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From: cjh@petsd.UUCP (Chris Henrich)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Misc Language
Message-ID: <532@petsd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-May-85 19:06:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: petsd.532
Posted: Thu May 30 19:06:17 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 31-May-85 06:22:19 EDT
References: <1134@uwmacc.UUCP>
Organization: Perkin-Elmer DSG, Tinton Falls, N.J.
Lines: 44

[]
	Paul Dubois has raised the issue of the appearance of
language (or languages) as relevant to the issues of evolution
vs. special creation.
	Here is an extract from his posting:
>                            Don't you find it in the least suspicious
> that language should develop over such a long period of time and then
> just show up full blown with NO TRACE of prior development?

	I think we have very little evidence, one way or the
other, about the tempo at which language developed.
If mainstream paleontologists are right, there have been
humans around for several hundred thousand years.  Written
records of any kind go back about five thousand years at most.
So most of the time during which language could have evolved
is not open to our scrutiny.  I have the impression that
historical and comparative linguists push their
reconstructions of extinct languages back well beyond the
oldest written records, and are fairly confident of their
inferences about "proto-Indo-European," for example.
But I don't see how they test their ideas.  In any case, they
do not claim to go all the way back to the first languages.
	So, maybe language developed slowly, or maybe it burst
forth in the twinkling of an eye (that is, in a period of a
mere thousand years or so.) Do we know? We don't. Shall we?
Not soon. Can we reach sound conclusions from unknown
premises?
	Speech acts are not organisms; though they are connected
to one another in various causal ways, they do not reproduce like
living things.  They are human artifacts, and humans are
capable of changing their behavior at a speed which far
exceeds that of biological change.  Therefore, I think that
even if we could answer questions about the origin of
language, the answers would not be relevant to the debate
about biological change.

Regards,
Chris

--
Full-Name:  Christopher J. Henrich
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