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

by dhw, Sunday, September 25, 2016, 12:57 (2981 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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.-DAVID: Sorry, but the anatomic changes for spoken language, which I have described in the past were present 200,000 years in H. sapiens skeletal remains before language is thought to have appeared 50,000 years ago. The evidence is strong that anatomy preceded language suggesting pre-planning in evolution by God.-dhw: Sorry, but has it not occurred to anyone that if the anatomic changes were present 200,000 years ago, maybe that might be construed as evidence that human language appeared 200,000 years ago? Nobody knows when human language started, and as far as I know, nobody was around with a tape recorder to enable us to distinguish between the sounds being made at the time. As regards your own theory, can you think of any reason why God would give humans the means to create new sounds but they would not make any new sounds for 150,000 years?-DAVID: Just because your house has a piano, doesn't mean you can sit down and immediately play a Beethoven concerto. First the anatomy, then learn how to use it. Of course it was used 200,000 years ago and gradually organized language and its rules developed. Anatomy first, then speech and language follows. Quite clear in the book The Ape That Spoke. Our current abilities require very clipped breath/tongue controls created by the anatomic changes.-Please reread your own comment above, as regards human language not appearing until 50,000 years ago, though the anatomical changes were present 200,000 years ago. Now you are simply repeating what I said in my response above and in my initial response to the article you posted (new sounds gradually evolving into the complexities we know today), except that in the first quote above I suggested that the anatomical changes were the result of the need for new sounds - i.e. the organism responding to new requirements, as we see in the less complex process of adaptation.