When Did We Become Human?

Fair point.

I agree. However, it does not mean that the fundamental nature of our motivations is different from that of other organisms.

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Makes sense.

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Hi @swamidass, @Faizal_Ali, @John_Harshman, @Andrew_Christianson and @Puck_Mendelssohn,

Dr. William Lane Craig seems very concerned to show that there is a clear-cut dividing line between humans and non-humans, and that ultimately, language is that dividing line. While Craig’s bibliography is extensive, he appears not to have read my online article, "An A-Z of Unanswered Objections to Christianity: H. Human Origins", in which I argue that the available scientific evidence seems to indicate that there was no “magic moment” at which our ancestors became human. I summarize my case in a table (scroll down two screens to view it) called “The Ten Adams,” showing that depending on which criterion of humanity you pick, you can make a case that humanity emerged anywhere between 1.76 million years ago and 100,000 years ago. Regarding language, here’s a summary of my conclusions in my section on “Linguistic Adam”:

Overview: The ongoing academic controversy over exactly when the ancestors of modern humans acquired language boils down to a difference of opinion regarding what language is. On a broad view , language is a communication system in which symbols (such as sounds) are assigned definite meanings, but in which words can be combined freely to make an infinite number of possible sentences. On this view, a very powerful case can be made that not only Homo sapiens but also Neanderthal man was an adept language user, and that Heidelberg man, who lived half a million years ago, probably used language as well. On a narrow view , language (in the strict sense of the word) is defined in terms of sets of rules governing the way we construct sentences: more specifically, syntax and recursion. On this conception, hierarchical syntactical structure is a core feature of language. If we adopt this view, then language is most likely confined to Homo sapiens , and probably emerged during a 130,000-year window, some time between 200,000 and 70,000 years ago. However, recent research has shown that a single mutation is unlikely to have given rise to human language , and that it is much more likely that multiple mutations with smaller fitness effects were required to fix it within the human population. The key point here is that no matter which conception of language you happen to favor, it most likely did not magically emerge all at once , but over a period of tens of thousands of years.

While Craig is commendably familiar with the work of Dediu and Levinson on Neanderthal linguistic abilities, he appears not to have read the following very recent articles:

Pomeroy, R. (2020). Did Language Evolve With a Single Mutation? A New Study Says That’s Unlikely. Real Clear Science , January 17, 2020.

De Boer, B. et al. “Evolutionary Dynamics Do Not Motivate a Single-Mutant Theory of Human Language”. Scientific Reports (volume 10, 451 (2020)).

Bart de Boer et al. critique the proposal that a single macro-mutation gave rise to human language:

We find that although a macro-mutation is much more likely to go to fixation if it occurs, it is much more unlikely a priori than multiple mutations with smaller fitness effects. The most likely scenario is therefore one where a medium number of mutations with medium fitness effects accumulate. This precise analysis of the probability of mutations occurring and going to fixation has not been done previously in the context of the evolution of language. Our results cast doubt on any suggestion that evolutionary reasoning provides an independent rationale for a single-mutant theory of language.

While there is a pretty sharp dividing line between humans and other species living today, there’s no such line dividing us from our non-human ancestors. Or as Darwin put it in his work, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871, London: John Murray, Volume 1, 1st edition, Chapter VII, p. 235)::

In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some ape-like creature to man as he now exists it would be impossible to fix on any definite point when the term ‘man’ ought to be used.

That said, I’d tend to agree with Craig’s point that the common ancestors of Homo sapiens, Neanderthal man and Denisovan man were mentally human in many important ways (even if they lacked religion, which seems to go back a mere 100,000 years, with the appearance of ritual burial with ochre). Craig refers to this species as Homo heidelbergensis, but as of October 2021, this taxon has been reserved for the European ancestors of the early Neanderthals. The common ancestor of the three species named above is variously referred to as either Homo bodoensis or Homo rhodesiensis (although some prefer the name Homo saldanensis). For more, read here and here.

My two cents.

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Consider also that language, if it indeed arrives all at once in a single macromutation, has no selective advantage, since it has benefits only if there are others already around with which to converse. Further, while the ability must evolve, the language itself must also evolve and can only do so in a population with the ability. Again, there is no advantage to the ability to use language until there is a language to use.

One could of course imagine a series of miracles, in which language ability and language itself are divinely granted to a population. But even so I don’t think a population of two would be sufficient.

I was thinking about my earlier “story-telling ape” comment, and wondered, what if it started with some form of crude mime to communicate plans for collective hunts, and bragging about successful hunts afterwards – the latter also serving the purpose of preserving knowledge about how to hunt successfully. The mime could easily involve initially-random excited vocalisations, with these vocalisations becoming ritualised over time, and starting to form part of the mimed communication, in turn forming the crude basis for a language. This improved communication and hunt coordination could easily have provided a selective advantage for those with a tendency and/or aptitude for such communication, and natural selection could have gradually snowballed this into language-use.

I’m not an anthropologist, let alone an evolutionary anthropologist, but this ‘just so’ story does seem to offer a possible explanation for how the whole language thing got started.

I don’t think the “crude mime” idea would be outside the realms of possibility for a cousin species to the chimpanzee.

It’s not only inside the realms of possibility for chimp-like animals, it’s similar to what happens within wolfpacks and meerkat tribes.

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Three words: Koko the gorilla.

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Language arriving via a single macromutation? What a laugh. Why not just call it “magic”?

Maybe take the time to actually read and understand what you are responding to before attempting to write a witty retort.

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At the very least, he might read the entire sentence from which he’s quoting.

I believe you will find that @vjtorley is a well-spoken advocate of ID. No one here is a “Darwinist” because evolution theory has advance far beyond Darwin’s key idea that “selection is natural”.

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Because that’s your “explanation”. Actual magic.

Yes, crude communication is not particularly hard, nor is teaching more advanced communication to a sufficiently highly intelligent animal (but that assumes that the teacher already possesses it).

The potential sticking point is coming up with a credible scenario whereby even a highly intelligent species would have an incentive to develop for themselves an increasingly sophisticated language (without any a priori knowledge of the benefits that might eventually accrue from the endeavor).

I don’t really see how that is a sticking point. It seems just as obvious as the idea that we would develop some initially crude and simple tools which become more complex and work better over the course of tens of thousands of years. That doesn’t require that the first guy to make a spear foresaw the existence of ICBM’s.

You’re assuming that language development was intentional, (uni-)directional and incentive-based, when there’s no need for it to be any of those things.

I was trying to avoid giving the implication that it was intentional (hence “without any a priori knowledge of the benefits that might eventually accrue from the endeavor”), what I meant was a selective “incentive” for the next step in the development (not to reach whatever ultimate destination), and I’m not sure that my thought process needs a unidirectional movement towards greater sophistication, just a stochastic random-walk that tends that way over time.

If I’m not explaining this well, or my thinking is fuzzy on the topic (this is more me trying to grope towards an idea at an intuitive level, than anything firmer), then I apologise.

Oh, ok. Better communication, especially in regards to predators or food sources, improves chances of survival and leads to greater relative reproductive success.

There exists a wide range of eg predator warning signals among animals, from simple warning calls → stratum/threat/direction calls → multi-aspect warning → interspecies communications. They show the possible routes that initial language development may have taken.

I agree, and these sort of things are why I raised the idea in the first place.

My “potential sticking point” comment was just me being cautious about any potential ‘devil in the detail’ issues that such a broad and intuitive evaluation as mine could not identify, let alone rule out.

For me it first depends on what do they mean? Do they mean when did us as Homo sapiens come about or do they mean when did the genus homo, or even Australopithecus or some proto form. For me it’s not a issue of theology but science. When did we become a species that Yahweh entered into covenants with and gave us a choice to submit to him or not. That’s very different but sometime people mean that. At the moment science does not seem to have a exact date since taxonomy is a bit funky and does not really work to do that.

As others seemed to have mentioned as I was skimming it’s like asking whose the first person to speak English. There was no first person. Just a gradual development of the language and in the same way it’s like that for us as humans. Through evolution there was a gradual change and at this moment we are here. We can see various morphological and genetic similarities back quite a bit. I’m no longer of how many years ago it was.