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Creation vs Evolution Debate Group

Hans-Georg Lundahl

status / question challenge

23.III.2026, 18:07

If man evolved from apes ("from non-human apes" according to a certain modern terminology), what intermediate is there between:

a) ape:
1 sound = 1 message

b) human:
1 or usually more sounds = 1 meaning unit,
1 or usually more meaning units = 1 message.

All Human Languages are Human, None are "Primitive"
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2026/03/all-human-languages-are-human-none-are.html

A

Joe Dennehy

Here you go, you could place them in chronological order

[Image of "human ancestors"]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Sorry, I wasn't speaking of skeleta.

I was speaking of two clearly different ways of communicating. Check my question once again.

Bill Vanyo

Hans-Georg Lundahl Your question isn't clear.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I think it is very clear, since after ape, I gave a characterisation of what exactly in the ape I was talking of: what intermediate is there between:

a) ape:
1 sound = 1 message

And again, after human (note, adjective, not noun), I have a characterisation of what in human communication I was talking of:

b) human:
1 or usually more sounds = 1 meaning unit,
1 or usually more meaning units = 1 message.

I also gave a link dealing with the human side of the pretended equation.

If you replace "sound" with "phoneme" and "meaning unit" with, not word but "morpheme" and then "message" with "phrase, you get the exact terminology used by linguists. I was trying to be popular and roughly comprehensible even to non-linguists.

Joe Dennehy

Hans-Georg Lundahl you failed

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Not as far as I can see.

Joe Dennehy You DO admit as a fact that human language involves double patterning?

Take your words "you failed", they involve three morphemes. "You" = telling the one you're talking to you're talking about him.
"Fail ..." = stating what you state if a failure
"... ed" = stating what you state is sth that already happened.

"You" involves two phonemes "y" and "oo". Neither of which states anything by itself.
"Fail..." involves three phonemes, "f" and "ey" and "l" none of which states anything by itself.
"... ed" involves one or two morphemes, here only one, "d" which doesn't state anything by itself except when used in this ending.

B

Dudley Chapman

Here are all the intermediates you asked for:

Natural History Museum: The origin of our species
By Jenny Wong and Lisa Hendry
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-origin-of-our-species.html

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Dudley Chapman I think I already gave Joe Dennehy the response that I wasn't asking about anatomy, but stages of transition between two very different systems of communication.

Dudley Chapman

Hans-Georg Lundahl what do you know about languages used by the species that are ancestors to humans?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If you think Ramapithecus was ancestral, one can reasonably presume that "ancestor" communicated like apes do.

The point is a VERY basic distinction between ape communication and human communication.

So basic you should be able to do a kind of theoretic modelling of how the transition happened ... if it was even possible for it to happen.

My point is, it wasn't possible, and therefore didn't happen.

C

Corey Taylor

Wild Apes make tons of sounds and body language cues with hundreds of messages .. where do you get this 1 sound from ?

α

Dudley Chapman

Corey Taylor he is making stuff up as he goes along. It bothers me how little effort some people put into their Christian testimony. As if it is more faithful to remain totally ignorant of a subject so you can say ridiculous things.

St. Augustine warned us about this in his treatise on reading Genesis literally.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Dudley Chapman Can you stop being a damned calumniator?

For your soul's sake, if you don't care about mine!

"in his treatise on reading Genesis literally."

In his treatise on the Literal Reading of Genesis. And you are quotemining a certain passage which is a very short passage of book I, in a total of XII books.

Dudley Chapman

Hans-Georg Lundahl yes, thanks,

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.” (1 Tim. 1:7)

-St. Augustine of Hippo (The Literal Meaning of Genesis Book 1 Chapter 19 Paragraph 39)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Thank you!

You found the quote mined quote!

If this is one of at least 39 paragraphs of one of at least 19 chapters of in fact one out of twelve books, do you think this is all St. Augustine had to say?

It. Quite. Frankly. Isn't.

And thanks for giving the title correct this time. On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, not On Reading Genesis Literally, meaning, he is, book after book, chapter after chapter, paragraph after paragraph discussing what Genesis actually says. This passage is in the contect of his defending fix stars being in a sphere rather than on a flat disc. Some people actually did read exactly one passage to that latter effect, and that's what he polemising against.

Not against Geocentrism (he was Geocentric, which you would know if you had read book 1), not against Young Earth Creationism (which you would know if you had read City of God), and especially not against Adam being created directly from soil, rather than through living intermediaries.

β

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Corey Taylor READ AGAIN.

I did not say apes makes just one sound. I DID say with apes making one specific sound equals making one whole message.

They lack what in human language is called "double articulation" or "dual patterning" which is a very basic concept in linguistics.

I don't know if apes have 50 or 500 different sounds, but it should be in that area. That's a total of 50 to 500 different messages they can convey. Because, with apes, each sound has a meaning. That meaning is a message.

Corey Taylor

Hans-Georg Lundahl again… you’re only looking at half the picture because primates utilize body language just as much if not more than actual vocalizations to convey messages. Same with the most mammals.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Body langugage ALSO has one gesture = one complete message.

Body language also HASN'T double articulation or dual patterning.

D

Ire NE

Humans are humans and Animals are animals. That's it!

E

Justin Roe

This is basic sets and subsets. Literal 6-month-old babies get this.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

But 6 month old apes don't.

So, how do you explain the transition?

Justin Roe

Hans-Georg Lundahl uh, 6 month old humans ARE 6 month old apes.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Look, I didn't ask whether men were apes, I'm aware of the terminology you are using.

That's the exact reason why I added a parenthesis:

If man evolved from apes ("from non-human apes" according to a certain modern terminology), ...

How about getting to the question which is why man communicates so differently from apes, or on your terminology "non-human apes" ... do you have a clue are are you trying to avoid the question by heckling my terminology?

Justin Roe

Hans-Georg Lundahl there are a variety of hypotheses for the evolution of human language. It's a frontier of study at the moment, are you proposing that such a thing "can't evolve"? We know some of the genes responsible for our speech capacity.

Additionally, molecular analysis conclusively demonstrates that if "apes" is a real clade, we nest within it, as panins (chimps and bonobos) are more closely related to us than they are to gorillas, all African great apes (including us) are more closely related to one another than any is to the orangutans, and all hominids (great apes) are more closely related to each other than any is to the hylobatids (gibbons and siamangs, or "lesser apes").

If placing the origin of language as a supernatural intervention by whatever deity or deities you believe in helps you sleep better at night, go ahead until further discoveries are made.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"there are a variety of hypotheses for the evolution of human language."

Yeah ... care to take up and defend one? Not least on how it deals with the proposed problem?

"It's a frontier of study at the moment"

Been so for decades, like Abiogenesis. Since early optimism got some sane input from people knowing what language is, I suppose.

"are you proposing that such a thing "can't evolve"?"

Yes.

"We know some of the genes responsible for our speech capacity."

Feral children have them too. Human language can only be learned by people with a certain FOXP2 Gene, with Broca's and Wernicke's areas in the brain (plus adequate apparatus for sound production and hearing), but it has to be actually learned, you aren't born with actual knowledge of human language.

I can in principle explain the transition from Latin to French, in a very big resolution of detail. But Latin, like French, already has the human three tier system. Ape communication hasn't.

"molecular analysis"

I'm not betting on apes being one real clade. But molecules are not responsible for the input in language learning, only for the receptivity.

F

Barry Peterson

You can see many of the homonid fossils with your own eyes at the Smithsonian…..

[image]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Barry Peterson You are the third person so far who just skims through my question and presumes I was asking for the intermediates between apes and men. I asked for the possible intermediates between ape communication and human communication.

Barry Peterson

Hans-Georg Lundahl I suggest you research the homonids ath the Smithsonian. Some of them utilized advanced communication….Beyond Homo sapiens, Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) are the strongest candidates for having spoken, as evidence suggests they possessed the hyoid bone, ear structure, and FOXP2 gene necessary for complex speech. *Homo erectus* and other archaic humans also likely had some form of vocal communication.

Australian Museum: How do we know if they could speak?
Author(s), Fran Dorey | Updated, 21/10/20
https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/how-do-we-know-if-they-could-speak/

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You are still misconstruing my question.

It wasn't "which extinct presumed species were also human and could speak" but given some ancestry on your view actually COULDN'T speak, how do you explain the transition, in principle?