And while we are not, by far, the only creatures that do these things, we are, in most cases, better at it, because of our lack of physical defenses.

So much rationalization, so little fact.

Chimps hunt with spears and fashion stone tools for cutting and pounding.  Woodpeckers employ the use of twigs in digging insects out of their bores.  Ravens possess analytical genius.

Delusions of grandeur.

Psychoak, you have rejected all previous claims, and so I ask you: why do you think that humans, a species with no apparent biological advantages (No claws, can't fly, dive deeply or even swim very well, can't run very fast or for along time, and don't even have much fur to keep them warm) have risin to such a high place on the food chain? Why is the world not ruled by other animals?

Samurye.

I didn't say we were the only creatures that did so.  All animals use tools of some sort or another, whether it is part of their body, or something such as a stick.  And I believe that more animals than we realize have analytical skills.  Dolphin's seem to even have names.  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060508_dolphins.html

Nor did I say humans were better creatures.  In fact, I believe quite the opposite.  You don't see other animals on the path to complete self-destruction, however humans have managed to master that.

Facts are simply things that are currently known.  None of the facts that you stated contradict anything that I have said.

I think that it is our primitive side that is pushing us toward self-destruction: most, if not all animals compete with one anther, but they just don't have the ability to destroy an entire polanet in the crossfire.

Compete yes... try to complete annihilate, not so much. There is no documentation of healthy animals trying to destroy themselves, or their entire species.

First, bacteria rules the earth, not people.  Regardless, no such argument was made.  We have our position in nature because of the combination of our body structure and our brains.  We have a predisposition for the use of both advanced construction and logical thinking, although the second is often in doubt, and lives of sufficient extent to pass the advancements on.  Even with our abilities, it still took humanity thousands of years to come up with the concept of writing.  Ravens and dolphins are scary smart, but niether of them could ever build a fork, let alone a forklift.  They lack opposable thumbs.  The only ones with the potential to match our tool construction are other creatures with opposable thumbs, the only creatures able to match our learning capacity are ones with similar language capabilities and life spans.

Second, animals put themselves on a path to destruction with regularity, predators over hunt their prey and starve en mass, their prey balloon in population with the decreased pressure and in turn starve en mass when their own food source becomes scarce and are again brought to dangerously low levels by the predator whos populations have swelled off the abundant food provided by sick prey.

Third, refutation of specific claims is not itself a claim of perfect equality.  Humans are not the only species able to rapidly adapt to a change in circumstances.  That doesn't even imply that humans don't adapt the fastest, regardless of whether they do or not.  Humans are not the only species to advance technology in order to obtain a goal, nor the only species to employ deception, or solve logical puzzles, or any number of claims of unique behavior among humans.

Teach a few wild chimpanzees ASL and see where they are a century from now.  They employ manipulation, tactical maneuvers, weapon construction, have advanced societal structures, and show curiosity and creativity.  They display everything needed to create an advanced civilization comparable to what humans have, except a language capable of processing it.  Their vocal chords suck, and body language ain't real useful for science.

You keep implying that this argument has been made.  Nowhere did I mention that what we have done is UNIQUE, you're arguing a point that was never made.  I didn't say we were the only ones that lied ("employed deception") or created tools, or had creativity period... simply that it was the basis of our survival. 

Your entire argument, in a nutshell, is that we aren't the only ones to use these techniques, and you can say this over and over, but that isn't the point.  The point is that I believe that humans survived and been able to evolve, because of our ability to lie.

You are not countering this, you are simply stating what I have not argued, that we are not the only creatures that have done this. 

If we are only here because of our capability to lie, than what happens when another specie gains this capability?  Will we compete?  Will we accept? Or will we destroy, out of Instinctive fear?  Also, what of our ability to difference ourselves from other species?  I think a majority of our "dominance" is that humans cannot share an ecosystem with an animal that requires the same resources as it.  Neanderthals, for example, are believed to have been wiped out by Homo Sapiens(humans) because we both needed, and therefore competed for, the same things.  Today, we harvest trees for houses that themselves housed countless animals.  We dam rivers for energy, killing fish in the process.  In fact, we kill that which has, or uses, what we need, and it's nature, and we can never escape it.

Koda0

But we never stop trying to.

Samurye.

Silver, you're arguing with other people over what makes humans unique.  You knew that, right?

Nope, I'm not, actually.  It was mentioned that human's ADAPT quickly, and I made the comment that I believe we evolved because of our ability to lie. 

Now if you would like me to argue that...

While human's aren't the only creatures that deceive, we are the only ones that have mastered it so completely that we can not only lie to other mammels, and even others of our own species, but to ourselves as well. 

If this weren't so, the delusional state you mentioned before wouldn't be possible.

Not to mention "self-denial," or the ability to create fictional stories.  

Good point, but who is to say that we would be the creatures that wouldn't be wiped out?  If human's are evolving, the next stage would likely wipe us out, as, logically speaking, they would probably be even more advanced.

Humans dont need to evolve we have technology. Why adapt to the cold when you can have heaters? the case could be made that this may lead to our demise but our ability to use technollogy and understand how we can apply it gives us our advantage in the world. Other animals dont have higher brain functions, they lack the brain structures for them So we know this. As man evolved that area of the brain grew and it gave us the ability to create. Not just tools but art, language, poetry, music, and stories. Last i checked animals had none of these.

Animals don't have these by HUMAN standards, but they certainly have versions of it for themselves.  A bird sings, not just out of mating, or communication, but for joy.  I believe all animals have a type of language, different barks, different caws, and for some mammels, like dolphins, perhaps more. 

Poetry and stories, I agree with, animals probably don't have those.

As for your other point, our technology is proof that we have evolved.  We may no longer be evolving physically, merely adapting, but this isn't neccesarily true of our brains, or even, more abstractly, our minds.