Anthropomorphic Fallacy
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Original Question
A little background. The Neanderthal Theory of intelligence postulates what Psychiatrists call Aspergers/Schizoid/Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders are just residual Neanderthal traits being expressed in different ways. I often use the Dogs v.s. Wolves analogy to explain, this in a simplified way. The analogy is making the point that various species of canines (Dogs v.s. Wolves) are similar, but act in fundamentally different ways. Just like various Hominids (Homo Neanderthalensis v.s. Homo Sapiens) act in similar, but different ways. That is say rather than the aformentioned descriptors being viewed as Medical Disorders, thay are just in fact behavior of different primates in the Genus Homo.
So, my question is would it be considered an Anthropomorphic Fallacy if I were to compare Neurotypicals to Dogs and Aspergeroids et. al. to Wolves when arguing that Aspergers is not a mental disorder?
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Answers
2Funny thing is that the analogy is backwards, if anything it is the dogs that are autistic.
Since there is no reason to think that dogs are by inclination less social than wolves, it would appear this is a functional impairment, the dogs cannot cooperate as well rather than not wanting too. So to call dogs mentally impaired wolves may well be an accurate statement, most their differences are simply the result on intellectual malfunction resulting from genetic degeneration caused by human selective (in) breeding.
The Neanderthal theory has another problem. Neanderthals were likely rather similar to the humans that presently exist, the reason we have the concept of Neanderthal at all is simply because the concept comes from back when different races of humans were classified separately in the science textbook. Because they are basically identical, there is no reason to think that their genes would cause any particular problems or even differences as likely neanderthal-human genes work essentially the same as the human-human ones.
No. anthropomorphism requires the attribution of a human quality (in this case, to an animal). In your example, you are saying that canine behaviors differ just like human behaviors differ.
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So, when comparing "Neurotypicals to Dogs and Wolves is it your contention that dogs are merely developmentally and mentally Impaired wolves? Since it has been shown that all dogs descended from Canis lupus - a direct descendent of the gray wolf, dogs as we know them are domesticated wolves. Not only their behavior changed; domestic dogs are different in form from wolves, mainly smaller and with shorter muzzles and smaller teeth.
You seem to be claiming Neanderthals are to Asperger's in Homo sapiens (Autistic spectrum disorders) what dogs are to wolves. Please clarify.