Re: SKEPTIC article on O Jews and science

In article <1152839795.567699.288080@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
q_q_anonymous@xxxxxxxxxxx <q_q_anonymous@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Damien Sullivan wrote:
"q_q_anonymous@xxxxxxxxxxx" <q_q_anonymous@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

..................

The only good evidence we can have of past language is writing, and yes,
the oldest evidence of that is about 5500 years old, in Harappa
(northern India.) Though there are some intriguing signs on
tortoiseshells in China, 8600 years old. Not enough of them to be sure
they're linguistic but they don't look particularly artistic either.

Are the Mohenjo-dara writings that old? Anyhow, Sumerian
writing is at least that old, and we have an essentially
unbroken stream from that. But language must be much older,
although how much is a matter for great dispute. We can
trace the spread and variation in the major language families,
and the spread is huge.

But lack of writing hardly indicates lack of language. And these
"pre-Adamic" men were building cities.

Depending on what one calls a city, yes. This gets us back
at most 12000 years.

By the way, the oldest paintings and flutes (7-hole) known are 32-36,000
years old.


how intelligent are these paintings ?
they may not have played the flute that much better than a monkey.

The intelligence required to make the stone tools is much
greater than that.

if they existed, then they are not considered man.

Modern man goes back at least 50,000 years. The Australian
aborigines broke off that far back. They probably had
partially tamed dogs; the only placental mammals found in
Australia when discovered a few hundred years ago are bats,
humans, and dingos, who are descended from dogs.

Torah, Adam speaks and understands language.
I don't know how one would deal with where the pre Adamic man has gone.

There's also the fact of the Americas being colonized 10,000 or more
years ago, and Australia being colonized 50,000+ years ago, in apparent
genetic isolation since then. And they are, of course, linguistic --
though they didn't have writing.


I haven't got Prof Natan Aviezer's book "in the beginning". But he
thinks that iin the beginning, the torah only deals with Adam in the
iraq area, and Avraham in mesoptamia. And doesn't tell us about the
chinese, or I suppose, australian tribal people.

Or the native Americans, running to about 15,000 years ago.

if "man" existed > 5700 years ago, I'm sure other places contained pre
adamic man too.



I think anthropologists tend to assume language came with the explosion
of artwork, musical instruments, ceremonial burials, and complex and
diverse toolkits, 50-100,000 years ago. People look for more direct
evidence from skeletons: where vocal cords would have attached, or
impressions on the inside of the skull from language areas of the brain.
I don't know what the state of good evidence is, though.

Language might well have started much earlier. If it started
on a primitive level 1,000,000 years ago, it would have had
plenty of time to develop.

monkeys have vocal cords, they make noises. But they aren't intelligent
enough to produce anything linguistic. Write a poem or a plan for the
day.

Chimpanzees and gorillas may or may not have linguistic
ability; it is highly debated. They can learn, and to some
extent use, versions of sign language. Their vocal cords
do not enable them to produce any substantial variety of
sounds. Early man, with vocal cords capable of producing
the variety way back when, could easily develop language
gradually, and weed out the subhumans who could not speak.


--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
.

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