How children pick up a language: new review of Wolfe (Humans)

by David Turell , Sunday, October 23, 2016, 20:36 (2951 days ago) @ dhw

QUOTE: Evolutionary theory is no closer than it was in Darwin’s day to explaining in materialist terms how traits like self-consciousness and language came to be.

dhw: It is not just self-consciousness but consciousness itself that is unexplained. Self-consciousness is an extension of consciousness, and I do not put human language in the same category of inexplicability. Once you have enhanced consciousness, it seems to me inevitable that you should need enhanced modes of expression, since all organisms need to communicate what matters to them.

I agree, but would include God's actions.

>dhw:We have already discussed the physical adaptations necessary for human speech, but that relates to the mystery of how ALL adaptations and especially innovations take place. The process whereby cell structures change in order to fulfil needs is not unique to humans, as illustrated by the giraffe’s neck (thank you for that post as well)and a zillion other adaptations, innovations and natural wonders.

Besides the circulatory difficulties in evolving the long neck of giraffes there is the sexual theory of male combat, using the head on a long neck to batter one's opponent:

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160629-giraffes-did-not-evolve-long-necks-to-reach-tal...

"The skull of the male giraffe appears to be highly specialised for its peculiar mode of intra-specific fighting," researchers noted in a study published in 1968.
In an extreme case, reported in the 1960s, one male punctured his opponent's neck just below the ear. The impact splintered a vertebra and a shard of bone entered the luckless giraffe's spinal column, killing him.

"The largest males usually win these battles and do most of the breeding, says zoologist Anne Innis Dagg of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, who has been studying giraffes since the 1950s. "The other giraffes don't get much breeding opportunity."

"There is also evidence that females are more receptive to advances from larger males.

"However, in the last 10 years evidence has emerged that weakens the necks-for-sex hypothesis.

"In particular, a 2013 investigation found no evidence that males have longer necks for their body mass than do females.

"In other words, there is no obvious sexual dimorphism in neck length. As a result, the authors concluded that the "competing browsers" hypothesis "is the more likely explanation for tallness in giraffes".

"Meanwhile, other researchers have found direct evidence for the competing browsers hypothesis. By erecting fences around Acacia trees in South Africa, Elissa Cameron and Johan du Toit were able to reveal the impact that smaller competitors like steenbok, impala and kudu have on food availability.

"'Giraffes gain a foraging advantage by browsing above the reach of smaller browsers," they wrote in The American Naturalist in 2007. This was "the first experimental evidence that the giraffe's extremely elongated body form is naturally selected in response to competition from smaller browsing species."

"These studies suggest that Darwin was right all along. But the necks-for-sex supporters have not given up, and it may turn out that there is some merit in both explanations. Either way, there could well be further twists to this story."

Comment: Let the research continue. No clear answer yet for such a complicated animal.