What seperates us from the animals?

"what separates us from the animals?"

....barbecue. :2thumbsup:

 

Rationalization

 

That was worth a laugh. That bipedalism led to developments which made the development of a spoken language physically possible is now obviously true. That is not what I am talking about. The previous statements seem to imply a direct relationship between the evolution of, for example, the breathing apparatus and the ability to arrange symbols based on grammatical rules in a way that is infinitelty combinatorial, a claim which is preposterous.

To push the point harder consider the number of organisms which walk on two legs and do not speak. There cannot be a direct link between the evolution of bipedalism and language because there is no reason why bipedalism would drive the evolution of grammar.

Also the brain is not a general purpose computational machine. It was constructed by natural selection to carry out specific computations which requires specific arrangements which are costly and complex. As a result it is wrong to say that language is a by-product of increasing brain size. You can increase brain size all you want but without the specific structures necessary to generate and process grammatical statements the organism will simply not possess grammar (which is the hallmark of a true language). Also the idea that the issue (which is still hotly debated by the experts) can be settled by the material covered in an introductory anthropology class is pretty silly.

So guerillabedlam, swing and a miss. If you are genuinely interested in the subject start with an introductory evolutionary psychology text, as well as anything about language by Steven Pinker. Follow the suggested readings in these books and you will see how much more complex the issue is than you suggest.

 

Can't rationalize without language.

 

whale language is more complex than human language, yet we're above them on the food chain and are the more dominant species.

language=invalid

 

Swing and a miss on your part there as you completely 'missed' what I was saying. What other bipedial animal has a straight vertical skeletal structure?

 

We capture, domesticate and impose our will upon other animals, then breed them for domestic pets, for no other reason than personal pleasure... show me a another creature in the animal kingdom that does that!

ZW

 

Whale songs convey less than one bit of information per second. By comparison, humans speaking English generate 10 bits of information for each word spoken. The structure of the humpback whale song is repetitive and rigid.
Human language evolves. There is nothing to compare to the dexterity with abstraction of the human language even though there are many types of complicated communication systems in the animal world.

 

ladybugs have aphids as pets. prob other animals that do similarly

 

Penguins are pretty upright on land.

 

i'm a big fan of my species too, but do you have a source for this?

intelligence + opposable thumb = tools, advanced tools, technology. that's what sets us apart. our ability to make guns. to make knives. that's what sets us apart. thats how we dominate this world. with our cars, our guns, our electric gadgets.

koko the gorilla learned something like 2000 words in sign language and is said to have the intelligence of the average 4 year old person. we are not alone in the animal kingdom in our ability to communicate and organize and socialize, but we are alone in this world in our ability to create complex and powerful tools.

 

Humans could help the animals but nowdays most humans are way more stupid than animals

 

http://www.physorg.com/news11980.html

 

guerillabedlam are you honestly suggesting that the evolution of a straight vertical skeletal structure is sufficient to produce infinitely combinatorial grammar? You have not addressed the question of how adaptations for bipedalism lead to grammar, which is the only really relevant question here.

You seem to be saying that breathing apparatus capable of producing consonants and sustained vowels in addition to a bigger brain are necessary and sufficient to bring about grammar. Given the complexity and the cost of grammar producing mental structures, and given that there is probably no direct relationship between the genes that were altered to acheive bipedalism and the genes which give rise to mental speech mechanisms, it must be that language evolved as a direct adaptation, not a by-product.

As for using fossils to determine the evolutionary history of language well... other than impressions of the speech centers found in skull remains there really aren't any fossils which shed much light on the development of grammar. Also our breathing apparatus have evolved beyond that necessary for bipedalism, so perhaps it is actually language which drove further adaptation to these structures rather than the other way around. Many experts, including Pinker, place the development of grammar earlier than the development of the ability to produce sustained vowels.

 

eh, so we might have the most complex means of communication. that's probably just due to our intelligence anyway. without an opposable thumb, we'd be more than likely without any sort of complex technology. that's where our dominance in this world comes from. technology, not language.

 

im changing my answer to "technology." while our intelligence and opposable thumbs and cooperative skills aid in producing the technology, among other factors im not thinking of, most simply put, it is man's technology itself which separates him from the rest of the animals.

 

Ladybugs eat Aphids.
Ants however do have a symbiotic relationship with Aphids. They don't keep them as pets, they keep them like cows, only instead of milk, for their sweet exudations. (mmm, sweet exudations...)

Their are plenty of examples of symbiotic relationships in nature.

I maintain the keeping of "pets" is uniquely and disgustingly human.

ZW

 

you might find this interesting: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201006/are-humans-the-only-animals-keep-pets

 

An octopus has an amazing degree of dexterity with objects with no thumbs or fingers for that matter. Spiders produce amazing technological structures with their asses. Animals use simple tools all the time. A tool may be highly complex and specialized and have no general utility, or it can be simple and eminently practical.

So you hang your hat on technology and physical dexterity, but there are animals that are much more competent in these areas.

It is the language ability that allows us to excel. The language ability is not about making communicative noises, it is about the ability to use symbols to communicate abstract ideas. The ability to produce conceptual scenarios that do not appear or as of yet have not appeared in experience. Innovation.

 

I answered your question, with a symmetrical rounded skull, the frontal lobe is allowed to develop more thoroughly which is responsible for more advanced language capacity hence better grammar. We have this rounded skull due to the fact we have a straight vertical bipedal body posture.