Human evolution; our complex speech mechanism (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, May 18, 2019, 11:45 (2014 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The physical changes advanced with each homo stage including humans, but really functional language appeared 50,000 years ago perv theory. Form appeared before true function. That is what it proves. Design first.

dhw: What do you mean by “really functional language” and “true function”? Do you honestly think that communication between pre-sapiens and between early sapiens didn’t function? Nobody can possibly know how simple/complex early language was unless they were standing around with a tape recorder. Language must have evolved from simple beginnings to its current complexities as homos and humans built on the linguistic inventions of their predecessors in response to the need for a wider range of communication. But there would certainly have been long periods of linguistic stasis in times when societies themselves were static.

DAVID: "Really functional language" and "true function" are meant to describe our speech ability starting 50,000 years ago.

I wish you would make up your mind. According to you and apparently McCrone, all the necessary anatomical changes (i.e. the ability to speak) were already in place, even in our immediate predecessors, but by some mysterious means, he happens to know that they only spoke five or six words a minute. Apparently this did not enable them to use language functionally. Also by some mysterious means he happens to know that they started gabbling away 50,000 years ago. If this is true, there must have been a leap forward in the requirements for an expanded range of vocabulary.

DAVID: After your quibbling, the rest of your statement recognizes the progression of language after being give the anatomic mechanisms by phenotypic evolution. You cannot deny that, much as you would like to.

I am not denying it at all. My proposal all along has been that the changes in the anatomic mechanisms (= phenotypic evolution),and hence in the ability to produce new sounds, were the RESULT of cells restructuring themselves IN RESPONSE to the need for a wider range of communication (just as pre-whale legs became flippers IN RESPONSE to a change in their environment). Not your God performing various operations on various individuals at various times. And of course language progressed once this evolutionary process had produced the new mechanisms. Where on earth have you found me denying that?

DAVID: your view is very different than mine in which I see Him as purely purposeful, who does not need spectacle

dhw: What do you mean by “purely purposeful”? How can you have a purpose without a definition of what that purpose is? You are playing with words. And you haven’t explained why you think your God is incapable of creating an autonomous mechanism.

DAVID: You are twisting interpretations as usual. You know full well, I view God as much more serious than you do. Of course I've said, God is capable of inventing an autonomous mechanism. My objection to your proposal again returns to our individual concepts of who God is and what He controls from His desires.

Why is a “pure” purpose without any substance more “serious” than a defined purpose? You are trying to present us with a God who has no feelings, no interests, no recognizably human traits. He might as well be a robot. He follows his own single command: “Thou shalt create H. Sapiens”, but for unknown reasons chooses to create H. sapiens by first creating a billion non-sapiens life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders.

DAVID: And just why can't it be proposed that He designed everything, while in charge of evolution?

dhw: Of course it can be proposed. It simply doesn’t make sense that he should specially design the whale’s flipper and the weaverbird’s nest when the only thing he wanted to design was H. sapiens.

DAVID: Again a huge hole in your reasoning. Accepting that God is in charge of design within the process of evolution, what you say He should not do, is exactly what He had to do to eventually create humans by evolving them from previous forms.

We agree that humans evolved from previous forms. But as usual you prefer to ignore the fact that (a) according to you, every stage of evolution was specially designed, and (b) he specially designed every other non-human life form extant and extinct, although the only thing he wanted to specially design was H. sapiens. And you have “no idea” why he “chose” that way to produce the only thing he wanted to produce.