Science and Speech in Determining "Human" Kind

The consequences would be that we need to continue studying the subject to discover how humans attained the ability to speak.

I thought I'd add the thoughts of an expert that agrees with you:

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Asked about Alex, Dr. Terrace said he thought that what Alex was doing was ''a rote response.'' He calls it ''a complex discriminative performance.''

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But is Alex thinking? ''I would say minimally,'' Dr. Terrace responded. ''In every situation, there is an external stimulus that guides his response.'' Thought, he said, involves the ability to process information that is not right in front of you.

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''It shows Alex is a smart bird,'' he said. But if you take away Alex's ability to vocalize in a way that seems human, he went on, it would not seem as impressive: ''The words are responses, are not language.''

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here, Noam Chomsky also agrees with you. (Dr. Herbert Terrace is a Columbia University psychology professor)

Thank you, Modulous. I find it interesting that the proponent for 'animal language' in the source you've given, Dr. Griffin, says:

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The discovery that ''a bird can express his conscious thoughts and feelings,'' said Dr. Griffin, ''is a great advance. We used to think that was impossible.'' To Dr. Griffin, Alex's achievements are just one more proof of his contention.

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I fail to see, in anything shown or demonstrated by that bird, that he was expressing 'his conscious thoughts and feelings.'Someone from the pro-'birds grasp language' side of the camp really ought to point out an instance where this occurs.Jon

In the context of this topic - distinguishing the human "kind" - I think you're looking at it backwards.All speech is a response to stimuli. The question remains: Is there a fundamental difference between the way humans respond to stimuli and the way some animals respond to stimuli? If animals - and some people, e.g. children - respond in only a rote way, how is that a fundamental difference?

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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No, my friend, I'm afraid you are greatly mistaken. Yes, there is. Human”and other 'real'”language does not require a single stimulus. Children, usually when old enough to form the words, have a grasp that can be generally considered language. By at least 5 or 6 they have the tools for 'linguistic creativity', a fundamental property of all 'real' languages. Here is 'linguistic creativity':

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Knowing a language means being able to produce new sentences never spoken before and to understand sentences never heard before. The linguist Noam Chomsky ... refers to this ability as part of the creative aspect of language use.
In pointing out the creative aspect of language, Chomsky made a powerful argument against the behaviorist view of language that prevailed in the first half of the twentieth century, which had held that language is a set of learned responses to stimuli.

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I'm sorry, but your information on what 'language' is is highly outdated. That I can make up willy-nilly any sentence I want is proof of 'linguistic creativity' and severely dents your argument that 'language' is just response to stimuli.Phil likes sweet, warm, purplish-yellow shortcakes.
Johnny dances nicely though he's got a guitar in his hands.
Phil likes sweet, warm, purplish-yellow shortcakes, and Johnny dances nicely though he's got a guitar in his hands, which is big enough to be used by a man twice Johnny's size and thrice Phil's size...I can continue this ad infinitum, and I require no stimulus. Certainly, there's no guitar around, no shortcakes, no man named Phil, no one dancing... etc.I think the average atheist also demonstrates this idea when they invent animals that they've never seen before, like 'purple crooked-toed unicorns...'.True, real, actual language is such that you can have a finite grammar, a finite lexicon, and produce an infinite array of sentences representing an infinite array of ideas”stimulus or not. Not seen in the bird. Bird doesn't have language.Jon
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An Introduction to Language 8 ed., Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams. pg 8 (2007).

Unfortunately, your ability to make up willy-nilly sentences doesn't seem to be matched by an ability to read language.I didn't say that language is "just" respose to stimuli. I even bolded the "all" for you to make it plainer.All speech is response to stimuli. In mature humans, there's more to it than that - it isn't "just" response to stimuli. But in immature humans and in some animals, the response to stimuli is all there is.What I asked you, and what I don't see you addressing, is: Where do you draw the line? When does response to stimuli become "true" speech in children. How would you tell the difference?If we did a Turing test, allowing you to communicate with somebody or something behind a screen, how would you tell if your counterpart was using "real" language or "just" responding to stimuli?How would you tell the difference between a computer and an educated human and an uneducated human and a developmentally-challenged human and a human child and a talking parrot. Please be specific. Tell us how.When you can do that (and keep the smarmy bullshit to yourself), you'll be one step on the way to understanding what "speech" is.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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It's the answers to all the questions that add up Jon, and the addition of new questions that had not been asked before that show understanding of the whole phrase, not just single words.The answer to "what color bigger" is a whole lot more complex that "what color is this"You need to know that (a) a question is being asked (what) (b) that it involves one of two (or more) specified item(s) (the bigger one) and (c) the answer being sought (color).That's grammar, is't it?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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One of the base components of the English grammar is plural inflection.

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There's also a whole archive of paradigms and impactions applicable, which altogether make the atheist assumption a muted one. The matter of speech and animal communications is a blatant one, but also open to contriving and manipulation - which is 'mostly' but not all, based on wilful manipulation. Thus I did not allow myself to be quagmired in that scam. Other factors such as spontainity, improvisation, new thought, etc, etc are also applicable here. And the notion of superior brains, while these are the mark of humans, is not related to the attribute of speech; nor that other life forms 'speak' [as opposed communicate] in their own respective realms - which implies that they are capable of speech in the future by adaptation.The breakaway between difference of kind instead of degree is nowhere better represented than with human speech. Its manipulation casts a poor image of atheist science. I chose the example of speech because it is a no no nonsense one, removed from the charade of millions of years evidences provided in other instances. IMHO, there is an abject fear and deflection in the responses made to it - and it is, like all fanatical religious doctrines touted by atheists, no different from what they use as their defense. Its just another form of Talibanic neo-atheist, slight of hand casino science.I don't expect success here: many cherished premises would fall by the wayside if it was indisputably established that speech is a unique [that troubling word again!] attribute of humans, not millions of years old, and by subsequence not a result of evolution, adaptation or a graduation of bird and gorilla grants, hisses and coos. i remind again - all I asked as a proof is a human name, a date, place or an attached historical factor alligned to it: there should by millions, all over the place. I'll accept just a ONER.

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All speech is response to stimuli.

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True. But so is everything - including your response to this post, what makes a pineapple a pineapple, and how stars are formed. Its casino science.

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What I asked you, and what I don't see you addressing, is: Where do you draw the line? When does response to stimuli become "true" speech in children. How would you tell the difference?

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The line is: when the said stimuli does not result in human speech.

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In the context of this topic - distinguishing the human "kind" - I think you're looking at it backwards.

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I once read a scientific explanation relating to Genesis' 'kind' categorising methodology [I will try to locate it]. It is transcendent of ToE's speciation in that it points to certain biological commonalities in, for example, all water borne life forms - and the same with all land based life forms - the methodolgy employed in Genesis. The embarrassing feature of it is, these bio strains of commonalities are NOT considered in ToE. While this allows cross-speciation between some or all life forms in one particular group - it negates cross-speciation of life forms outside that 'kind'. This alligns with ToE - but only by default, while opposing ToE - by exposing his error. It also vindicates Genesis in this instance.

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'In every situation, there is an external stimulus that guides his response.'' Thought, he said, involves the ability to process information that is not right in front of you.

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I have already seen your arguements as honest and intelligence based, but somewhat one-channelled. In the quote, I too have always seen that all actions are based on an external factor impacting. IOW, nothing happens by two particles jitterbugging with each other by themselves; H does not meet O and valla we have water here on earth, and which is critical for life, and life just happened to welcome water and flourish. This is pie in the sky sci-fi than sci.Instead, I see a hovering factor, by virtue of all the universe structures being 'intergrated' - and an intergration negates any premise of randomity. A stray key found on Mars can legitimately be deemed a random occurence - but not so if it exclusively alligns with a lock also found on Mars: there is an intergration here which negates any randomity.That we cannot identify or prove this mysterious hovering factor which allows/controls intergration of all things, does not mean there is'nt one, cannot be one, it is myth and illogical, unscientific, or that an unsound premise be adopted instead. I see its antithesis as fitting those conclusions. There is equally, if not more so, nil proof otherwise. And such logic has nothing whatsoever to do with theology or beliefs - its logic with no alternatives, and not diminished wherever that arrow may incline.

The questions is: When precisely does a child's "non-speech" become speech. How do you distinguish? What is the moment when the sounds coming out of a child's mouth begin to be "speech"?(Isn't it ironic that your posts probably wouldn't pass the test for "speech"?)

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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I can show those attributes in a chicken. No it does not. Speech is not the result of a single adaptation. The ability to communicate does not automatically mean the next step is speech. Absolutely! Given that you have refused to say what makes it remarkable in the 'unique' category your arguement is unfalsifiable. Yet many people who do not agree with you are not athiests. Odd that such a 'talibanic' group is so welcoming of other beliefs. Friendly bunch arent they? I do think its unique, and not millions of years old, yet I still see no reason not to credit evolution as the cause. Its worked so well creating the millions of unique attributes of other creatures. Koko. Or you do want an example of a gorilla speaking english in the wild and recording it in his diary? What is human speech again? ... Humans speaking

No. Mere ability to give the trained stimuli response is not an indication that the bird has grasped grammar. Let me ask you; s'pose English used infixes in the direct objects that were taken by a particular verb, which served as the infix. Now, s'pose you taught your bird that 'key' = (what a key is) and that 'find' = (what find is) and got the bird when you said 'k-find-ey' to go get the 'key'. If you taught the bird what 'stick' was, do you think the bird would go get the stick when you said 'st-find-ick'?I'm quite convinced that neither bird nor dog would be able to pull this off. Why? Because they lack the ability to understand the grammar as a set of rules governing how the words in the lexicon can relate. Their ability only goes as far as single sound recognition, which is not language of itself.

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Reports of an African grey parrot named Alex suggest that new methods of training animals may result in more learning than was previously believed possible. When the trainer uses words in context, Alex seems to relate some sounds with their meanings. This is more than simple imitation, but it is not how children acquire the complexities of the grammar of any language.

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Dr. Pepperberg refuses to call Alex's vocalizations ''language.'' ''I avoid the language issue,'' she said. ''I'm not making claims. His behavior gets more and more advanced, but I don't believe years from now you could interview him.''

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Again, you're placing more significance on this than on what a dog can do simply because the bird is able to vocalise the sounds as a trained reaction to its particular stimuli. Now, you still need to answer my questions, or I suppose, you forgot about them?

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RAZD writes:

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Clearly Alex knew that asking for water would give him a distraction from the testing.

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Is that what you'd say of a dog who rolls over when given the command to 'sit'?

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Jon
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An Introduction to Language 8 ed., Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams. pg 8 (2007).
A Thinking Bird or Just Another Birdbrain?