>Arash:
>
>I agree, it seems pretty obvious something so complex as language
>capability had to be "designed" by natural selection, it has much too
>specific of an implementation to be just a random by-product of brain size
>or complexity increasing.
>
>
>
I find it highly amusing that Arash is demonstrating the same fallacious
reasoning that Intelligent Design enthusiasts use (replace the words
"natural selection" in the above sentence with "God" if that's not
immediately apparent). It is not the claim of evolutionary theory that
all complex traits must be caused by natural selection. To put it
simply, sometimes shit just happens; traits can emerge and persist in a
species, and those traits may have nothing to do with selection
pressures. --Reading the recent threads, I'll go so far as to say that
the true opponents of the scientific development of evolutionary theory
are not the "cultural fundamentalist" straw men that Justin excoriates,
but rather the naive enthusiasts who jump to the conclusion that every
discrete, complex trait in a species must be caused by natural selection.
Miles