Subject:
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Evolution of Languate? (was: An interesting Scientific Idea)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Wed, 11 Jun 2003 23:55:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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600 times
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In lugnet.space, Felix Greco wrote:
> In lugnet.space, Leonard Hoffman wrote:
>
> I'm not so sure about that. I think humanities one true claim to being
> anything close to superior are our language skills.
I don't think so. The facts don't support it. I may be getting off the
intended topic, but I thought I'd just bring some facts to light.
It's been mentioned in this thread that we make major assumtions on the basis of
life. Same for basis of language. Those grunts and whistles may not be
Handel's "Messiah", but they're definitely communication.
These quotes are from creationmoments.com--a website that teaches how God
created the Earth. I've pulled out all 'opinion' segments, but note that all
following information is fact.
"A study of white-crowned sparrows in the San Francisco Bay area shows that the
sparrows' songs from one area to another are very much alike, but they have
different dialects. Sparrows from opposite ends of the same town may even have
variations in their songs. Researchers have found that young sparrows experiment
with a variety of sounds-just as human babies babble. But they learn their song
in the dialect of the adults around them. Likewise, each dialect group has its
own unique variations on the mating ritual, to which only birds from the same
dialect group respond. Dozens of birds are known to have dialects."
"In 1914 a hunter in South Africa was commissioned to exterminate a herd of 140
elephants. He managed to kill all but 20. Those 20 became so skilled at avoiding
him that he had to give up the hunt. Even though the park became a preserve in
1930-with the elephants protected-elephants on the preserve today, four
generations since the hunt ended, are unusually wary of humans. Even young
elephants are quickly taught to avoid humans."
"Ground squirrels have two distinct alarm calls, depending upon what is after
them. If a ground squirrel hears the alarm call that warns of a bird of prey, he
will dive for the nearest protection. But if the alarm signals a digging
predator like a badger, ground squirrels will pass nearby burrows to hide in one
that has a back door escape route."
"Researchers now know that just because Chimpanzees are not able to talk it does
not mean that they have learned nothing from language training. Researchers at
the University of Pennsylvania tested the mathematical abilities of chimps that
had language training against chimps that had learned only to do simple jobs.
All of the chimps without language training flunked their tests. However, the
chimp that had graduated from 18 months of language training seemed to
understand small numbers, fractions, and showed analytical skills. When asked to
match equal numbers of different objects, the language-trained chimp was correct
91 percent of the time. Then the chimp was given wooden disk fractions. Half a
disk represented one-half, a quarter of a disk, one-quarter, and so on. The
chimp was then asked to match those fractions with glasses of water that were
half full, a quarter full, and so on. The chimp scored 88 percent correct in
this exercise."
Of course, humans have a level of reasoning far beyond that of animals, but the
facts just do not support evolution. I'm a Christian, so I believe that God
created everything just how it is. However, when it comes to a good storyline,
I can tolerate a little evolution ;-)
Well, just contributing to the discussion. Anybody else have thoughts on the
subject?
~Andrew~
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: An interesting Sci-fi idea
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| (...) I'm not so sure about that. I think humanities one true claim to being anything close to superior are our language skills. (...) I wouldn't listen to a biologist. (URL) Biologists are dumb>. Well, we're assuming the base of any and all life is (...) (21 years ago, 11-Jun-03, to lugnet.space, FTX)
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