>Oops, I just fired off a message from the hip, to Brian, after his "lawyer
>games" message (yech).
>
I would agree that "lawyer games" was a cheap shot. I justified
it to myself as just compensation for your various derogatory
comments about Texas and Texans [I'm a native Texan doncha
ya know :)].
JB:==
>Now I find out he's posted a good faith attempt at some clarity. Why didn't
>you do this in the first place? I wasted a perfectly good caustic reply to
>your perfectly caustic message telling me you wouldn't reply!
>
>But now you've replied, and I have to put my six guns away.
>
>Anyway, thanks for trying to reach clarity. You wrote:
>
Your certainly welcome. Actually I had thought that my first
post was an attempt to reach clarity. In any event, onward ....
BH:===
><<Let me see if I understand your point. First we suppose that we
>have agreed on a criteria for "human" (correct me if I'm wrong,
>but I'm assuming human means made in the image of God,
>a body-soul-spirit being). Now we take this criteria and apply
>it to modern man. The criteria is satisfied, we take modern man
>to be human. Tribesmen (whoever they might be) belong to the
>same species as modern man, therefore they also are human.>>
>
JB:==
>Here is where Glenn's argument breaks down. He says, look at such and such a
>tribe (a small subset of homo sapiens). They don't innovate. Does that mean,
>Jim, they are subhuman, because innovation is your definition of humanity?
>
>What's wrong is that we already KNOW these are homo sapiens. There may be
>myriad reasons for non-innovation, but since they are part of the species we
>know they have the same capacities as we all do. I once brought up the very
>famous example of Ishi to Glenn. Give me one of those tribesmen and I'll have
>him driving a car and writing incomprehensible legal briefs in a few weeks.
>
>OTHO, when you deal with an ENTIRE SPECIES, like Neanderthal, and find no
>evidence of modern human capacity, you've got another bowl of bones. It's a
>different question. You're looking for clues of modern man on a species-wide
>level.
>
First let me say that I think you have anticipated one of my arguments
very well. Before getting into that what I really take issue with is at a
higher level really than the present discussion. I was wording my
response above very carefully when I wrote 'SUPPOSE that we
have agreed on a criteria for "human"' (emphasis added). This is a
really big suppose for me because I personally do not believe any
such criteria exists or even can exist. Of course, you may be able
to persuade me otherwise, clever fellow that you are :-).
Perhaps the most convenient way to make my reasoning on this
clear is to look at the first part of your argument above:
JB==================================================
>|Here is where Glenn's argument breaks down. He says, look at
>|such and such a tribe (a small subset of homo sapiens). They
>|don't innovate. Does that mean, Jim, they are subhuman, because
>|innovation is your definition of humanity?
>|
>|What's wrong is that we already KNOW these are homo sapiens.
======================================================
In the above, you have swithched words from humanity to homo sapiens.
The concept of species in general and homo sapiens in particular
is purely physical (biological) in nature wheras human is not. To be
human requires this spiritual element which (I would think by definition)
is not reducible to physics, chemistry, biology etc. So, if one is trying
to identify an objective criteria for human it is not, IMHO, satisfactory
to say that all homo sapiens are automatically human. One would need
to establish this independently according to whatever criteria one is
looking at.
In other words, your argument loses some (not all) of its forcefullness
if you re-write your last sentence as
>|What's wrong is that we already KNOW these are human.
How is it that we KNOW this if "these" do not satisfy your criteria and
we do not assume _a-priori_ that all homo sapiens are human?
Lest I be misunderstood, I'm perfectly willing to make this assumption,
however, it is an assumption that is not based on any objective
criteria. What we can do is add this as an axiom to my original
definition above.
Humans are body-soul-spirit beings made in the image of God.
By definition, all homo sapiens are human.
Now we get to the point that I think Glenn has been making. We have
a criteria for humanness that does not apply to all beings that we accept
axiomatically to be human. This should result in some caution when
we try to apply this criteria to cases where there may be disagreement.
Unless, of course, you want to change the axiom to "ONLY homo sapiens
are human" ;-).
At last we come to the part of your argument where you seem to anticipate
pretty well what I was going to say.
JB:===================================================
>|What's wrong is that we already KNOW these are homo sapiens.
>|There may be myriad reasons for non-innovation, but since they
>|are part of the species we know they have the same capacities as
>|we all do. I once brought up the very famous example of Ishi to
>|Glenn. Give me one of those tribesmen and I'll have him driving a
>|car and writing incomprehensible legal briefs in a few weeks.
======================================================
This is a very good argument. First we'll return to my reasoning above.
We can accept as a matter of definition that all homo sapiens are
human, it does not follow though that all homo sapiens have the
same capacities as "we all do" [I'm assuming "we all" = "modern
man"].
I particularly liked the last part of your argument. A real live experiment!
Of course, I must protest your second example since "writing incomprehensible
legal briefs" is not normally considered a human quality, rather the
opposite actually ;-).
There are two problems with your experiment though. (1) being teachable
is not the same as being innovative. Having the capacity to drive a
car is not the same as having the capacity to conceive of, design, and
build a car. Of course, one could argue that they do have this capacity
but it seems pretty hard to actually test whether they do. To be innovative
they would need to come up with the idea themselves and then implement
it. (2) Your test cannot be conducted on most of the subjects that are
in question, in particular Neanderthals.
JB;==========
>That's why you can't compare the two. And that's why your term "civilizations"
>was wrong. A civilization means something very specific. Websters has it as
>"advancement in social culture, characterized by relative progress in the
>arts, science and statecraft."
>
>So you CAN'T have "civilizations" without innovation. They don't exist.
>
In the big scheme of things this seems to be a minor point. If we were to
agree on Websters definition (and your interpretation of it) this means
only that I chose my words poorly, it doesn't affect any of my arguments
above.
Be that as it may, I do not think that "advancement" and "relative progress"
are synonomous to "innovative". This is, afterall, one of the oft cited
"problems" with Darwinism. It can explain fairly well how some feature,
once present, can be modified over time. It has a little more difficulty
explaining how that feature arose to begin with.
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
Ohio State University