Reading Comprehension

DanaJ wrote:Source: Beat The GMAT Practice Questions

Before Koko, Washoe, and other apes first showed they possessed some facility with symbols, people spoke with reasonable confidence about what it was that separated humans from other animals. If there was disagreement about whether the difference was the ability to construct sentences, think symbolically, or create tools, at least there was broad agreement that there were intrinsic differences between human and animal intelligence. Debate centered on the question of what it was that made the human mind qualitatively different, and not whether it was qualitatively different at all. Language-using apes have eroded that earlier notion and also exposed uncertainty over the proper definition of human intellectual abilities. The animal/human dichotomy that has guided our thinking about language has given the investigation of language a curious circularity. Starting with the assumption that there were no continuities between animal and human language, we have looked for evidence to support this assumption, and then used this evidence to justify the assumption.

This circularity lent the human intellect a spurious unity. By arrogantly ruling that there were no continuities linking animal and human thought, we fostered the idea that human abilities should be considered only in relation to other human abilities, not in relation to their animal correlatives. Testimony to this tendency is that while the general population is inclined to believe that human abilities are the product of divine intervention or even, as some think, intervention from outer space, many are unwilling to accept the wonders of the intellect as the product of the development of abilities found to lesser degrees in other animals alive today. Carl Jung, among countless others, believed that man could not achieve selfknowledge through comparison with other animals. Thus, on the one hand we preclude valid comparison with the most likely candidates for shedding light upon our origins, then complain about our alienation from the natural order of things. Nor is this a matter of simple prejudice. Behind Noam Chomsky's theory that there is an inherited deep structure of language, one can see a creationist view of the universe.

Long before Darwin, there were scientists inclined to accept our ancestral connection to the natural order. Searches for the fabled "missing link" occupied theorists from Albertus Magnus onward. But even this idea that there must have been some intermediate creature half human, half animal implies that no real comparison can be made between human and animal until such a creature is discovered.

Darwin sowed the seeds of a perspective on humankind and nature that improved the climate for consideration of the communalities of human and animal. Evolutionary theory has changed markedly since he first hypothesized a common ancestor for human and ape, and indeed Darwin, who in many respects was quite stodgy and conservative, would probably be shocked at the implication of many of the experiments done in his name. However, for all the changes in the theory of evolution, it supplies a perspective that permits the search for significant continuities between human and animal. It is difficult to overstate how different the same behavior might seem when seen from an evolutionary perspective as opposed to the traditional animal/human dichotomy. When we look at humankind's higher intellectual abilities from an evolutionary perspective, we compare them with similar abilities in other animals, and the need to posit a "missing link" vanishes. The "missing link" between human and animal turns out to be a perspective that permits a revealing comparison of behavior across species.

Whether or not Koko and her chimp friends have thrown the scientific world into confusion depends on which perspective one takes on human behavior.

In this passage, the author argues all of the following EXCEPT:

A. there is no essential difference between human and animal intelligence.
B. the reasoning used to support the idea of a fundamental difference between human and animal intelligence has been circular and therefore specious.
C. the idea of a common biological ancestor for humans and other species predates Darwin.
D. the traditional animal/human dichotomy is inconsistent with an evolutionary perspective.
E. some scientific theories are consistent with fundamental religious doctrines.

DanaJ wrote:The author is stating the following:

Debate centered on the question of what it was that made the human mind qualitatively different - in the past, people were wondering what made the human mind different from the animal mind

and not whether it was qualitatively different at all - people did not even consider if the human and animal minds were qualitatively similar. They did not debate this point, i.e. they assumed that the two minds were in fact qualitatively different.

Language-using apes have eroded that earlier notion and also exposed uncertainty over the proper definition of human intellectual abilities. - language-using apes have eroded the "earlier notion" that the two minds were qualitatively different.

If you re-read what I just wrote, you'll see that this point of "eroded notion" indicates the author's intention to side with the fact that the human and the animal minds were NOT qualitatively different.

Hope this helps!