Man-ape chasm of differences

Michael Egnor, Professor of Neurosurgery, writes:

Image credit: John Vetterli (originally posted to Flickr as Sumatran Orangutan) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals.

Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different — ontologically different — from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,,,
It is a radical difference — an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference.

We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses. Our difference is a metaphysical chasm.,,, Systems of taxonomy that emphasize physical and genetic similarities and ignore the fact that human beings are partly immaterial beings who are capable of abstract thought and contemplation of moral law and eternity are pitifully inadequate to describe man.
The assertion that man is an ape is self-refuting. We could not express such a concept, misguided as it is, if we were apes and not men.

See full article at Evolution News.

Thanks to “bornagain77” for referencing this article.

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