Re: Texas: Board Set to Vote on Challenge to Evolution

"On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 03:47:32 -0700 (PDT), in article
<b98623ec-7668-4a8d-99b6-d2b3c8b2bb14@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Burkhard
stated..."

On 13 Apr, 06:50, Damaeus <no-m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Reading from news:talk.origins,
"*Hemidactylus*" <ecpho...@xxxxxxxxxxx> posted:

On Apr 10, 4:36+AKA-am, Damaeus <no-m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Why can't humans just be humans?

Because we need to know where we truly fit into the phylogenetic
spectrum.

I don't see why it matters unless you're trying to judge how others
species behave so you can make some informed decision about how we should
behave.

No. That would be the "naturalist fallacy". The only normative
position that just "might" follow from the fact that humans and
chimpanzees are both apes is the duties we may have towards them.
Depends mainly if you think speciecisms is a defensible ethical
position. If you think it isn't, then the classification gives you
some reasons to reject animal experiments of primates e.g. (See in
particular Dunayer, Joan. 2004. Speciesism. Ryce Publishing:
Illinois) .But apart from that specific topic, no normative
consequences come from the classification.


It is possible to use factual information to help make enlightened
decisions about what we should do. We might learn that a certain
plant is likely to be edible because chimps eat it. To generalize
on that, we might observe that a certain behavior among chimps has
consequences for chimps, and that observation might make us think
about whether similar behavior among humans might have similar
consequences. Anything beyond this, ISTM, is the "naturalistic
fallacy".

But, if we believe that humans and chimps are both products of
purposeful "intelligent design", and we think that we ought to
follow the intentions of our designer, then we might be led to
believe that we *ought* to behave somewhat like chimps. That is,
if the similarities are not just a matter of "chance" and
"natural regularities", but the working out of some "purpose",
then we may feel an obligation to follow that purpose.


--
---Tom S.
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
attributed to Josh Billings

.

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