Albert Mohler writes:
Few questions are more important than this — Are humans unique? Or, put in other words, is there any basis for human dignity and for treating humans with special respect? It is now frighteningly clear that secular science is inadequate to answer that question.
The May 24-30, 2008 edition of New Scientist, an influential British journal of science, features a cover story that raises this very question. “Human beings are obviously unique,” the headline declares. “But it’s surprisingly hard to say why.” As the actual cover article indicates, there is very little that makes humans “obviously unique.”
Mohler goes on to discuss Christine Kenneally’s cover story (subscription required). He later notes:
The Christian worldview offers the only sustainable foundation for human dignity. The Christian truth claim, grounded in the Bible, claims that human dignity is ontological (based merely in the human being’s existence) rather than functional. According to this worldview, every single human being is equally created in the image of God. The other creatures are wondrous and each reveals the glory of God in its own way, but no other creature is created in the image of God. To be human is to be a bearer of God’s image. Thus, every single human being possesses full human dignity.
Read the whole thing.