Instigator / Pro
0
1266
rating
119
debates
15.97%
won
Topic
#34
Humans are both the most intelligent and least intelligent animal
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 2 votes and with 14 points ahead, the winner is...
RationalMadman
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- One day
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
14
1702
rating
574
debates
67.86%
won
Description
No information
Round 1
I will simply begin by providing a list of all the things that make humans the least intelligent (everyone already knows the reasons why they are the most intelligent so I won't bother)
1) No other animal has a tendency to adopt superstitious beliefs. Superstition is actually the norm in pretty much every human culture which proves in and of itself that the complexity of the human brain in no way ensures rationality.
2) Humans are far more prone to neurological disorders than other animals. This is because the more complex a system is, the more room for error exists.
3) Humans are uniquely capable of being programmed and conditioned more so than other animals. This is mostly due to our capacity to understand language and thus have very specific and abstract concepts drilled into our heads. Not only does this increase our capacity for learning, but also indoctrination. Humans are also highly social animals, which is a good thing in many ways but also means that we have a tendency to conform to culture, and thus the average human is essentially a parrot mindlessly regurgitating the values and beliefs they where psychologically inoculated with from birth (and these values and beliefs almost always are designed to create a domesticated mindset and adherence to authority, thus humans are the most thoroughly domesticatable animal of all).
Firstly if humans are the most intelligent animal, they are not the least intelligent animal.
Secondly if humans are the least intelligent animal, they are not the most intelligent animal.
Let's just clarify why this is true.
Definition of if:
- in the event that
- allowing that
- on the assumption that
- on condition that
Definition of are (in context of my statement)
- present tense second-person singular and present tense plural of to have a specified qualification or characterization
- present tense second-person singular and present tense plural of
Definition of least and then most (respective order, in context of how it's used in this debate):
smallest in size, amount, degree, etc.; slightest
in the greatest quantity, amount, measure, degree, or number
I do not even need to define intelligence to win this debate.
Also, let's note something; Prop is very likely to say the following:
In some ways we are the most intelligent and yet in others we are the least intelligent species (we being humans).
To this I say that clearly one is the misleading tendency and/or trend and the other is the true one or alternatively if both are true it's more likely we end up being net-medium in intelligence as a species.
Alternatively, Prop will say:
Intelligence cannot be accurately measured in any absolute manner, this means all species can be equally intelligent and therefore humans, being equal to all other species in intelligence, are arguably both the most and least intelligent species along with all other species.
If Prop were to have attempted this angle, I would have replied the following:
The side saying we can know that humans are intelligent in the first place to any degree is that which is proposing the resolution and so in negating any way to measure intelligence, you are conceding that humans cannot be proven to be intelligent in the first place meaning they can then not be known to be the most or the least intelligent species since they are concluded to be just as likely to be in the middle.
In simpler terms:
In absenc eof a concrete scale of intelligence, humans can just as easily be assumed (and more likely be assumed by a huge degree of added probability) to be somewhere in the middle of the species as opposed to the top or bottom of the scaled list. This is because of all the species, in absence of a concrete way to measure intelligence, we can only go by blind luck in betting on which is the most or least intelligent species and since humans are one species out of 8.7 million species then all except one in the 8.7 million are clearly a safer bet for having both the most and least intelligent among them.
- Species total: https://www.nature.com/news/2011/110823/full/news.2011.498.html
In Prop's entire argument we see no definition of intelligence. Additionally, we see no way to measure it.
Round 3
Forfeited
End
1st comment.