We are a unique ape. We have language. Other animals have systems of communication that fall far short of that. They don't have the same ability to communicate complicated conditionals and what-ifs and talk about things that are not present.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the uniqueness of human communication compared to other animals, emphasizing our capacity for complex language.
Richard Dawkins underscores the exceptional nature of human beings as a species, particularly in our ability to use sophisticated language. Unlike other animals, whose communication methods are limited and contextual, humans possess the capability to express complex thoughts, abstract concepts, and hypothetical scenarios through language. This fundamental difference sets us apart in cognitive ability and social interaction, allowing for rich cultural development and shared understanding.
In practice
In a discussion about creativity, to illustrate the importance of language in human expression.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
If the land mechanism as a whole is good then every part is good, whether we understand it or not.
There is no perfection only life
It was our view of the worst that could befall our people if they were taken captive. So, what was fascinating to me was that somehow it appears the techniques that we have feared most in the world would be used on our people, we are using on people in our custody.
In other words, what is supposedly found is an invention whose inventor is unaware of his act of invention, who considers it as something that exists independently of him; the invention then becomes the basis of his world view and actions.
So you find yourself surrounded by death and horror in the world, and you escape it into lust. But lust has no duration; it leaves you again in the desert.
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily.
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