You Betcha

What the article is saying is that even evolutionists believe that Neanderthal could speak.

I do not subscribe to the assumption of evolution, I was just showing what evolutionists have found out about Neanderthal.

I could give you creationists web sites, but you would reject them out of hand.

Queen of Swords

If you believe what "the evolutionists" say about Neanderthal anatomy in regards to speech, why do you reject the other inferences they draw from that anatomy? They are competent to say the one but not the other?

You are trying to eat your cake and have it.

Mageth

What the article is saying is that even evolutionists believe that Neanderthal could speak.

To be more precise, the article says that some scientists have published research suggesting that Neanderthals may have been capable of speech similar to ours. And it also includes information suggesting that the fossil record shows an evolution of speech capability from earlier Homo species into later Homo species, including Neanderthal and Sapiens.

Once again, read it again, real slowly, mouthing the words if you have to.

Orpheous99

The difference is a sence of "just is" and one of "why it is". Most animals don't have the ability to question or to wonder.

Mageth

Orpheus99:

Don't get the idea I'm picking on you or anything, this topic just interests me.

The difference is a sence of "just is" and one of "why it is". Most animals don't have the ability to question or to wonder.

Would that perhaps be better stated "Most animals don't appear to have the ability to question or to wonder?" For example, domestic cats don't recognize themselves in mirrors, but I'd be hard pressed to state as a fact that my cat doesn't question or wonder, or at least have some level of self-awareness.

One problem I have with this is that we really don't know what's going on in animals' minds (hell, we're just now beginning to understand what's going on in ours). Since in general we can't communicate with other species, we can only speculate about what they may be thinking.

ksagnostic

You Betcha: Neanderthals' anatomy is consistent with speech like that of modern humans. There is no reason why they were not capable of speech.

It is just another piece of evidence showing they were fully human, and not an ape-like creature.

<a href="http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Wilford_98.html" target="_blank">http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Wilford_98.html</a>

I realize that there are other studies that refute this theory, however there is no proof that Neanderthals do not have linguistic capabilities. I believe they did.

Me: An interesting article (and better than I expected you to cite, I was expecting something from Jack Cuozzo). The research described in the article focused particularly on the width of the hypoglossal canal though which hypoglossal nerve fibers reach the tongue.

So what might this mean? It may indicate that Neanderthals would have had sufficient nerve innervation to support complex tongue movement. However, if speech scientist Philip Lieberman is correct, the ability of the Neanderthal vocal tract to produce vowels was still reduced because the Neanderthal possessed a more general "mammalian" pharynx. I'm not aware that anyone is suggesting that Neanderthals were completely mute, but there is a lot of discussion as to whether Neanderthals could produce the rapid differentiated sound streams neccessary to support a complex syntactic spoken language. The difference would not have so much been between ugh! and the Gettysburg Address, as it might have been between "You! Go there! Wait!" verses "Franklin, go wait behind the horse shaped rock over by the three cedars while Brock and Britney run at the reindeer from downwind."

The problem is, Neaderthal vocal tract anatomy, including the larynx, has to be inferred from hard skeletal structure, such as the hyoid bone mentioned in the article. The reason why there is a dispute in the first place, as I understand it, is that there are differences between modern human and Neanderthal skeletal anatomy.

For myself, I suspend judgement on whether Neanderthals were capable of the phonologically diverse yet rapid speech characteristic of our species. Any reason, other than personal preference, why you feel confident in declaring your belief in a conclusion?

You Betcha: We could also address the evidence that separates great apes from humans, thus, showing they are not related by common descent.

Me: Give it a try. Go ahead.

[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]</p>

RufusAtticus

You Betcha,

I would love to see your scientific evidence that humans and other apes were separately created. You, however, have already told us that humans and other apes are of the same kind. According to you, "kind" is synonymous with taxonomic family. <a href="http://sayer.lab.nig.ac.jp/~silver/taxonomy.html" target="_blank">This link</a> has 7 different ape taxonomies. Only to two oldest ones place humans in their own family. The majority, which are fairly recent, places all apes (including humans) into one family. Since the beginning of taxonomies there has been a debate on whether all apes should be in one family. In the nineties the amount of genetic evidence was too strong to ignore (such as chimps are more genetically similar to humans than gorillas), and there is now just one ape family. By your previously stated criteria, humans and chimps are related by descent. Why are you contradicting yourself? Do you not trust your own methods?

If I am to determine whether two organisms are similar from divine fiat or common descent, how would I perform such a comparison? Could you work me through an example? How about using a wolf, a fox, and a lion? What explains their similarities? If I knew absolutely nothing about their taxonomy, how would I determine whether their similarities are from evolution or divine will?

The last common ancestor between humans and lobsters was a worm-like creature called "Urbilateria." This organism represents the L.C.A of both protostomes and deuterostomes. Discussions involving this organism are quite complex because they involve developmental biology and HOX genes.

<a href="http://phylogeny.arizona.edu/tree/eukaryotes/animals/animals.html" target="_blank">http://phylogeny.arizona.edu/tree/eukaryotes/animals/animals.html</a>
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=urbilateria+OR+urbilaterian" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/search?q=urbilateria+OR+urbilaterian</a>

What argument? I was commenting on yourargument, not necessarily making one of my own. But please, what holes do you refer too? Would you mind citing my exact words, so I know you aren't attributing to me arguments I haven't made? I am always happy to correct myself and admit that I'm wrong. That is a skill you need to learn.

-RvFvS