Different in degree or kind: Egnor's take (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, September 23, 2016, 12:59 (2765 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This neurosurgeon has been heard from before:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/human-evolution/neurosurgeon-we-are-more-different-from-...-He discusses Wolfe's new book on language at first and then comments:
"And yet, as Wolfe points out, Darwinists are at an utter loss to explain how language -- the salient characteristic of man -- "evolved." -Try this: many of our animal predecessors communicate by sound. We know that their different sounds carry different meanings, though the range is probably limited to the fulfilment of their immediate requirements. Human levels of consciousness have resulted in an ever expanding range of requirements, which in turn demands an ever expanding range of sounds. Just as our modern languages have expanded on a colossal scale from the languages of long ago, the languages of long ago would have been a colossal expansion on the first forms of communication among our distant ancestors. It is possible that the physical transformations needed for our forms of language were brought about by the need for new sounds - evolution as a response to changing requirements. And so just as our animal needs for shelter, food, self-defence, training have been expanded to almost unrecognizable proportions in the form of cities, the food industry, armies, navies and air forces, schools and universities, our languages have been expanded from the animal sounds with which human communication began to their present almost unrecognizable complexity. A shining example of evolution at work.