Turgonian wrote:That's simply physical inability. But although meerkats may have complex calls, they have no grammar or syntax, and are not on the way to invent new calls. Invention is purely human.
Ok, I guess I would have been more clear to ask if you understood meerkat, as I wasn't referring to the physicall ability to make the calls. I was referring to the understanding of the "language". Regarding invention, I think it depends on what you're calling invention. Animals have been shown to come up with new solutions to problems, new tools to acquire food (eg. chimps and the sticks used to pull ants from the nests), and others around them learn these techniques and use them themselves...is this not invention. Also, to play the devil's advocate, we have not been studying animal language for a long enough time to determine whether ot not calls are becoming more complex or not. Who knows, what started out as a single squeak or grunt may have changed over time to become different calls with specific connotations.
Turgonian wrote:Do you have the answer to the question why monkeys still aren't cleaning their cages?
To answer a question with a question, why don't toddlers suddenly become potty trained on their own...
A spirit is by definition metaphysical. You might as well ask me to give a physical definition of God, so that scientists could study that phenomenon...
Genes or no genes, if Neo-Darwinian evolution is true, all of those actions we now take to be indicative of spirit are actually the result of natural selection.
My original points were to reinforce what BGood was saying, in that nobody (scientists) is claiming that the human spirit is evolving or related to genes. The reason for this is the concept of "human spirit" is a belief and cannot be studied.
godslanguage wrote:Supposedly lower animals. You have got to be kidding me right, anyone can realize that humans are the dominant species on Earth, that makes any other animal lower. What makes them even more lower is that God said they are, (thats if you believe in the teachings of the bible). He created them for us, not us for them, or even in between. According to God, he created us as unique, and still today, the spirit of God flows through them. Our human spirit is the equivocal of God Himself, in fact, the spirit is made by God, its up to us what we do with it, and thats partly the differance.
The reason I used "supposedly" was related to the fact that the author using what I believe are erroneous conclusions regarding animal behavior to justify his assertion that humans are the top organism. I have no problem admitting that humans are evolutionarily one of the most advanced organisms on this planet. The rest of your statements regarding the biblical take on man's dominance is belief stated as fact. And I wouldn't be so quick to give top billing to humans...if you realized the impact of bacteria, we would all be paying a little more respect to some of the smaller things on this planet.