CategoryHuman exceptionalism
Why Humans Can’t “Share the Spotlight” With Tool-Using Animals
As the Ivy League war on human exceptionalism motors on, researchers’ thinking sometimes shorts out — and they don’t even notice
Astrophysicist: Don’t Say That Chatbots “Hallucinate”
Adam Frank points out that human-type “hallucination” is not at all what drives a chatbot to claim that the Russians sent bears into space
Thinking Back to the Very Beginnings of Art
It just appears, from great antiquity, and we really don’t know why. All we know is that animals don’t do it
Asked at Psychology Today: Were Neanderthals Religious?
We can’t poll long-dead Neanderthals on life, death, and the hereafter but the evidence we’ve dug up suggests they were thinking about that kind of thing
When a Brilliant Man Has a Very Confused Perspective …
Astrophysicist Avi Loeb simply doesn’t seem to see that human beings are more valuable than advanced machines
Why Animals Don’t Really Have Anything Much to Say
Does It Take a PR Agency to Make Neanderthals Human?
It’s interesting to watch how science writing on Neanderthals has changed over the years
Why Does the Proposal for Chimp–Human Hybrids Keep Coming Back?
From David Barash’s perspective, the humanzee’s suffering is rendered worthwhile precisely because it enables the denigration of other human beings
Researchers: Human Cerebellum Aids Higher Cognitive Functions
At one time, the cerebellum was thought to facilitate only functions like movement. But recent research shows that it’s more complex
The Explicitly Human Experience of Growing Up as a Twin
A philosopher muses on growing up as one of a set of two people
Exopsychology: The Psychology of No One We Ever Knew
The academic attempt to establish a psychology of alien intelligences — for whose existence we have no evidence — tells us something about ourselves
Jacques Maritain on the Human Person
A philosopher on two competing views of human beings: are we mere bodies or embodied souls?At the end of the day, a lot of the AI enthusiasm among the technological “futurists” like Ray Kurzweil is based on certain assumptions of what a human being fundamentally is. Casey Luskin reported on Kurzweil’s lecture at the recent COSM 2023 conference, noting how he is convinced that AI is humanity’s destiny, and will serve as our functional “God figure,” all-knowing, self-determining, sentient. Kurzweil sees the human person in purely scientific terms: if we can achieve a certain level of technological advancement, we will transcend our limits and take the next step of human evolution. Technology will be our religion, the means to our immortality. Jacques Maritain, a French philosopher, shared helpful thoughts about the human person in his Read More ›
Should Animals Be Able to Vote? Some Animal Rights Activists Think So
Here's a taste of just how absurd and extreme "animal rights" has become.
Humans Are More Important Than Pigs
Mainstream bioethics has long sought to deconstruct human exceptionalism by claiming that species membership is irrelevant to moral worth.
Are We Approaching the Singularity?
Are humans progressing morally as well as materially? What does it mean to be human in the cosmos?Are humans progressing morally as well as materially? What does it mean to be human in the cosmos? On a new episode of ID the Future, we bring you the second half of a stimulating conversation between Dr. David Berlinski and host Eric Metaxas on the subject of Berlinski’s book Human Nature. In Human Nature, Berlinski argues that the utopian view that humans are progressing toward evolutionary and technological perfection is wishful thinking. Men are not about to become like gods. “I’m a strong believer in original sin,” quips Berlinski in his discussion with Metaxas. In other words, he believes not only that humans are fundamentally distinct from the rest of the biological world, but also that humans are prone to ignorance and Read More ›
David Berlinski: Humans Are Unique
Some argue that humans are growing more peaceful, enlightened, and improved by the year, and that a coming technological singularity may well usher in utopia. Berlinski isn’t buying it.
What Does It Mean to Say That Spiders “Dream”?
It means much less than we might be led to think
Theoretical Physicist Admits That Humans Are Unique
In his forthcoming book, Marcelo Gleiser challenges us to acknowledge our responsibility to save the planet