

Finally, Woodruff and Premack are reported to have devised a cuing-free experiment in which chimpanzees indicated by gesture the presence of food in a container to human participants who did not know its location. They would correctly direct “friendly” humans who would then share the food with them, but would mislead “unfriendly” humans who would not share the food—since the animals were then permitted to get the food for themselves.15

Each of the above experimental “successes” is of interest since each appears to be quite free, not from original human influence in the training process, but at least from the Clever Hans effect of unintentional cuing. Moreover, they demonstrate fairly complex symbol-object associative skills, “intentional” communication, and even, in the last case, some form of “deception.” We place quotation marks about the terms, “intentional” and “deception,” because the exact cognitive content of such acts remains to be properly understood.

While the article is very critical of conclusions (they clearly do not WANT the conclusion that apes have intelligence to be supported so they're more than slightly biased) such criticism is hardly unscientific. And as far as I know (as a interested physicist) it does report portions of the scientific research rather well so it's worth a read for anybody interested.


The conclusion that apes demonstrate deception isn't universal among scientists, but that they actively work to deceive each other in some way is very well documented.

My point isn't that apes do lie to each other, but your flat-out claim that they cannot because that can only be God-given is far from supported. While the results of current experiments and observations can certainly be questioned (and should) there has been no research that shows that they CANNOT lie so your assertion is utterly unsupported.

 

[Deamiter]

A literal word would predict that man alone is intelligent. Genesis predicts alot about man. The knowledge of good and evil. Made in the image of God. Man has dominion. Animals are afraid of man. All of the above sound too obvious to have meaning, excep that evolution has a much harder time predicting such traits, as the OP suggests.

I'd certainly agree that Genesis predicts these things of man, but does it equally predict that these things are unique to man? I'm reading through the Torah now -- about half done actually and while I do certainly agree that humans are created "in the image of God" and that we have knowledge of good and evil, I've found precious little to suggest what exactly the image of God is nor exactly what traits we have that are not shared by animals.

TEs generally agree that we have something not shared by animals -- i.e. the image of God. We just don't try to force our understanding of what makes us different into this passage and define extrabiblically what "made in the image and likeness of God" actually means.

That being said, it is not difficult to reason against, if not trivialize, this position. That is a pattern that fits most assertions out of the Word, including the resurrection itselt. Pure reason is not enough. And if that is what is required as the only test, again I think the predictive capacity of creationism is just a non-starter for academic discussion.

As for intelligence, only man can build a Babel or choose the knowledge of good and evil. That is one meaningful test.

Is intelligence intrinsically tied to knowledge of good and evil? It seems we've moved from intelligence to sinning and the Bible certainly treats them differently.

 

[grimbly]

As far as man being in the image of God, did you know that apes cannot lie. They never learn the art of deception, that's because a lie is actually a creative minipulation of the truth.

That's all I have, now back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

Don't be to sure that apes can't lie. As others have said, there is a lot of field and laboratory evidence that certainly looks like primates do lie. Here's an interesting read.

http://www.lucs.lu.se/people/Peter.Gardenfors/articles/SlicingToM.html

Enjoy.

 

[Assyrian]

As for intelligence, only man can build a Babel ...

Can we know what motivates the termite mind?

Great references on the apes folks.

 

[Ave Maria]

The idea that we are the only intelligent animals on earth is wrong. There are many other very intelligent animals such as dolphins and parrots.

 

[EnemyPartyII]

anyone cited the Douglas Adams argument?

"humans believe they are most inteligent because they have made things like the internal combustion engine and nuclear weapons, while all dolphins ever do is much about in the water. dolphins believe THEY are most inteligent for precisely the same reason"

 

[The Barbarian]

As far as man being in the image of God, did you know that apes cannot lie. They never learn the art of deception, that's because a lie is actually a creative minipulation of the truth.

Apes that are taught to sign, do lie. In one case, when asked who had urinated on the floor, a chimp blamed a researcher who had also been in the room at the time.

This is an important finding, because it means that they and humans are the only animals known to do this. Empathy is a very high level skill, and the fact that apes can infer mental states in others is a significant finding.

 

[Mallon]

Speaking of intelligent apes, this just came to my attention today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6387611.stm

 

[VictoriasImage77]

I heard somewhere that recently apes have began sharpening sticks and spearing monkeys with them.

Not sure if it's really true as I don't feel like looking it up right now, but yeah. If it is, theres something to think about.

 

[gluadys]

I heard somewhere that recently apes have began sharpening sticks and spearing monkeys with them.

Not sure if it's really true as I don't feel like looking it up right now, but yeah. If it is, theres something to think about.

See mallon's link above. It is on the same topic.