Arguments for and against human exceptionalism

 This was triggered by an article I read in Philosophy Now (Issue 171, Dec 2025 / Jan 2026) by Adam Neiblum who authored Rise of the Nones: The Importance of Freedom from Religion (Hypatia Press, 2023). I don’t normally mention the publisher, but I find it interesting that they are named after the famous female Librarian of Alexandria, Hypatia (pronounced hi-pay-shia) who was infamously killed by a Christian mob in AD 414. I’ve written about her elsewhere.
 
The article was titled, Evolution or Progress, and asks “what the difference is and why it matters”. Not really a question, though one is implied. Basically, he’s arguing that evolution is not teleological (though he doesn’t use that term). Instead, he discusses the erroneous belief that most people associate evolution with progress, which is a symptom, not just of anthropocentrism, but our religious heritage. I think these are actually 2 different things, while admitting, for many people, they are connected.
 
I want to start by challenging his premise that the association of evolution with progress is not as erroneous as it appears, depending on how one defines or describes progress. My dictionary has 2 definitions:
 
1: forward or onward movement towards a destination
 
2: development towards an improved or more advanced condition
 
By the first definition, I think he’s right, but not by the second definition. If one looks at the historical evidence, going back not just millions but billions of years: the increase in complexity and sheer diversity from the most simple cells to animals with brains, I’d argue surely applies to definition 2.
 
To emphasise my point, I’ll quote from Neiblum’s essay, who provides his own definition of progress:
 
A)    An ideal or goal – literacy, or justice, for example.
B)    A gap between this ideal and the real-world state of affairs.
C)    A process of movement – individually, collectively, or even species-wide – towards that goal or ideal.
 
We can see these are not the same ideas. Evolution is neither purposeful nor intentional, it has no ideal, aim, or end-point.
 
One can see how this aligns with my dictionary definition 1, but not definition 2.
 
To be fair to Neiblum, he does address my criticism, in as much as he acknowledges evolution results in increased complexity. But he also points out that so-called primitive lifeforms (my words, not his) like insects, crocodiles, sharks (and other so-called living fossils) still thrive. But the reason they thrive, is that they have become part of an eco-system (the same with gut bacteria, for example). Evolution never applies to a species in isolation; just look at the fact that we all can’t exist without plants processing the carbon dioxide we expire as part of the extraordinary process called photo-synthesis.
 
Neiblum then goes on to discuss the role of religion, and specifically the Christian religion, in distorting or exaggerating (again, my terms) our anthropocentrism. But I’ll return to that specific point later.
 
I would like to point out that humans are not the only examples of exceptionalism in the animal kingdom. To give just 2 examples: the peregrine falcon can literally fly through the air at 200mph (in a dive); and the sperm whale can dive down to 2-3km and stay underwater for up to 45 mins.
 
But human exceptionalism is unusual and unique in the sense that, to quote Paul Davies: ‘We can unravel the plot’. I admit I tend to get annoyed when people tend to dismiss our unique ability to comprehend the universe to the degree and extent that we’ve managed to achieve. I recently watched an excellent series titled HUMAN, presented by paleo-anthropologist, Ella Al-Shamahi, which is very extensive and comprehensive for a lay-audience, and one of the things that stood out was how ‘break-throughs’ (for want of a better term) in cognitive abilities, seem to happen virtually simultaneously in different parts of the globe; the use of written script being a good example.
 
So, our cultural evolution, has tended to happen in jumps. And, in this sense, it is synonymous with progress to which Neiblum would undoubtedly agree. In his next-to-last sentence, he states that evolution has endowed us with the unique capacity to progress (emphasis in the original) using “evidence, reason and science”.
 
Personally, I think it is our unique grasp of mathematics that has been the most salient feature in propelling our advance in knowledge and comprehension of the natural world. To quote Eugene Wigner:
 
It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here… or the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.
 
This was from his famous essay, The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. And this is arguably the only reason, as Davies asserts, ‘we can unravel the plot’.
 
In my last post, I briefly talked about language, as well as imagination. Now, I actually believe that imagination is not unique to humans, in the sense that it allows us to mentally time-travel, and I suspect other creatures can do that as well, which we see in their ability to co-operate and act towards a goal. Implicit in that ability is the capacity to imagine that goal before it’s actualised. To the extent that other creatures can do this, I contend they have free will.
 
But humans take imagination to another level, because we can mentally time-travel to worlds that don’t even exist, which we do every time we read or watch a story. And this entails that other superpower we have, which is language. To quote from my last post:

…we all think in a language, which we learn from our milieu at an extremely early age, suggesting we are ‘hardwired’ genetically to do this. Without language, our ability to grasp and manipulate abstract concepts, which is arguably a unique human capability, would not be possible. Basically, I’m arguing that language for humans goes well beyond just an ability to communicate desires and wants, though that was likely its origin.
 
And this is the thing: these abstract concepts include mathematical equations, scientific theories and engineering designs (including, by the way, the theory of evolution, which is central to this discussion). But more than this, we ‘download’ this language from generation to generation at an age when these concepts are well beyond our cognitive abilities. And it’s this unique facility that has allowed us to create entire civilisations and build the scientific enterprise that we all depend upon and take for granted (if you’re reading this).
 
I’ve spent a lot of time belabouring a point, because my arguments thus far have nothing to do with religious beliefs.
 
Religion implies that there is a purpose and we are central to that purpose. I think purpose has evolved, and I’m unsure if Neiblum would agree. I’ve argued before that the Universe appears to be pseudo-teleological or quasi-teleological in that there is no end goal, yet the very mathematical laws that we have the cognitive capacity to ‘unravel’ seem to allow for a goal, even if it’s open-ended. Possibly, I’m subconsciously influenced by my ability and passion as a storyteller, because I prefer to write a story without knowing what the ending is. I’m not the only writer who does this, though there are others who won’t start a story without knowing the ending in advance.
 
I’ve always struggled with the concept of a ‘creator’ God, which is not dissimilar to the more recent belief that we live in a simulation. In a recent episode of an Australian satirical programme called The Weekly by Charlie Pickering, one of his guests, Rhys Nicholson, did a skit on this, even citing Nick Bolstrom, who is an academic proponent, but also comparing it to the widely held belief that there is a God pulling the strings behind the scenes (metaphorically speaking). Paul Davies in his book, The Goldilocks Enigma (highly recommended) also argues that the ‘simulation hypothesis’ is just a variation on ID (Intelligent Design).
 
I also like to cite Jordan Ellenberg from his excellent book, How Not to Be Wrong; The Power of Mathematical Thinking, where, among many other contentious topics, he discusses the ‘Bayesian inference of the existence of God’, whereby he shows that the Universe being a computer simulation has at least the same probability as it has being a divine intervention.
 
The thing that has struck me about all the Gods in our combined histories is that they all have cultural origins, including the Abrahamic God, and they are all anthropomorphic. I’ve long agreed with 19th Century philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach, that ‘God is the outward projection of man’s inner nature’. God is something internal not external, though, of course, that doesn’t rule out an external source.
 
Personally, I’m attracted to the Hindu concept of Brahman (as was Schrodinger) as a collective mind that could be the end result of consciousness rather than its progenitor. I’m not proposing this as a definitive resolution, but it would provide a goal that Neiblum considers anathema to science.
 
All that aside, I think there is another aspect to seeing ourselves as ‘exceptional’ in the animal kingdom here on Earth, because it gives us a special responsibility. We are effectively the guardians of spaceship Earth by default. However, it’s a two-edged sword: we have the unique capability to destroy it or to safeguard it. Which one we do is dependent on all of us.