Reconciling Humani Generis with the human genetic data showing that there never were just two first parents

[niceatheist]

But even replicating requires some pretty sophisticated cognition. And again, it all has to have context. A chimp would teach another chimp how to safely catch termites by demonstrating not just technique, but the reward, which is termites (which chimps apparently find tasty). Understanding that a fellow chimp is getting food, that the food can be retrieved with far less pain than reaching a hand in the termite nest, and that to do that requires getting a thin stick or blade of grass, working it if need be, there’s a lot going on there.

What makes us different is that language makes such learning so much more efficient. If I were to teach you how to safely remove tasty termites from a nest, I could simply say “I’m going to show you how to get those tasty termites”, and at each step I can reinforce the steps by explaining “Find a twig, strip it, gingerly put in the mouth of the nest, wait and pull the stick up, and there’s dinner!” In fact I probably wouldn’t even have to demonstrate it, because apart from all the other great things language can do, it can efficiently encode information. Chimps are stuck with gestures, a various group of vocalizations and having to actually go through the whole process. But that does not take away from the cognitive work a chimp goes through to learn how to do it. We can just do it a lot faster.

 

[Neithan]

There is some cognition, of course. And it’s impressively sophisticated compared to other mammals. I’m fascinated by our primate cousins and look forward to learning more about them. I don’t think they’re studying us with the same solicitude, but I don’t know for certain.

 

[niceatheist]

There is some cognition, of course. And it’s impressively sophisticated compared to other mammals. I’m fascinated by our primate cousins and look forward to learning more about them. I don’t think they’re studying us with the same solicitude, but I don’t know for certain.

I think the key here is to always think of things from an evolutionary context. I don’t think human language evolved so we could write poetry or put handprints on cave walls in southern France. I think the advantage of language, even the proto-language that our earlier hominid ancestors likely had, is just as I said, in efficiency. Even lacking grammar, a chimp that can use sign language can far more quickly and accurately request things or make their feelings known than a chimp that relies on gestures and vocalizations, and there is evidence that chimps can teach each other the primitive signing that humans have taught, so one can catch a glimpse of how it happened to our ancestors.

Obviously once a population has established even a modestly more efficient form of communication, there’s clear selective advantage, and that advantage will play out in the population, with the individuals who, through underlying genetic features, have a greater ability to process that proto-language.

There’s a lot of research gone into sorting out just how good our ancestors were at language. Some researchers have put a lot of work into trying to trick out how big Broca’s Area was in the brains of Neanderthals and earlier hominids like H. erectus. There’s also attempts to measure, where possible, the position of the larynx. In great apes, the larnyx and hyoid are quite high up in the throat. In hominids, when bipedalism evolved, the repositioning of the head meant the larynx and hyoid dropped, and that seems, so far as the scant fossil record of preserved throat and neck features shows, to have been a process that happened over millions of years. I think it’s a stretch to say language drove that process, but one thing is certain, pretty much all the members of genus Homo had far greater vocalization abilities than the other great apes.

While where along our lineage language arose is a tough question to answer, one thing is clear, somewhere around 150,000 years ago, give or take, there seems to have been a revolution in cognition. Prior to that, even more primitive H. sapiens still seem stuck; their toolkits were not any more revolutionary than their Neanderthal cousins. But all of a sudden we start seeing rapid evolution of toolkits, but strong evidence of symbolism (decoration of objects, art, etc.) But I still contend that as revolutionary as that transition to H. sapiens sapiens was, it was all built on neurological and physiological structures present in earlier members of genus Homo.

 

[o_mlly]

A chimp would teach another chimp how to safely catch termites by demonstrating not just technique, but the reward, which is termites (which chimps apparently find tasty).

Would you not agree that if we observed animals in the wild demonstrating a particular behavior to others in an unproductive manner that that would more closely emulate human teaching?

The link demonstrates “chimp see, chimp do” certainly of the “student” but the behavior of the “teacher” does not seem to be intended to teach but to merely eat.

 

[Gorgias]

Camera Traps Catch Chimpanzee Moms Teaching Their Children

“Teach” is a rather generous term, here. What the article really says is that mothers passed their tools for catching insects to their offspring. And, since we know that young chimps watch their elders and mimic their behavior, they did pick up on the technique.

We could equally well conclude that the mothers were merely providing dinner for their young. “Teaching” seems quite the reach. In fact, although NPR touts “teaching”, the scientists seem only to be saying “tool transfer.”

In fact, one of them explicitly contradicts one of the three criteria that NPR mentions are features of teaching: “incurring costs.” From the article:

“Mothers sometimes arrived at the termite nests carrying multiple tools, or split their fishing probes lengthwise to create two functional tools. Both of these strategies enable the mother to provide her offspring with a usable tool without comprising her own ability to forage.”

So, without prejudice to the author and her experience when she taught anthropology, she seems to go farther than the researchers when describing the results they found.

To teach somebody something that you know, you need to be able to envision the task that is to be performed, and carry out its steps.

Notice that this isn’t what the article you provided is saying that happens.

A chimp would teach another chimp how to safely catch termites by demonstrating not just technique, but the reward, which is termites (which chimps apparently find tasty).

So, note that there was no active teaching, but merely tool transfer, followed by the mother doing what she came to do (forage for termites). Then, there was mimicry on the part of her young. Your explanation of what the mothers did, doesn’t match what the article says. In fact, you rather effectively anthropomorphized the event.

 

[niceatheist]

niceatheist:

A chimp would teach another chimp how to safely catch termites by demonstrating not just technique, but the reward, which is termites (which chimps apparently find tasty).

Would you not agree that if we observed animals in the wild demonstrating a particular behavior to others in an unproductive manner that that would more closely emulate human teaching?

The link demonstrates “chimp see, chimp do” certainly of the “student” but the behavior of the “teacher” does not seem to be intended to teach but to merely eat.

On that I think you would find many primatologists would disagree. At least so far as the great apes are concerned, teaching can be an active process, not an incidental one.

 

[po18guy]

I, for one, am wondering why the Church is always hated (i.e. preferred less), questioned or doubted and “science” always defaulted to as truth?

Is science the “new gospel”?

 

[Allyson]

I, for one, am wondering why the Church is always hated (i.e. preferred less), questioned or doubted and “science” always defaulted to as truth?

Is science the “new gospel”?

In what context? Generally, it is acknowledged that the Catholic Church today is pro-actively pro-science.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I’m finding this very frustrating, I must say.

Is it not the case that every single aspect of any given creature has evolved slowly over a considerable amount of time?

No, that is not the case. Punctuated equilibrium, cladogenesis, rapid evolution are some of the terms biologists use to discuss alternatives to gradualism.

Notwithstanding that even if punctuated equilibrium has any validity, it proposes changes over time periods that are equivalent to 20 times the length of recorded history (i.e. many thousands of generations) and cladogeneis is simply a process whereby speciation occurs and has nothing to do with the time it takes, there is ZERO evidence for abrupt changes in intelligence in our species.

 

[Welshrabbit]

She did and I’m a very lucky man!!

 

[Freddy]

We are looking for evidence of rational thought, not intelligible reasons for events happening.

But this isn’t a ball falling or a flower turning towards the sun. Neither has any choice. Both will always do the same. We need to look at a situation where there are multiple choices and it can be shown that decisions are made based on the perceived outcomes of the individual choices.

F: Want to come for a walk?
G: Sure. Beats staying on the couch.
F: I’m heading for Dover Heights.
G: Up that steep hill? Hey, I think I prefer the couch. I’m going back in.
F: OK. Let’s just walk around the block then.
G: Ah, now I don’t mind that. Let’s go.

Now we don’t need any language (name removed by moderator)ut from you. Your actions will tell us your thought processes exactly. You have exhibited rational thought. You have thought through the pros and conns of three separate courses of action and decided on each one in turn based on what you know those three courses of action entail.

It beats me how anyone could argue against this. Except to say: Hey, it’s only a dog so it can’t be rational behaviour!

 

[Gorgias]

Now we don’t need any language (name removed by moderator)ut from you. Your actions will tell us your thought processes exactly.

This is the extrapolation error you’ve been making throughout this discussion. It seems you’ve watched too many commercials in which dogs ask for their favorite treats, or Disney movies in which animals talk, or both.

Here’s the thing: actions do not “tell us thought processes”. Rationality is not presumed merely because it mimics human rational behavior.

It beats me how anyone could argue against this.

Because you’re making the claim for animals without demonstrating the validity of your arguments. You’re literally just saying “it must be true… therefore, it is!”

 

[Neithan]

there is ZERO evidence for abrupt changes in intelligence in our species.

That’s not true. A statement claiming no evidence when there are competing theories is rarely more than an indication of confirmation bias. The evidence does not satisfy you, and we cannot draw an inductive conclusion from empirical observation of the paleoanthropological record. But there is certainly plenty of circumstantial evidence and expert hypotheses that behaviorally modern intelligence appeared abruptly. Possibly within one generation.

 

[po18guy]

What I meant was that when articles appear which seem to challenge Church teaching, the Church is so often (not always) assumed to be wrong, out of date, etc.

I wonder also why so much credulity is placed in “science” - especially since so much of current science is disputed, disproved or simply dated?

As to the thread title, the referenced study will soon be supplanted by another. Would not the correct line of thinking be “How do we reconcile these conclusions with Church teaching?”

 

[po18guy]

In that respect, aren’t we all?

 

[Ghosty1981]

To teach somebody something that you know, you need to be able to envision the task that is to be performed, and carry out its steps.

This is not the same thing as abstracting universal concepts from concrete reality. At most it is imagining in the mind concrete realities, which is not at all the same thing.

I mentioned above that chimpanzees and other great apes have structures in their brain that are homologous to Broca’s Area in the human brain. That region of the brain, as well as facilitating the formation of speech, also seems to be involved in observational learning and gesture communication.

As I said before the immaterial mind utilizes material “tools”, such as sense organs and neurological structures, in order to obtain abstract ideas, and these tools certainly evolved step by step. Stepwise material evolution can’t account for the qualitative leap from imagination of concrete realities to abstraction of universal concepts, however.

One principle in Thomistic thought is that matter must be suited to the form. In terms of true humans with rational souls this implies that the body must be suited to the operation of a rational soul. If we accept evolution (which I do) this means that the human body evolved up until the point that it was suitable for a rational soul, at which point God imbued a humanoid with a rational soul creating the man we call Adam. Adam had the same physical tools as the humanoids around him, but he was qualitatively different in that he had a spiritual, rational soul capable of operations like abstraction of concepts that were simply beyond the capability of the humans around him. This spiritual soul can’t be found in the fossil record, but we can see the development of the physical traits that gradually made our ancestors suited for rational ensoulment.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Ghosty1981]

We need to look at a situation where there are multiple choices and it can be shown that decisions are made based on the perceived outcomes of the individual choices.

None of your examples require abstraction of universal concepts. This is a key element you are consistently ignoring. You are merely presenting cases of sense stimuli and imagination informing basic choices, and no one here is suggesting that animals wouldn’t be capable of performing this operation. Selecting an object or course of action based on preferred outcomes as understood through sensitive (name removed by moderator)ut is explicitly the province of what we would call the “sensitive soul” shared by all animals, and not an operation peculiar to the rational soul possessed by humans.

You won’t find any examples of abstraction in the animal kingdom. It quite simply isn’t done outside of humanity, and whether we ascribe this fact to the existence of rational souls or the advanced development of the human brain (despite the difficulty in explaining how this kind of operation can occur through purely material means) it remains true. Humans are exceptionally odd and unique in this regard.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

there is ZERO evidence for abrupt changes in intelligence in our species.

That’s not true. A statement claiming no evidence when there are competing theories is rarely more than an indication of confirmation bias. The evidence does not satisfy you, and we cannot draw an inductive conclusion from empirical observation of the paleoanthropological record. But there is certainly plenty of circumstantial evidence and expert hypotheses that behaviorally modern intelligence appeared abruptly. Possibly within one generation.

It’s a hypothesis. Not a theory. There is no evidence.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Now we don’t need any language (name removed by moderator)ut from you. Your actions will tell us your thought processes exactly.

Here’s the thing: actions do not “tell us thought processes”.
[quote="Freddy, p

Then what in this case do you think they tell us?

 

[Neithan]

Evidence is a fact in answer to a question that makes a claim more likely to be true.

1. Did human intelligence change abruptly?

Exhibit A:

While where along our lineage language arose is a tough question to answer, one thing is clear, somewhere around 150,000 years ago, give or take, there seems to have been a revolution in cognition.