Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article

Well -- as I understand it, no one is quite sure what, if any, structural
change in the brain set *Homo Sapiens Sapiens* apart from its predecessors.
If you want to define the imago Dei primarily by brain structure, you're
probably not helping your cause empirically. It's true that there seems to
be a "cultural jump" in the paleontological record 40kya or so ago, but
again, the meaning and significance of that, as I understand it, is hotly
disputed good discussions of this: Ian Tattersall: The Fossil Trail: How
We Know What We Think We Know About Human Evolution; J. Wentzel Van
Huyssteen, Alone in the World: Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology,
and Christopher Kaiser, Toward a Theology of Scientific Endeavor).

David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 8:54 AM, James Patterson
<james000777@bellsouth.net>wrote:

> Sapiens had the neocortical hardware.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
> On Feb 24, 2009, at 12:13 AM, David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 5:43 PM, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dave Clounch, I'm not sure about what your concern is. Personally, my
>>> view
>>> of human nature is one of "holistic dualism." I think human beings have
>>> a
>>> "spiritual" nature -- the "soul" -- that is more than the aspects of the
>>> "human" that are reducible to biology. At the same time, I think human
>>> beings are a "whole," not merely "embodied souls." Given this, I think
>>> it's
>>> likely that there are aspects of human nature that simply cannot be
>>> investigated by science. I would suggest that, at the very least, the
>>> first
>>> true humans -- Adam and Eve -- were imparted this spiritual nature and
>>> that
>>> it was subsequently propogated throughout the biological human species.
>>> I
>>> don't think this has anything to do with genetics.
>>>
>>
>> Surely PZ Meyers and other materialists would beg to disagree? And
>> wouldnt they say they do this on scientific grounds? Why would they
>> be wrong merely because some theologians say they are wrong? What
>> sort of belief system is dualism? Is it a
>> secular idea? Or something reserved for church?
>>
>> Thinking just a bit out of the box for a moment,
>> let me ask this: Could this imparted spiritual nature have been given
>> to Chimpanzees or some other species rather than homo sapiens? Or did
>> homo sapiens have some supporting resources that other species didn't
>> possess?
>>
>> Think of it as software. One wouldnt be very successful trying to run
>> a higher level desktop operating system (such as Vista or RedHat
>> Enterprise Linux) on a linkysys wireless-G router because the 200
>> MHz ARM processor is too slow and there just are not enough resources
>> there in the box. So homo sapiens may possibly be the physical
>> prerequisite of the human mind or race. Doesn't genetics have a lot
>> to do with that? Genetics might not be the cause but it might be the
>> prerequisite to the "imparting" of special cognitive abilities.
>>
>>

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Received on Tue Feb 24 09:08:35 2009