That is exactly the question, and as Veganerd has said a gazillion times now, there is no one and only answer to that, and it's actually less of a scientific and more of a philosophical one.

Why is he certain that science can say his daughter is a human, then?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Maybe because she has a body of certain proportions, a face with certain features, arms with hands that feature opposing thumbs… You get the picture. I'm sure a DNA test is not generally among the things people regularly use to determine whether someone is human.

I'm sure a DNA test is not generally among the things people regularly use to determine whether someone is human.

"Someone," or science? Because I'm pretty sure science actually does rely on DNA as a better way to identify a member of a particular species than physical characteristics.

But if that's the case, please list for us the visible physical traits that identify one as a member of the species homo sapiens. Once we identify those, we ought to be able to determine when a human life begins, right? It begins when the animal in question has achieved the right physical look. Sadly, science cannot apparently classify the animal prior to that point. (Kind of like that "askabiologist" link that was so clever, but of course leaves out infants and children and the sterile and the elderly from being humans.)

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

dude, i was going to school to be a veteriniarian, did an internship in oncology before I made the decision to leave school for family reasons.

im just guessing i took a few more science classes than you. its been a long time, and i dont remember everything, but im not an idiot when it comes to science. how often do you see the actual scientists and science educatiors in here correcting my posts on science? (if they did, id welcome it. because i dont want to hold false positions) how many disagree with yours?

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

how often do you see the actual scientists and science educatiors in here correcting my posts on science?

I think you post on science far less often than you flatter yourself you do.

Why are you confident that science can say your daughter is a human?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Science sure does, when it makes sense. And it would actually clearly identify a human sperm cell as human…




I don't think anybody claimed that. What people claimed is that there is no one and only answer to that question, and it's actually less of a scientific and more of a philosophical one.

But you already knew that, of course.

If you called them human and I called them non-human would it have any bearing on anyone's decision about whether or not they should get the job?


That's the point. If we were to argue substance, I would be arguing that they are aliens from another planet and not human. Like actual aliens from an actual other planet and are actually not human.

The last several pages has been about taking something that we all agree on and how we should classify it.



Its not defined at all by what they want. Its defined by their understanding of the use of the word. If you asked or a watermelon and I gave you seeds and walked away happy, I'd turn to my coworker and say, "Dayum, I just gave homeboy seeds and thinks he got a watermelon."

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Forget about my eating habits and conversations about food. Let's keep it in the context of the OP.

I fathered a child that was aborted. (I was ok with it at the time and was a real unsupportive jerk.) I say that my unborn human child was killed.

So how do you answer the human question? When did you begin to exist as a human?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

I don't think anybody claimed that. What people claimed is that there is no one and only answer to that question, and it's actually less of a scientific and more of a philosophical one.

People are claiming a lot of things.

Here's what I'm pretty sure about: You and Vegan seem highly confident that science can tell us with certainty that his daughter is A human. If so, there must be objective measures for that, right? What are they?

You both also claim that science cannot tell us with certainty when her human life began, and that's a matter of philosophy. The obvious logical problem here is that if science can tell us she's a human now, based on some physical attributes, it's possible that she was not a human before she developed those particular attributes. That's an obvious difficulty, right? Because in reality, we know that she was a being with continuity of existence well before she developed those visibly identifiable attributes, yes?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

no. its the same as i keep exaining to you. we all agree that an elederly person is old. now what day did they become old? there should be a definitive answer on this otherwise we cant say they're old, right? wrong.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

Old is a description that is vague, relative, and depends solely on how you define it. Moreover, it really is a spectrum- old, older, older still . . . there's no single point of "old." Biologically, though, one might come up with fairly objective measures like sexually mature, or some degree of physiological deterioration.

we all agree that an elederly person is old. now what day did they become old?

We could probably identify various points along that spectrum pretty definitively, actually. Science would give us objective benchmarks. What are the benchmarks that identify your daughter's status as a member of homo sapiens?

"Human organism" is not a spectrum like that. "Member of the species homo sapiens" is not a spectrum like that. It is not as if you start off as something that's not fully human, and then get more and more human as you go along. You mature from one stage of humanity to the next. You are just as human in the womb as you are when you're born as you are when you're 12 as you are when you're 21 as you are when you're 80.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

We are not talking about becoming old. Besides you would agree, I take it, that an elderly person is human. Furthermore, while the point at which a human becomes considered "old" varies, all will agree that a ten year old is not "old."

Vitus and I say that there are stages of human life. It starts at conception with a zygote. Because that, we believe, is the only rational definition. Maybe there is another definition of when human life begins that you accept as rational.

You understand the stages of prenatal "human" development. Do you have an opinion as to when a zygote becomes human?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

No one dares have an opinion as to when a zygote becomes human. I love these guys but I would have more respect for the intellect of these guys (if not their heart) if they'd adopt Peter Singer's ethics and argue that newborns are not persons and infanticide is not the same as killing a person. At least then they'd have a position and rationale which we could discuss rather than just having them say "I don't know, it's a continuum."

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Great. Why don't you list some?

Still waiting for you to let me know the scientific criteria by which we know Vegan's daughter is a human.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Finally you're getting it! Now you just have to change your sentence to "Furthermore, while the point at which a developing being becomes considered "a human" varies, all will agree that a zygote is not "a human" ("human", but not "a human"), and you now where others (including most biologists) are coming from.



So you use that definition because you find it convenient. That's ok, and an argument can certainly be made for that position. But don't pretend that science dictates that position.

 
So you use that definition because you find it convenient.

No, we use that definition because it's scientifically true and accurate.

The zygote is the same organism in its first stage of human development.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Post #527 , and that was already the second time I did. You do realize people recognized humans as humans before DNA tests were invented, don't you?

Actually, I'm getting a little tired of your habit of ignoring all points that don't seem to suit you, and on the other hand "demanding" answers that have been given multiple times already.

Still waiting for your scientific criteria to determine the exact point in time when a person turns old.

Still waiting for your answer to the question if I show you pictures of zygotes of different species, do you feel confident you could identify the human ones?

because you hate it, ive avoided doing it this entire thread but you leave me little choice. your argument is one long continium fallacy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy

its not the only fallacy youve used. malte just pointed out another, so i will leave it at this foe now.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

pharylunga embryo similaraties species are pretty amazing

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

You gave me some vague things about body proportions and a nose and eyes or something like that. Anything that definitively distinguishes a human from a cat? Anything that includes, specifically, Vegan's daughter, who probably has different bodily proportions than Vegan?

We're trying to prove scientifically that she's a human, remember? Tell me how you are sure you can do that, scientifically.

You do realize people recognized humans as humans before DNA tests were invented, don't you?

Sure, but I also realize that people recognized that a fetus is a human, too, but that seems to be a matter of dispute at this point. So we need to know what criteria you think is available to scientifically prove his daughter is a human.

You do realize that some scientists say she isn't a human, right? Pesky scientific consensus . . .


Actually, I'm getting a little tired of your habit of ignoring all points that don't seem to suit you, and on the other hand "demanding" answers that have been given multiple times already.

It's not that they don't suit me, it's that they're poorly defined in the first place, wouldn't make sense if you did define them, and are profoundly unscientific. You're pretending to some sophisticated knowledge about science, while at the same time utterly ignoring what science has shown us about how organisms develop. You're arguing here that if it doesn't look like a human to the naked eye, science can't say for sure that it is a human. It's complete nonsense. And even then, you're not able to define adequately what a human looks like, so I guess it's one of those things that scientists just know when they see one, right? Because that's how modern science works.

You're a joke.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

No, but I'm 100% sure science could identify them accurately, without recourse to philosophy.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

because you hate it, ive avoided doing it this entire thread but you leave me little choice.

As usual, you're misusing the term.

It's not a continuum fallacy because the zygote does belong to the category of a human organism. It meets every criteria. You can't just exclude it and say it doesn't fit because it doesn't have x or y characteristic while including other subjects that also lack x or y characteristic.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."