Evolution answers

[barehl]

The ONLY thing which prevents chimps and gorillas from speaking English is the lack of voluntary control over breathing. They learn deaf signs easily.

This isn't really true. There are structural differences with the larynx. Being able to talk like a human requires the ability to choke. Choking is generally bad. This is why babies can't choke but also can't talk. The closest you get to human speech in a primate is not a gorilla or a chimpanzee but the gelada monkey. They can make about 2/3rds of the sounds of human speech.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

This isn't really true. There are structural differences with the larynx. Being able to talk like a human requires the ability to choke. Choking is generally bad. This is why babies can't choke but also can't talk. The closest you get to human speech in a primate is not a gorilla or a chimpanzee but the gelada monkey. They can make about 2/3rds of the sounds of human speech.

My studies may be out of date, but many researchers on Neandertals doubt they could talk in the same way we do because of some differences between their hyoid and ours, which would have limited their ability to make gutterals. Nothing would have prevented them from using vowels and fricatives, so any language they would have used would sound weird to us. They would not be able to accurately pronounce our languages but we would be able to pronounce theirs.

At any rate, animal capability to use symbolic systems is more indicative of evolution than not.

 

[justintime]

RocketGirl drove her friend's Barbie PowerWheels car around the block. It looks like a car, functions like a car, and is called a car. Therefor it is a car. Why won't I let her borrow it to drive to the store to buy cookies?

But you just said it was a Barbie PowerWheels.
The experimenters did not differentiate the computer used in the test from your regular computer nor from the picture does it appear to be anything but a computer fitted with a touchscreen.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

But you just said it was a Barbie PowerWheels.
The experimenters did not differentiate the computer used in the test from your regular computer nor from the picture does it appear to be anything but a computer fitted with a touchscreen.

I'm confused. What's your point?

 

[turingtest]

RocketGirl drove her friend's Barbie PowerWheels car around the block. It looks like a car, functions like a car, and is called a car. Therefor it is a car. Why won't I let her borrow it to drive to the store to buy cookies?

More to the point of JiT's ridiculous assertions here...why won't you let RocketGirl borrow your car to buy cookies? After all, if a thing is defined only by its appearance, function, and name, what's the difference between a PowerWheels car and yours?

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

There ya, go. Thanks, turingtest.

 

[barehl]

The personal computers that dominate the digital age were pioneered by two dropouts Steve Jobs (Apple) and Bill Gates (Microsoft).

Bill Gates was one of two people who wrote a BASIC interpreter for the Altair. Versions of their BASIC interpreters were used on almost all early computers. However, Gates stopped doing software development when they bought PCDOS from another company.

Jobs didn't design anything. The Apple was designed by Wozniak.

 

[turingtest]

This isn't really true. There are structural differences with the larynx. Being able to talk like a human requires the ability to choke. Choking is generally bad. This is why babies can't choke but also can't talk. The closest you get to human speech in a primate is not a gorilla or a chimpanzee but the gelada monkey. They can make about 2/3rds of the sounds of human speech.

Ha! More evidence for that miraculous Divinely Designed nature of humans! Take that, monkeys- we can choke and you can't!

 

[barehl]

It turned out a humbling experience for college students competing with chimps in the experiment.

This one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vSl0Qd2lhI

The numbers flash on the screen for only an instant and then are replaced with white squares. You then have to touch the squares in ascending order. The test is quite difficult because the number display is so short. However, with practice, anyone would improve.

 

[justintime]

More to the point of JiT's ridiculous assertions here...why won't you let RocketGirl borrow your car to buy cookies? After all, if a thing is defined only by its appearance, function, and name, what's the difference between a PowerWheels car and yours?

Lets not get silly. Barbie PowerWheels car are toy cars. It looks like a toy car, it feels like a toy car and it drives like a toy car. It must be a toy car.

 

[turingtest]

There ya, go. Thanks, turingtest.

You're welcome. I'm assuming you will now let RocketGirl use your car to fetch cookies. Be sure to adjust the seat so she can reach the pedals (might want to explain what those pedals do, too*).

*Are you getting the point here, JiT?

 

[Garrette]

Gorilla sign language is a fact -- google Koko. Then we have Washoe, and Nim Chimpsky, both chimpanzees, Kanzi, a bonobo, and I think an orangutan was part of another study but I can't remember the name. This is just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.

Oh, and there was Alex, an African Grey parrot. But I think his case has more questions on the methodology than others.

The best case for primate language capacity is Koko. She lies and tells jokes.

I won't argue. I was never expert on it, and what knowledge I still retain is years old.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

This one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vSl0Qd2lhI

The numbers flash on the screen for only an instant and then are replaced with white squares. You then have to touch the squares in ascending order. The test is quite difficult because the number display is so short. However, with practice, anyone would improve.

That one? I have a game on my phone that does that.

 

[barehl]

We know chimps can use computers.

It's more like using a kiosk. The difference is that the function is highly constrained.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Lets not get silly. Barbie PowerWheels car are toy cars. It looks like a toy car, it feels like a toy car and it drives like a toy car. It must be a toy car.

The same can be said for any number of road legal vehicles. Like Mini Cooper, Smart four2, and frankly my wife's Honda Civic after I've been driving military trucks. That subjective analysis does not lend itself to useful results.

The "computer" you say chimps "can operate" have one function. A chimp knuckle-touching squares on a screen to demonstrate memory skills is not equivalent to typing (except for 9/11 conspiracy posts) nor does it suggest the chimps would have any use for a general purpose computer. The test could have been done with 3x5 cards on pieces of string.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

But you are wrong. Creationist are well aware animals are intelligent and in the book of Genesis Adam and Eve were fooled by a serpent.

A symbolic serpent, BTW, that had 4 legs and evolved into a snake later.

And you want to pretend even way back when that piece of religious symbolic poetry was written, that humans hadn't already figured out the most rudimentary ideas of evolution? Sure it wasn't formalized by the scientific method. The scientific method hadn't even been developed yet. But that didn't stop even those earliest thinkers from understanding what we now call evolution happened.

The truth is that people actually had to be taught not to believe in evolution. If you weren't told that evolution was an insult to your religious doctrine, you would likely take to the concept as naturally as walking. It can be seen everywhere you look. You literally have to try and blind yourself to it. And it makes no difference whether you are religious, agnostic or atheist. Just open your eyes and evolution is obvious everywhere.

I mean come on. How many generations have we known horses were related to donkeys and zebras? It is OBVIOUS. And you? Are you not related to your cousin? What does "related to" mean? Doesn't "related to" mean that you and your cousin share a common ancestor? Don't zebras donkeys and horses share a common ancestor? The only difference is time. How long ago was that common ancestor?

You really need to stop letting people with an evil agenda tell you that they know how God was forced to create the world, better even that God himself. Sorry but you don't get speak for God about how He did or didn't create life on Earth or why. If you had faith, it wouldn't matter to you how or why He did it. PERIOD, without exception, not even abiogenesis. No matter what science discovers, with faith, it wouldn't change ANYTHING. If scientists of the future figure out how to literally create life out of the dust of the Earth. So what?

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us............." Genesis 1:22

You would be actually fighting AGAINST God by pretending we wouldn't be able to solve these questions!

The lie represented by the serpent was NOT,

“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 1:5

The deception is that being "like God" is the same as being God.

Justintime, you seriously have to try and have enough faith to allow scientists to do their work. It will all work out in the end.

PS Again I must apologize for me and my brother to the scientists in this forum. The flaws of the creationist doctrines in all their forms should more properly be discussed in the religious forum. The problem being of course that creationism stems simultaneously from flawed religious doctrine and flawed science.

 

[turingtest]

Originally Posted by turingtest View Post
More to the point of JiT's ridiculous assertions here...why won't you let RocketGirl borrow your car to buy cookies? After all, if a thing is defined only by its appearance, function, and name, what's the difference between a PowerWheels car and yours?

Lets not get silly. Barbie PowerWheels car are toy cars. It looks like a toy car, it feels like a toy car and it drives like a toy car. It must be a toy car.

And if chimps could design and build anything resembling a humanly designed and built computer, or design a test for cognition using the computer, your assertion that their trained use of one proves their intelligence equal to ours might have a point. Since they can't, you don't.

 

[barehl]

And if chimps could design and build anything resembling a humanly designed and built computer, or design a test for cognition using the computer, your assertion that their trained use of one proves their intelligence equal to ours might have a point. Since they can't, you don't.

It's kind of a silly point as we all know. Rats, pigeons, and chickens have performed similar exercises.

 

[John Jones]

Lets not get silly. [...]

Excellent advice, Jit! It's so good in fact, that I have no problem recommending that you start following it yourself.

 

[justintime]

And if chimps could design and build anything resembling a humanly designed and built computer, or design a test for cognition using the computer, your assertion that their trained use of one proves their intelligence equal to ours might have a point. Since they can't, you don't.

But that was not the point I raised. I said:

"It was reasoned if 2 dropouts can design a computer surely even chimpanzees can master it. It turned out a humbling experience for college students competing with chimps in the experiment."