Human Language May Have Evolved To Help Our Ancestors Make Tools 154
sciencehabit writes: If there's one thing that distinguishes humans from other animals, it's our ability to use language. But when and why did this trait evolve? A new study concludes that the art of conversation may have arisen early in human evolution, because it made it easier for our ancestors to teach each other how to make stone tools — a skill that was crucial for the spectacular success of our lineage. The study involved getting a number of college students to try to make their own primitive stone tools, some using language, others not. The team discovered that only those that used language were able to make effective tools.
what language is (Score:2, Insightful)
Human language _is_ a tool.
Dumbass.
That's it !! (Score:2, Funny)
You're a __douchebag__ and a tool
Folks, we have a perfect specimen of the original reason why human invented language ...
TO CURSE AT ONE ANOTHER
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They've not managed to offload part of their brains' tasks to another species, unlike us?
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They have bow wow, woof woof, bwahahahaha
What we have?
Justin Beiber and Paris Hilton.
Check.
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But we did have Bow Wow Wow.
Which had that hot welsh/burmese chick
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Checkmate.
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They have bow wow, woof woof, bwahahahaha
What we have?
Dogs do have curses. After listening to some neighborhood dogs bark at each other, I repeated one of their phrases to a dog I was friends with. He snarled at me. Couldn't get that response with any other barking pattern I tried.
It went something like "ruff, woofa".
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Hmm, I wonder if the invention of cussing helped tool-making by making errors more memorable.
"No, pointy end go in dino, not flat end. Me use flat end bonk you, poop face!"
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I doubt that stone age man spoke fluent American like that.
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I doubt that stone age man spoke fluent American like that.
Nah, probably plain old English.
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No, but he DID speak. This theory is the dumbest theory I've seen coming from someone who should know better for years; it's already been disproven before the dumbass thought of it.
Other apes have language. Prairie dogs have language. Even dogs have language, even though the only three things they say are "I'm hurt", "I'm lonely" and "get off my property before I eat you!" Previous STUDIES have shown this.
Why do these educated morons think vocal cords evolved for in the first place??
Also, the summary is lik
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No other species laughs (Hyenas' "laughs" aren't from humor) ...
This is demonstrably not true. [wikipedia.org] Also, I'm pretty skeptical about saying that at least some animals, particularly our close cousins the great apes don't have a sense of humor. There seems clear evidence they do.
Re:what language is (Score:4, Funny)
Speaking as someone who is rather clumsy at carpentry, I reckon it was the other way round.
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True fact: The first utterance of "Motherfucker!" came shortly after the invention of the hammer.
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In other news... (Score:2, Insightful)
... speaking to each other improves communication. Brilliant.
new theory (Score:2)
Speaking helps you pick up chicks, or nag husband to bring home fat bear kill to feed kids; both will also spectacularly advance the species.
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Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, this is how science works. It is obvious that talking will help people make flint tools. We all know that. But how do we know that? Saying 'it's obvious' is not helpful. It is also obvious that you can get better at making tools when you can watch someone who is good at it. But you can get plenty of people how have never chipped flint tools, and see how much better they are when they watch someone, when they mutely interact with someone, and when they talk. Some gifted people can pick up musical instruments just by watching, but making flint tools seems to be helped a lot by language.
The article also says that this is suggestive, but could not be considered a proof. They know they have not got ancient people to experiment on. It is not practical to try the same tests with a mammoth hunt. It's not a time machine, but we use what we have.
Then you get a +5 'insightful' mark-up for jeering at it.
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"Yes, this is how science works."
No, this experiment is as stupid as it can be. They take a group that *already* uses a "tool" (language) as the means to acomplish a goal (collaboration), then private them of the tool and find that they are now worse at acomplishing the goal.
In other words: for a man with a hammer, any problem seems a nail. Now you take him his hammer and you find he's worse at driving nails. Brilliant.
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The OP isn't jeering because the idea is obvious; they're jeering because having an experiment to PROVE the obvious is stupid. That isn't how science works, that's how time-serving bureaucracy in research works, when you get a grant to prove something utterly obvious is a waste of money, time, and intellectual resources.
And no, I doubt there are any gifted people that can pick up musical instruments just by watching; listening is pretty intrinsic to what you're discussing there, too.
In any case, to have an
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Not everything that is obvious is true, and some of the most important experiments in science have failed to find the obvious.
That said, sloppy experiments that don't really test what they're claimed to test for are worthless.
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Yes, this is how science works. It is obvious that talking will help people make flint tools. We all know that. But how do we know that? Saying 'it's obvious' is not helpful. It is also obvious that you can get better at making tools when you can watch someone who is good at it. But you can get plenty of people how have never chipped flint tools, and see how much better they are when they watch someone, when they mutely interact with someone, and when they talk. Some gifted people can pick up musical instruments just by watching, but making flint tools seems to be helped a lot by language.
The article also says that this is suggestive, but could not be considered a proof. They know they have not got ancient people to experiment on. It is not practical to try the same tests with a mammoth hunt. It's not a time machine, but we use what we have.
No, it's how junk science works -- where you conduct an small and very badly flawed experiment, dominated by an effect that has been very well known in the literature for 30 years, but then claim the experiment is "suggestive" of a grandiose conclusion that the experiment clearly doesn't support in order to garner some publicity for yourself from journalists.
The researchers found the "exciting" result that the groups that received more feedback in their instruction performed better, and the group that recei
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Never heard of it. Something to do with post-WW2 Britain? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... [wikipedia.org]
Obvious and Logical... just not relevant (Score:2)
It is obvious that talking will help people make flint tools. We all know that. But how do we know that? Saying 'it's obvious' is not helpful
Actually this experiment is not how you know that. You know communication helps as a priori knowledge which is also why it's obvious (see below if you need an explanation). You missed the point entirely which is not if it helps but how much it helps... the larger debate is when humans first started communicating, it's helpful to know how much communication helps developing stone tools because that period in time could be a candidate if it's significant.
It's obvious that communication will help because it's
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No, the reason this experiment is stupid is that you are taking a subject group that have relied heavily on verbal communication there entire lives and then asking them to do the same task with and without verbal communication. Gee, I wonder which condition will produce better results.
Car analogy: You take a bunch of adults who've been driving for 20+ years and then tell half to drive through an obstacle course while using their feet to press the pedals and the other half to drive while using their hands to
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As you point out, it's not something we can easily test, but the conclusions
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It's a bit of a jump from there to conclude that talking developed for that reason.
It's obvious that fingers help you to play the guitar. We all know that.
Conclusion: fingers evolved so we could all be Jimmy Page.
That's how science works, is it? Send me a postcard from Stockholm.
Heeeeyyy! (Score:2)
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"Oh congrats on being too stupid to understand the reason that language developed over the use of it."
Ok: rewritten as per the experiment:
Animals already accustomed to talk as their main means to communicate find that talking to each other improves communication. Brilliant.
Now, for a different experiment:
The study involved getting a number of dogs to try to make their own primitive stone tools, some allowed to use language, others not. The team discovered that there were no difference in the dogs' ability
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Junk science (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe human language evolved so we could share cooking tips, or maybe so we could more easily find a mate, or raise kids, or navigate using the night sky, or yell "HELP! I'm being eaten by a tiger!", or tell our fellow tribe members that a flood is coming, or that we have a thorn in our foot that the local witchdoctor needs to pull out...
The ONLY way to find out things like this (historical FACTs, rather than historical POSSIBILITIES) is with a time machine, which nobody has.
The sort of people who write thi
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"I like objective truth and objective reality"
Yep, those are nice. And they're very helpful for about 1% of life. The other 99% is messy and emotional but still worth figuring out, because it's the 99% part that gives us the most trouble.
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Due to the fact that the post I replied to was modded "insightful" and the fact that you even exist I am done with Slashdot.
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I don't blame you. It's a pretty disgusting display.
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Re:Junk science (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, we can't build a time machine and go back in time to check. But we can make educated guesses about it. We can't also travel to a quasar and check if our theories about the behaviour of quasars are right, but we can make educated guesses about them, and there is no reason to throw out everything we hypothetize about quasars or call research into quasars pseudo-science, just because we can't get there.
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News for Nerds my ass.
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I've always thought the theory of language evolving in order to make "promises" was the most insightful and reasonable one I've ever heard. The ability to ask for favors with the promise of a favor later is extremely important in the development of human intelligence. Of course, there were drawbacks. The ability to make promises soon gave rise to the ability to lie. And the politician was born.
Student tasks show evolutionary path? (Score:2)
That's a really big "maybe" based on some college students tasked to do it. It seems to me that language would be huge advantage for any activity, not just tool making.
Human language has evolved to help our ancestors (Score:5, Funny)
PC LOAD LETTER? What the fuck does that mean?
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The real reason (Score:2, Funny)
"Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain." -- Lily Tomlin
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Once man invented tools, he finally had something worth talking about.
Re:The real reason (Score:4, Funny)
s/talking/arguing/
Ugg: That pointy stick rubbish! This pointy stick good!
Ogg: Stupid neckbeard.
Ugg. We cavemen. All neckbeards. Everythingbeards.
Ogg: True, LOL!
questionable experimental design (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I can tell from TFA, this study purports to test the hypothesis that language evolved as a means to transmit the knowledge of how to make tools. The researchers found that present-day humans (college students, to be exact) can best teach other how to make a stone tool if they are allowed to talk to each other. The authors interpret this as evidence in support of their hypothesis.
The obvious problem, though, is that they ran the experiment on a bunch of subjects that have spent their entire lives (minus the first year or so) using language as their primary means of communication. So what result would you expect with this study population? The experiment is hardly a test of the conditions under which early language might have evolved.
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I bet the students that could speak would succed more at any of the following tasks;
Planning/carrying out a hunt.
Sending people to good food gathering areas
Warning of danger
Etc
All this study shows is that language is a good way of exchanging information.
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I bet the students that could speak would succed more at any of the following tasks;
Planning/carrying out a hunt.
Sending people to good food gathering areas
Warning of danger Etc
Exactly. One could use the exact same study design to "test" the hypothesis that any or all of the things you mentioned are why we evolved language, and the results would undoubtedly be the same. The only general conclusion one might draw is that humans evolved language to more effectively communicate with each other, which is practically self-evident.
All this study shows is that language is a good way of exchanging information.
That, and also that humans who spend their entire lives depending on language to communicate with one another can't communicate as effectively when they sud
Not their entire lives (Score:2)
"bunch of subjects that have spent their entire lives (minus the first year or so) "
And quite a long at uni when all totalled up while drunk and then waking up with some strange person the next morning and finding they can only communicate in grunts due to a mysterious headache and sudden revulsion which also prevents them communicating at an effective volume for most of the day.
Re:questionable experimental design (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a classic example of Convenience Sampling, a sampling method which chooses samples based on how easy they are to procure. Guess where the researches were located, that all their test subjects were students?
Wikipedia calls it Accidental Sampling:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]
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"This is a classic example of Convenience Sampling"
Yes, it is, but not because of what you think.
"Guess where the researches were located, that all their test subjects were students?"
The fact of them being students or attorneys at law or plumbers is irrelevant. It is convenience sampling because they needed a sample that already were using language to communicate in order to deprive them of this tool (which is also the utter flaw of the experiment) and it happens there is only one tipology that already fit
don't forget about the DOLPHINS (Score:5, Interesting)
I studied comparative cognition (anthropology branch) and I can tell you that there are many studies that show that Dolphins use complex, syntactically based language in the wild. Chimps can learn complex language in the lab, but they don't have it in the wild like Dolphins do.
Dolphins also aren't known to use tools. So, this seems to be a obvious counter example to their hypothesis.
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I think it is a bit more than just building tools. But also a method for communicating coordinated hunting.
We should look at one syllable or easy to pronounce words that are common across multiple languages.
We get a lot of nouns, and basic verbs. These can be used for creating tools, But also for pack hunting.
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No, the obvious problem is that they assumed that if language is useful to creating tools then language evolved to help create tools. One might as well assume that, since many people have oily noses, that noses evolved to lubricate things.
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You're 100% wrong.
It is f-f-f-f-freezing here at the moment. Capacitive touch screen phones don't work when you're wearing gloves.
Noses evolved to operate smartphones in the cold.
Actually.... (Score:3)
Recent evidence has come to light that suggests that pyramid style chain
letters may have pre-dated Dave Rhodes by a considerable margin.
Palaentologists recently deciphered the following, painted on a cave
wall on the slopes of Kilimanjaro.
MAKE POINTY STICKS FAST!!!
Hello, not-tribe-member. Urk name Urk. Many moons ago, Urk in bad way.
Urk kicked out of cave by Thag. Thag bigger than Urk, Thag take Urk
spiky club, Urka (Urk wo-man). Urk not able kill deer, must eat leaves,
berries. Urk flee from wolves.
Today, Urk big chief. Urk have best cave, many wives, many pointy sticks.
Urk tell how.
WHAT DO: make one pointy stick and take to cave places below. Add own
cave place to bottom of list, take cave place off top. Put new message
on walls many caves. Wait. Many pointy sticks soon come! This not crime!
Urk ask shaman, gods say okay.
HERE LIST:
1) Urk
First cave
Olduvai Gorge
few) Thag (not that Thag, other Thag)
old dead tree
by laked shaped like mammoth
few) Og
big rock with overhang
near pig game trail
Many) Zog
river caves
where river meet big water
Urk hope not-tribe-member do what Urk say do. That only way it work.
(c) Dave Hemming 1998. Circulate how you please, but keep my name on it.
More likely, to help them get laid. (Score:2)
Which is something that knowing a programming language isn't much help with.
Nurse, please pass me the hemostat (Score:1)
Fallacy (Score:1)
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Not to put too fine a point on it, right? [laurencetennant.com]
What about hunting? Building? And so on (Score:5, Insightful)
The study involved getting a number of college students to try to make their own primitive stone tools, some using language, others not. The team discovered that only those that used language were able to make effective tools.
Did they also try hunting a mammoth with language vs. without language? Or caring for an elderly tribe member with/without language? Or building a hut?
Evolution has no purpose (Score:3)
Somehow it still annoys me that people think of evolution in terms of some sort of deliberate purpose or 'providence'. It gives a completely skewed idea of what evolution is and it feeds religious superstition.
Evolution has no 'direction' - life doesn't evolve from 'worse' to 'better'; those terms have no meaning in this context. If one must assign some sort of direction to evolution, it would be something like 'life often tends to become more complex over time' - the word 'often' being central here, as there are many examples of organisms becoming simpler with time.
Evolution most certainly has no purpose - a trait evolves because it happens to be advantageous at that given moment. The ability to speak - ie. communicate vocally, following a sort of grammar - seems to have very deep roots, and it is easy to understand why: a sound signal is fast and carries far in both water and air, and it allows you to communicate with little expenditure of energy. You can use it for mating calls or warnings, it can be used to maintain group integrity etc. It is, incidentally, also useful for communicating knowledge: 'I know where there is water, follow me' or 'avoid humans, they are dangerous'.
Clearly the ability to communicate clearly is an advantage when you teach others how to make tools, but it is false to look for purpose in this - the only purpose of communication is the purpose the communicator puts into it.
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They don't. It's just that it's easier - and shorter - to phrase it that way rather than the way you did.
Use of language isn't unique (Score:3)
If there's one thing that distinguishes humans from other animals, it's our ability to use language.
Hate to break it to you, but humans aren't the only ones who know and use language. We're not really that distinguishable from many animals if thats your deciding factor. Dolphins, Whales, Octopus ... they all probably would like to have a word with you.
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Um, no. Many animals have communication systems, and a few can demonstrate some rudimentary symbolic language at the level of an 18-month-old human at best, but none have anything the equivalent of the human language faculty.
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Sure it's not as advanced as human language, but we're only reaching the point where we ourselves are capable of determining just how good the languages of other creatures actually are. There's a lot of it we can't even begin to understand because we haven't been able to fully understand the context and we can't exactly sit down with most animals a
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Hate to break it to you, but humans aren't the only ones who know and use language. We're not really that distinguishable from many animals if thats your deciding factor. Dolphins, Whales, Octopus ... they all probably would like to have a word with you.
I see what you did there.
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Pop-sci crap.
Language is not truly unique to humans (Score:4, Interesting)
There are many more animals that are known to communicate through sound, some rather sophisticated. Various whales and dolphins are known to use different calls, some primates, even some species of bat are believed to exchange information such as where to find food through sounds. Calls are also a common way of parents finding their children when living in big groups. Of course it's not as advanced as human speech, and almost certainly not useful to communicate about abstract topics. To me, it is a form of speech nonetheless.
Language is not truly unique to humans (Score:1)
But it is not "language". Language has a very specific meaning, and one of the requirements is a syntax. It's not just that other animals don't have forms of communication that "aren't as advanced", it's that what they do is completely different from language (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language). Language itself is an amazing trait, and the fact that one species on the planet developed it is absolutely incredible.
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The summary highlights that humans are very special: no other species can communicate as sophisticated concepts as humans can.
What you say makes sense and in a way I agree with you, in the same way that an abacus and a microchip are alike since they can both do calculations.
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The summary doesn't do this, it just states "If there's one thing that distinguishes humans from other animals, it's our ability to use language", moving on to mentioning the skill of conversation. That are things that are not totally unique to humans, other species can communicate in that way as well. But just being able to use language is not enough; it's abstract language that's really unique to humans.
Things that really do set us apart are very different. One thing that I really can't think of an animal
Toolmaking language is still evolving (Score:2)
It is not an accident that the countries that advanced the fastest during the industrial revolution had some unique language features such as compound words. English has a number of other advantages such as the ability to absorb words from other languages, lack of gender on most nouns and precision.
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And which college (Score:2)
did the cavemen go to?
Comparing college students to cavemen and drawing conclusions about language seems a little silly. College students don't do anything but communicate. Cavemen did everything- they hunted/gathered/raised food, made tools, entertained themselves. How do we know language didn't develop because of the desire for entertainment? Maybe they got bored sitting around a fire grunting. maybe they wanted to hear some jokes.
Wrong Headed (Score:2)
"f there's one thing that distinguishes humans from other animals, it's our ability to use language."
Wrong. People who say things like that just aren't listening and clearly don't have enough contact with other species.
Reality: Other animals have extensive languages of their own and some of them even take the time to learn ours so as to communicate with us.
We raise livestock. We have a multigenerational working dog pack. They have an extensive language of their own plus they have a pidgin language they use
Wrong Headed (Score:2, Informative)
I encourage you to read more about language. It is NOT equivalent to communication, and despite you ostensibly detesting "thinkers in ivory towers", you simple are not going to understand something as complex as language by sitting around anthropomorphizing farm animals.
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Actually, I've studied this extensively. I didn't say language was the equivelant of communication. Sadly you didn't actually read what I wrote but rather reacted without understanding. Just the problem.
I don't 'sit around and anthropomorphize farm animals' and you really should get out more. If you interacted with animals you would discover that there are other tool making and tool using animals that pass on cultural information. You fail to see it because you don't interact with animals in many generation
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Pressure versus mechanism (Score:4, Informative)
Language provides a capacity for learning that is collective and cumulative. The usefulness of language in tool-making and vast numbers of other tasks is obvious.
First, that doesn't tell us whether tool-making preceded language or the reverse.
Second, it doesn't tell us anything about how humans acquired language. Using sounds and/or gestures as symbolic communication elements is hard enough, but that's the easy part, and it can't happen until there is a common set of thoughts to exchange. You need shared language inside the head before you can start speaking and being understood - that's the hard part that linguists puzzle over.
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Chimpanzees sometimes make tools, so tool making almost certainly preceded language, unless Chimpanzees are descended from animals that had language but lost it.
Possibly the most interesting thing about humans is that there is an exponential increase in diversity of objects in the archaeological record, which seems to start somewhere around 100.000 to 50.000 ago. This exponential increase in diversity of objects produced continues to this day, especially if you count virtual objects like digital art.
What ha
Really dumb study (Score:2)
Imagine same test, but requiring students to arrange their poo in shapes resembling flowers when seen from top of the cliff. Obviously, students which can shout commands to ones at the bottom will fare better than ones which will not be allowed to use language. Does it mean that language was evolved as a way to arrange poo in shape of flowers?
Living in water (Score:2)
The suggestion was that there is lots of physiological evidence (subcutaneous fat layer, distribution of hair, infants seemingly instant ability to swim, even upright posture) that we as a species spent time (a million years?) as semi-aquatic. (in the sense that we wallowed around in the shallow water near shore most of the day) This had some advantages (ke
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It's the awesome mix that makes us human (Score:2)
I've read once that it takes roughly 8-10 steps for live to happen and evolve into intelligent life.
Language, abundant extra brain power and limbs that become free to use tools are among these steps.
The fact that we walk upright and have our front paws free, have a parallel and a sequential brain-half both working together and against one another (i.e. doulbe-checking each other), opposable thumbs and a super-flexible larynx are quite awesome and are the thing that give us the edge and let us win the cosmic
And this explains .... (Score:2)
Flawed methodology (Score:1)
gossip (Score:2)
Found Steven Pinker's idea more persuasive. (Score:2)
But Steven Pinker looked at the structure of the language and came up with some deep insights.:
1.
Alternatively (Score:2)
Human language may have evolved to help our ancestors describe the feeling of a good bowel movement.
There's as much evidence for my theory as there is for theirs.
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there is even more evidence for my theory, that speech helped human males get female fucking partners. Don't underestimate the need for the primary tool of the art of seduction
Lungs (Score:1)
Language applied (Score:1)