Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: MetaThought
And how do you conclude that early humans did not have spoken language?

There are no recordings to prove it.

Seriously, the stuff I have read suggests the big brain influence was tool use, and language skills came later.

What I point out is if indeed sophisticated languages (other than basic point and grunt) developed after the big homo sapiens sapiens brain was already there, and that same big brain could develop the theory of relativity or figure out how to transplant a heart and lungs, what mutation triggered the big brain and sustained the big brain? We know a mind is a terrible thing to waste, but a big brain in 98,000 B.C. would have been a waste. Sure fire was big, but rocket science was not.

Compress time, it doesn't matter. We are still the same biological beings as the cavemen of 100,000 years ago. The fact is today I could pull a baby from the dregs of the third world, and put it through the best education system available, and probably produce an above average modern first world adult. By the same token, I could take H.G. Wells time machine, go back 100,000 years, pull a baby out of a cave, bring it to the 21st century, and do the same.

What put a brain capable of a million times more cognitive capability on the planet 100,000 years early?

It is a mystery. But one I have not heard before. How did the human brain make such a leap?

27 posted on 06/16/2010 8:36:31 PM PDT by magellan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies ]


To: magellan

You’re making all these giant assumptions, and making even bigger conclusions based on them.

It’s only an assumption that language did not come with tool use. There’s no specific language center, so it’s not possible to tell from fossils.

Exceptionally smart chimps can be taught the rudiments of language. I find it hard to believe that early humans didn’t have relatively advanced language skills.


34 posted on 06/16/2010 8:55:57 PM PDT by MetaThought
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson