Origin of Language; second afterthought (Origins)

by dhw, Friday, April 10, 2015, 20:34 (3513 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: ...it is patently absurd for anyone to claim they know how long it normally takes for apes to evolve into humans. 
DAVID: The Wistar Institute's presentations have never been refuted. Judgments about human mutation rates are published from time to time as relatively accurate assessments.-How can you refute a hypothesis about or assess the accuracy of judgements on events without precedent or points of comparison? Besides, once again, we are not dealing with random mutations.-dhw: In our own discussions, I have suggested that it happened through organisms having an inventive mechanism (possibly designed by your God) that was able to exploit new conditions in order to bring about advantageous changes. 
DAVID: But not necessarily advancements, only responses to situational problems.-Once more, nobody knows how innovations are created, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that a mechanism capable of changing an organism's structure for adaptation might also be able to innovate, given the right conditions.-DAVID: I agree we are left with God alone or God plus an IM, never an IM alone.

Why not an IM alone if God invented it to do its own inventing (just like humans)?-DAVID: Perhaps the issue of the epiglottis was skipped over from my previous description. Changes in advance of function are called exaptation's. The changes in palate shape, tongue muscles, the drop in the larynx to allow for proper bursts of air to allow speech, all preceded speech developing. It could not have developed without those preparations. These are changes out of thin air for no reasonable challenge response. Apes don't have that type of anatomy. Please tell me what drove those changes, none of which were necessary for life in general without speech? A series of IM experimentations? And the lower larynx with its trapdoor epiglottis is a constant threat to choking to death. (Heimlich maneuver!) Only design can account for this if one studies it logically.
I've left out an important point. Human infants are born with an ape-like vocal tract, that is, with a very high larynx, so that they can suckle and drink without drowning. It is only after six months that the larynx drops to its lower position to allow for speech and it is then that the epiglottis comes into play. It must be a very intelligent IM to have that much foresight in planning for language and speech. Sorry, but this reeks of design.-Yes, it does, and these are brilliant posts for which many thanks. I have dealt with your three versions of “design” under “Evolution v Creationism”. The IM is the fourth design option. The problem of complexity applies to every innovation that leads from bacteria to humans, but there is a major difference in our approach to all this. You constantly talk of planning, and that is not how I see the progress of evolution. Just as with adaptation, I visualize the changes coming about IN RESPONSE to new conditions, not in preparation for them. Either there is a need for change, or conditions encourage change for the sake of improvement. And so in this particular case, the changes in the larynx, epiglottis etc. would have come about because with their ever expanding intelligence and acquisition of information, humans needed a more sophisticated method of communicating. In other words, the changes were not planned in advance of that need - they arose from it. In anticipation of your usual objections, I'd better repeat for the umpteenth time that nobody knows how innovations take place. You offer preprogramming from Year One, divine dabbling, or a list of multi-choice questions; I offer a mechanism which is known to be capable of adaptation and may therefore also be capable of invention.