Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, December 15, 2016, 16:43 (2900 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw:I regard my proposal below as being just as reasonable as the hypothesis that there was a sudden change when God intervened and fiddled with our vocal tracts.

DAVID: The fossil record is incontrovertible that the vocal tracts changed with each prior species of Homo prior to sapiens and with sapiens.

But that does not mean God intervened and fiddled with our vocal tracts before we could speak. My alternative is that the need to make new sounds resulted in changes to the vocal tract, just as physical exercises can develop muscles.

dhw: And if it is true that monkeys are capable of making the same sounds as us, I would regard that as supporting my case.

DAVID: Their ability to speak as we do is theoretical. Mc Crone talks about tongue muscle control, lip control, clipped breath control as issues to be handled. Monkeys could learn all of that as muscles are trained, if they had the brains. Muscle controls must be developed.

Agreed. The case made by the new research is that monkeys can’t speak like us because they don’t have the brains, not because they don’t have the vocal apparatus. But it doesn’t really make any difference to our disagreement. You think your God gave us the apparatus first, just as you think he gave pre-whales their new anatomy before they entered the water. I suggest a natural process the other way round: we and the whales developed new apparatus as a result of new – perhaps self-imposed – needs (to make new sounds, to adopt an aquatic way of life). And both hypotheses are theoretical.