Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 12, 2016, 15:37 (2903 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Current research on monkeys, using special x-ray video techniques, finds that monkeys have the facility to speak with their current anatomy if they only had a brain to employ the ability. They don't:

http://medienportal.univie.ac.at/presse/aktuelle-pressemeldungen/detailansicht/artikel/...

dhw: Unfortunately, I couldn’t gain access to the whole article, but I must once more thank you for your integrity in presenting evidence that runs contrary to your own theories. Throughout this particular discussion, you have emphasized the enormous physical changes needed for human speech. You argued that God must have preprogrammed or dabbled such changes, and I argued that the need for new sounds would have triggered the cell communities to make the changes. If this latest research is correct, we were both wrong. It would seem that the need for new sounds (engendered by our enhanced consciousness giving us access to so many more aspects of the world around us) simply triggered far more expansive use of existing vocal mechanisms. An important contribution to the case for common descent, though of course it does not solve the mystery of our enhanced consciousness.

DAVID: Don't jump to conclusions. We are not 'both wrong'. It is true this research shows monkeys could speak if they had the brain power. But in human evolution marked changes in the anatomy of the vocal tract preceded the use of language as the brain enlarged. One must pay attention to the sequence of evolutionary events.

QUOTE: "Monkeys and apes are unable to learn new vocalizations, and for decades it has been widely believed that this inability results from limitations of their vocal anatomy: larynx, tongue and lips. But an international team of scientists, led by Tecumseh Fitch at the University of Vienna and Asif Ghazanfar at Princeton University, has now looked inside monkeys' vocal tracts with x-rays, and found them to be much more flexible than thought before. The study indicates that the limitations that keep nonhuman primates from speaking are in their brains, rather than their vocal anatomy.”

I’m in no position to argue with them or with you about the anatomical details. My comments were based on what the researchers have told us, and if they are correct, then there is no point arguing that human language was made possible by changes to the larynx, tongue and lips. If they are wrong, then you will stick to your divine preparatory dabbling, and I will stick to my cell communities responding to the need for new sounds.