Hi Michelle, I absolutely agree with you that the creation of man is important. I won’t say de novo creation because we have broken genes in our bodies which don’t work, called pseudogenes. they used to work, but mutations took out the control section of the gene and this missing control section of this one I am thinking of, discussed by Edward Max at Talk Origins,
4.6. Endogenous retroviruses. Because endogenous retroviruses are less numerous than the other nonfunctional DNA sequences discussed here, and because a relatively tiny fraction of the known human DNA sequences have been compared between species, there is a dearth of examples of shared endogenous retroviruses. However, at least five different examples of nearly identical retroviral sequences embedded at the same position in human and chimpanzee DNA have been reported (Bonner et al. PNAS 79:4709, 1982; Dangel et al. Immunogenetics 42:41, 1995; Svensson et al Immunogenetics 41:74,1995; Medstrand & Mager J Virol 72:9782, 1998; Barbulescu et al. Curr Biol 9:861, 1999), all apparently examples of retroviruses that were “caught” by ancestors of ours millions of years ago. One can anticipate that additional examples will be discovered as more sequence data become available, especially from the Y chromosome, which has been described as a “graveyard” for endogenous retrovirus sequences for both human and chimpanzee (Kjellman et al. Gene 161:163, 1995).
4.7 Implications of functionless sequences shared between species
All of the examples of functionless sequences shared between humans and chimpanzees reinforce the argument for evolution that would be compelling even if only one example were known. This argument can be understood by analogy with the legal cases discussed earlier in which shared errors were recognized as proof of copying. The appearance of the same “error”–that is, the same useless pseudogene or Alu sequence or endogenous retrovirus at the same position in human and ape DNA–cannot logically be explained by independent origins of the two sequences. The creationist argument discussed earlier–that similarities in DNA sequence simply reflect the creator’s plans for similar protein function in similar species–does not apply to sequences that do not have any function for the organism that harbors them. The possibility of identical genetic accidents creating the same two pseudogene or Alu or endogenous retrovirus independently in two different species by chance is so unlikely that it can be dismissed. As in the copyright cases discussed earlier, such shared “errors” indicate that copying of some sort must have occurred. Since there is no known mechanism by which sequences from modern apes could be copied into the same position of human DNA or vice versa, the existence of shared pseudogenes or retroposons leads to the logical conclusion that both the human and ape sequences were copied from ancestral sequences that must have arisen in a common ancestor of humans and apes.
This evidence for a common ancestor clinches the argument for human/ape evolution that follows from shared functionless sequences. Although the most numerous documented examples of such sequences shared between different species happen to link humans and apes (see for example Hamdi et al, J Mol Biol 284:861, 1999), this simply reflects the fact that the DNA of humans has been studied more intensively than DNA from any other higher species, while considerable homologous chimpanzee sequence is also known.Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics
I can not see a reason for God to create us out of nothing and insert useless non expressed pseudogenes at the same place in our genome as there is in the chimp genome. This clearly says our bodies have to be evolved. Otherwise if we believe in de Novo Creation we are setting up God for a charge of deception. This is why I think God had to start with the body of an ape.
But humans are extremely special in one regard that I think relates to the events in Eden (which so many reject). Human communication comes from our neocortex. All other animal vocalization comes from the emotional centers of the animal’s brain. People who study the origin of language can’t completely explain how we jumped to that area in an evolutionary sequence. Their best effort, in my opinion is the idea that we once communicated via sign language. But that isn’t vocalization!
“Language is obviously as different from other animals’ communication systems as the elephant’s trunk is different from other animals’ nostrils. Nonhuman communication systems are based on one of three designs: a finite repertory of calls (one for warnings of predators, one for claims to territory, and so on), a continuous analog signal that registers the magnitude of some state (the livelier the dance of the bee, the richer the food source that it is telling its hivemates about), or a series of random variations on a theme (a birdsong repeated with a new twist each time: Charlie Parker with feathers). As we have seen, human language has a very different design. The discrete combinatorial system called ‘grammar’ makes human language infinite (there is no limit to the number of complex words or sentences in a language), digital (this infinity is achieved by rearranging discrete elements in particular orders and combinations, not by varying some signal along a continuum like the mercury in a thermometer), and compositional (each of the infinite combinations has a different meaning predictable from the meanings of its parts and the rules and principles arranging them).
"Even the seat of human language in the brain is special. The vocal calls of primates are controlled not by their cerebral cortex but by phylogenetically older neural structures in the brain stem and limbic system, structures that are heavily involved in emotion. Human vocalizations other than language, like sobbing, laughing, moaning, and shouting in pain, are also controlled subcortically. Subcortical structures even control the swearing that follows the arrival of a hammer on a thumb, that emerges as an involuntary tic in Tourette’s syndrome, and that can survive as Broca’s aphasics’ only speech. Genuine language, as we saw in the preceding chapter, is seated in the cerebral cortex, primarily the left perisylvian region.” ~ Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct, (New York: Harper/Perennial, 1994), p. 334
I think God showing the animals was God jump starting language. We can’t have language without a time of programing. Language in one sense is a program handed down from generation to generation. Consider a man who had no programming:
The fascinating picture shown in Genesis has God teaching man this most wondrous of skills. Naming is absolutely essential to this ability. Speech requires names for objects, otherwise there can be no subject or object in a sentence. This scene is reminiscent of some cases of people learning languages late in life. This is a very rare phenomenon because normally language must be learned quite early or the opportunity is lost. Stephen Pinker related the following interesting account of a languageless man finally grasping the concept of names and naming. He says,
"In her recent book A Man Without Words, Susan Schaller tells the story of Ildefonso, a twenty-seven-year-old illegal immigrant from a small Mexican village whom she met while working as a sign language interpreter in Los Angeles. Ildefonso’s animated eyes conveyed an unmistakable intelligence and curiosity, and Schaller became his volunteer teacher and companion. He soon showed her that he had a full grasp of number: he learned to do addition on paper in three minutes and had little trouble understanding the base-ten logic behind two-digit numbers. In an epiphany reminiscent of the story of Helen Keller, Ildefonso grasped the principle of naming when Schaller tried to teach him the sign for ‘cat.’ A dam burst, and he demanded to be shown the signs for all the objects he was familiar with. Soon he was able to convey to Schaller parts of his life story: how as a child he had begged his desperately poor parents to send him to school, the kinds of crops he had picked in different states, his evasions of immigration authorities. He led Schaller to other languageless adults in forgotten corners of society. Despite their isolation from the verbal world, they displayed many abstract forms of thinking, like rebuilding broken locks, handling money, playing card games, and entertaining each other with long pantomimed narratives."1
As in the biblical account, Schaller taught this man the names of objects, just as God taught Adam the names of the animals. However, one must concede the point that even language is not a prerequisite for inclusion in humanity. Ildefonso was fully human even without language. But, while not all humans speak, all who speak are human."Glenn R. Morton, Adam, Apes and Anthropology, DMD publishers, 1997, p. 49
Language requires several brain structures, and a program to run on those structures, a set of symbols.
“As we find language in man today, it is not fully inborn, but the capacity for speech and conceptual thought is certainly innate; only the symbols themselves must be learned.” ~ Bernard Campbell, Human Evolution, (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1974), p. 336
And chimps are so way and away different from us in this regard that it is hard to see how we made the jump without something unique happening to us.
“Indeed, Jane Goodall believes that vocalizations are so closely tied to emotional states that ‘the production of a sound in the absence of the appropriate emotional state seems to be an almost impossible task for a chimpanzee.’ Even among chimpanzees, the sound production appears to be controlled in the brain by the ancient structures of the limbic system and the brain stem, which we’ll read about shortly and which are involved in emotional response. The ‘higher’ centers of the brain do not appear to be much involved. This is a far cry (sorry!) from language as we humans know it, which is initiated in those higher centers 9the cerebral cortex) and is dependent on produciton and interpretation of sounds in isolation from the emotional states of the speaker and hearer. It is also dependent upon rules of grammar, syntax and so forth that are totally absent from the sound combinations chimpanzees make. So, no. Not only do chimpanzees not have language; they don’t even have an incipient form of it.” ~ Ian Tattersall, Becoming Human, (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998), p. 60-61
God programmed Adams new brain with the symbols for the first language