I think you might be mistaking my position.
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Huge gap between humans and animals
- Thread starter FearGod
- Start date
I understand the post. I just dont agree it's nearly as significant as being emphasized. Humans being uniquely intelligent even to such a degree of tool usage and invention doesn't make us any more unique on the whole than the unique characteristics other animals posess. Especially in terms of evolution, the process that gets from the intelligence of other apes to the intelligence of humans is no more special or significant (or different) than getting from the eyesight of other birds to the eyesight of owls. The most sophisticated example of the structure.
They might not have caused it in the first place, who knows.You think they would do a better job of cleaning up the mess on earth?
Epic Beard Man
Bearded Philosopher
You understand the post but you're not going to concede that humans are vastly unique in their own right. I don't see an owl writing literature on the significance of sexual education for HIV prevention. Human beings are vastly different than any other species. Humans have the capability to destroy the entire planet if we chose to. an owl cannot do that. I'm sure if you were stuck in the wild and you had the choice between a dog and a human I'm sure you'd pick a human.
Once again I'm not comparing human intelligence to other animals. I'm saying that humans being more intelligent than other animals is no more significant than sharks having a completely different sophisticated fifth sense for electrical detection that other animals don't have.
Unique, yes. Miraculous? No. It's just another example of natural selection putting pressure towards a biological trait until it becomes the most exaggerated of that family group. Literally like every other evolutionary process.
Salvador
RF's Swedenborgian
Genus Homo-species may have came into being when a couple of Australopithecus hetero zygotes, who had the same type of chromosome rearrangements formed by fusion of the whole long arms of two acrocentric chromosomes, mated together and reproduced viable and fertile offspring with 46 chromosomes. This first generation of Homo habilis then may have likely incestuously bred with each other and reproduced the next subsequent generation of Homo habilis.
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I know!
He believes mammals descended from fish, so in effect they're fish.
You might as well say, we are all unicellular microbes.
Salvador
RF's Swedenborgian
No, but you could factually state all multi-cellular life forms are descended from unicellular microbes.
Cacotopia
Let's go full Trottle
no one is arguing that humans aren't unique. we are arguing against that you don't think anything else is except the human species. That's just stupid.
Cacotopia
Let's go full Trottle
Saying that we enhance the lives of other species is a massive stretch. I'd say we ruin most of them.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Actually we know that we are descended from fish, and depending upon how fish are defined we may be fish. If you define fish using cladistics then we are fish.
Altfish
Veteran Member
We are not very good at flying
We are unique in one major respect...our brain has evolved faster than other animals
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
That choice of course would be a prejudicial one. The dog would probably pick to be a dog. And the dog might be right.
QuestioningMind
Well-Known Member
My first thought was to use dogs as the example, since I know they have a keen sense of smell, but I foolishly decided to choose an animal used in the example, and clearly picked the wrong one. Thanks for helping to inform me.
Salvador
RF's Swedenborgian
Homo habilis is thought to have mastered the Lower Paleolithic Olduwan tool set, which used stone flakes. H. habilis used these stones to butcher and skin the animals. These stone flakes were more advanced than any tools previously used, and gave H. habilis the edge it needed to prosper in hostile environments previously too formidable for primates. Whether H. habilis was the first hominin to master stone tool technology remains controversial, as Australopithecus garhi, dated to 2.6 million years ago, has been found along with stone tool implements.
Most experts assume the intelligence and social organization of H. habilis were more sophisticated than typical australopithecines or chimpanzees. H. habilis used tools primarily for scavenging, such as cleaving meat off carrion, rather than defense or hunting. Yet, despite tool usage, H. habilis was not the master hunter its sister species (or descendants) proved to be, as ample fossil evidence indicates H. habilis was a staple in the diet of large predatory animals, such as Dinofelis, a large scimitar-toothed predatory cat the size of a jaguar.
Reference: Homo habilis - Wikipedia
Homo ergaster used more diverse and sophisticated stone tools than its predecessors, where early Homo erectus used comparatively primitive tools. This is probably because H. ergaster inherited, used, and created tools first of Oldowan technology and later advanced the technology to the Acheulean. Because the use of Acheulean tools began ca. 1.8 million years ago,[and the line of H. erectus diverged some 200,000 years before the general innovation of Acheulean industry in Africa, then it is plausible that the Asian migratory descendants of H. erectus made no use of Acheulean technology. It has been suggested that the Asian H. erectus may have been the first humans to use rafts to travel over bodies of water, including oceans. And the oldest stone tool found in Turkeyreveals that hominins passed through the Anatolian gateway from western Asia to Europe approximately 1.2 million years ago—much earlier than previously thought.
East African sites, such as Chesowanja near Lake Baringo, Koobi Fora, and Olorgesailie in Kenya, show potential evidence that fire was utilized by early humans. At Chesowanja, archaeologists found fire-hardened clay fragments, dated to 1.42 M.Y.A.[72] Analysis showed that, in order to harden it, the clay must have been heated to about 400 °C (752 °F). At Koobi Fora, two sites show evidence of control of fire by Homo erectus at about 1.5 M.Y.A., with reddening of sediment associated with heating the material to 200–400 degrees Celsius (392–752 degrees Fahrenheit). At a "hearth-like depression" at a site in Olorgesailie, Kenya, some microscopic charcoal was found—but that could have resulted from natural brush fires.
In Gadeb, Ethiopia, fragments of welded tuff that appeared to have been burned, or scorched, were found alongside H. erectus–created Acheulean artifacts; but such re-firing of the rocks may have been caused by local volcanic activity. In the Middle Awash River Valley, cone-shaped depressions of reddish clay were found that could have been created only by temperatures of 200 °C (392 °F) or greater. These features are thought to be burnt tree stumps such that the fire was likely away from a habitation site. Burnt stones are found in the Awash Valley, but naturally burnt (volcanic) welded tuff is also found in the area.
A site at Bnot Ya'akov Bridge, Israel is reported to show evidence that H. erectus or H. ergaster controlled fire there between 790,000 and 690,000 years ago; to date this claim has been widely accepted. Some evidence is found that H. erectus was controlling fire less than 250,000 years ago. Evidence also exists that H. erectus were cooking their food as early as 500,000 years ago.[74] Re-analysis of burnt bone fragments and plant ashes from the Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa, has been dubbed evidence supporting human control of fire there by 1 M.Y.A.
There is archaeological evidence that Homo erectus cooked their food.
Homo erectus was probably the first hominin to live in a hunter-gatherer society, and anthropologists such as Richard Leakey believe that erectus was socially more like modern humans than the more Australopithecus-like species before it. Likewise, increased cranial capacity generally coincides with the more sophisticated tools occasionally found with fossils.
The discovery of Turkana boy (H. ergaster) in 1984 evidenced that, despite its Homo sapiens-like anatomy, ergaster may not have been capable of producing sounds comparable to modern human speech. It likely communicated in a proto-language lacking the fully developed structure of modern human language but more developed than the non-verbal communication used by chimpanzees.This inference is challenged by the find in Dmanisi, Georgia, of an H. ergaster / erectus vertebrae (at least 150,000 years earlier than the Turkana Boy) that reflects vocal capabilities within the range of H. sapiens. Both brain size and the presence of the Broca's area also support the use of articulate language.
Linguist Daniel Everett has argued that H. erectus may have been the first hominin to evolve the capability of language because their level of social organization and technical sophistication must have required a complex communication system
Reference: Homo erectus - Wikipedia
Most experts assume the intelligence and social organization of H. habilis were more sophisticated than typical australopithecines or chimpanzees. H. habilis used tools primarily for scavenging, such as cleaving meat off carrion, rather than defense or hunting. Yet, despite tool usage, H. habilis was not the master hunter its sister species (or descendants) proved to be, as ample fossil evidence indicates H. habilis was a staple in the diet of large predatory animals, such as Dinofelis, a large scimitar-toothed predatory cat the size of a jaguar.
Reference: Homo habilis - Wikipedia
Homo ergaster used more diverse and sophisticated stone tools than its predecessors, where early Homo erectus used comparatively primitive tools. This is probably because H. ergaster inherited, used, and created tools first of Oldowan technology and later advanced the technology to the Acheulean. Because the use of Acheulean tools began ca. 1.8 million years ago,[and the line of H. erectus diverged some 200,000 years before the general innovation of Acheulean industry in Africa, then it is plausible that the Asian migratory descendants of H. erectus made no use of Acheulean technology. It has been suggested that the Asian H. erectus may have been the first humans to use rafts to travel over bodies of water, including oceans. And the oldest stone tool found in Turkeyreveals that hominins passed through the Anatolian gateway from western Asia to Europe approximately 1.2 million years ago—much earlier than previously thought.
East African sites, such as Chesowanja near Lake Baringo, Koobi Fora, and Olorgesailie in Kenya, show potential evidence that fire was utilized by early humans. At Chesowanja, archaeologists found fire-hardened clay fragments, dated to 1.42 M.Y.A.[72] Analysis showed that, in order to harden it, the clay must have been heated to about 400 °C (752 °F). At Koobi Fora, two sites show evidence of control of fire by Homo erectus at about 1.5 M.Y.A., with reddening of sediment associated with heating the material to 200–400 degrees Celsius (392–752 degrees Fahrenheit). At a "hearth-like depression" at a site in Olorgesailie, Kenya, some microscopic charcoal was found—but that could have resulted from natural brush fires.
In Gadeb, Ethiopia, fragments of welded tuff that appeared to have been burned, or scorched, were found alongside H. erectus–created Acheulean artifacts; but such re-firing of the rocks may have been caused by local volcanic activity. In the Middle Awash River Valley, cone-shaped depressions of reddish clay were found that could have been created only by temperatures of 200 °C (392 °F) or greater. These features are thought to be burnt tree stumps such that the fire was likely away from a habitation site. Burnt stones are found in the Awash Valley, but naturally burnt (volcanic) welded tuff is also found in the area.
A site at Bnot Ya'akov Bridge, Israel is reported to show evidence that H. erectus or H. ergaster controlled fire there between 790,000 and 690,000 years ago; to date this claim has been widely accepted. Some evidence is found that H. erectus was controlling fire less than 250,000 years ago. Evidence also exists that H. erectus were cooking their food as early as 500,000 years ago.[74] Re-analysis of burnt bone fragments and plant ashes from the Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa, has been dubbed evidence supporting human control of fire there by 1 M.Y.A.
There is archaeological evidence that Homo erectus cooked their food.
Homo erectus was probably the first hominin to live in a hunter-gatherer society, and anthropologists such as Richard Leakey believe that erectus was socially more like modern humans than the more Australopithecus-like species before it. Likewise, increased cranial capacity generally coincides with the more sophisticated tools occasionally found with fossils.
The discovery of Turkana boy (H. ergaster) in 1984 evidenced that, despite its Homo sapiens-like anatomy, ergaster may not have been capable of producing sounds comparable to modern human speech. It likely communicated in a proto-language lacking the fully developed structure of modern human language but more developed than the non-verbal communication used by chimpanzees.This inference is challenged by the find in Dmanisi, Georgia, of an H. ergaster / erectus vertebrae (at least 150,000 years earlier than the Turkana Boy) that reflects vocal capabilities within the range of H. sapiens. Both brain size and the presence of the Broca's area also support the use of articulate language.
Linguist Daniel Everett has argued that H. erectus may have been the first hominin to evolve the capability of language because their level of social organization and technical sophistication must have required a complex communication system
Reference: Homo erectus - Wikipedia
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Cacotopia
Let's go full Trottle
we have gills in the womb...
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
To be more precise they are "gill slits" they never develop into true gills, but those are a left over trait of our fishy past.
QuestioningMind
Well-Known Member
Sorry... I guess I missed whatever point you were trying to make. Based on the OP I assumed that you were pointing this out as a 'unique' trait or ability of humans.
Gorillas and chimp intelligence has been estimated to be on the order of a 4-7 year old human child at least when measuring capability for learning. That's not "vastly" superior.