How children pick up a language: denying Chomsky 2 (Humans)

by dhw, Saturday, September 10, 2016, 12:59 (2785 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 'Unique' simply means peculiar to that group. No language comes close to human communication. It is different in kind. I won't let comments like yours get by.-Dhw: I agree with your first two statements. However, we have spent many hours on Adler's distinction between kind and degree, which to me is a non issue. I see language - like so many of our constructs - as a product of our enhanced consciousness. Our cities are anthills and rabbit warrens developed beyond all recognition; our schools and sports are animals' teaching and play developed beyond all recognition; our societies are packs, herds, colonies developed beyond all recognition; and our languages are grunts and howls and roars and songs developed beyond all recognition. Regardless of the physical differences that influence what and how organisms build, teach, interact and communicate, the progression from comparatively simple to enormously complex is clear in all these contexts. Different in degree, different in kind? Why is this so important to you, especially since you believe in common descent?-DAVID: Because in the pattern of common descent, species appear without short steps, but the changes are not giant. The human leap of difference is giant, so extraordinarily large the leap is a difference in kind, and therefore strongly suggests an intervention.-Please explain what sort of intervention you are talking about. Are you saying that humans and apes do not have common ancestry, and humans were specially created? And do you think other species also needed your God's personal intervention to teach them how to communicate in their unique ways, or do you think they worked it out for themselves? We mustn't forget that according to you, God even had to intervene to teach the weaverbird how to build its nest (or he preprogrammed it for the first cells to pass on). Degree versus kind makes no difference if - as you have consistently argued - every innovation and natural wonder required your God's preprogramming or intervention. So why single out human language if intervention is all you're concerned with?