The more we learn the more it appears that almost everything of any significance in living systems is irreducibly complex. Multiple systems must almost always be simultaneously modified to proceed to the next island of function. Every software engineer knows this, and living things are fundamentally based on software.
Evolution in the fossil record is consistently characterized by major discontinuities — as my thesis about IC being a virtually universal rule at all levels, from the cell to human cognition and language, would suggest — and the discontinuity between humans and all other living things is the most profound of all. Morphological similarities are utterly swamped by the profound differences exhibited by human language, math, art, engineering, ethics, and much more.
Yes, chimps have been shown to use tools: They can pick up ants with a stick in order to eat them. But there is a big difference between this and designing and building a Cray supercomputer or an F-35 fighter aircraft. To the best of my knowledge our primitive simian ancestors did not advance beyond ant-stick technology.
I continue to be bewildered by the fact that proponents of human evolution by Darwinian mechanisms (i.e., random errors filtered by natural selection) don’t do some simple math to see that the probabilistic resources are hopelessly inadequate, even when the most optimistic assumptions are made.
Unrealistically and optimistically assume the following base-ten orders of magnitude: an average generation time of 10^1 years; an average population of 10^8; and a time frame of 10^7 years.
Do the math. With these probabilistic resources it is assumed by Darwinian theorists that their mechanism produced the most profound and stunning of all evolutionary discontinuities.
I believe that our ancient ancestors were just as smart as we are. They figured out, in their time and with what they had access to, how to make fire, bows and arrows, art, and much more. If I were to be transported back to those times, and be stripped of my current knowledge, I would probably be considered an idiot by the dudes who figured out fire and arrows.
Chimps are still picking up ants with sticks.
Something very profound happened, very suddenly, and Darwinian theory clearly does not explain it.