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

by David Turell , Friday, November 04, 2016, 17:31 (2939 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Nothing here that I disagree with. Our disagreement is not over the special nature of humans but over your interpretation of how evolution has worked throughout its history. How does our specialness come to mean that God geared every innovation and natural wonder, extant and extinct, to the production of humans (as opposed to giving organisms free rein, apart from the occasional dabble, which might include humans)? And you still haven’t told me what aspects of my OWN hypotheses fail to fit in with the history of life as we know it.

From your point of view, not accepting God, your hypothesis can fit the facts as we see them, sort of.. But leaving out the factor of God to drive evolution, your hypothesis becomes untenable for me.
As for our specialness, you cannot explain it. We are not necessary from the standpoint of natural evolution. We are an extension beyond need. So is multicellularity. A drive for 'improvement or survivorship' is not required by bacteria. They have proven that point.