communication Archives - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

April 30, 2024April 30, 2024

Animals Can Learn From Their Peers

Scientists want to know how much animals can learn from their peers. How much animal behavior is genetic, and how much can they learn by watching other members of their species?

Many years ago, a friend who raised golden labradors showed me how her favorite lab had learned to recognize the design and shape of an inverted can that covered a treat. She used ten similar cans, but only one had a pattern on it. She had taught her favorite dog to turn over that can to get the treat, which was an odorless biscuit to eliminate the dog using its sense of smell.

The dog got the right can ten times out of ten, going straight to the can with the treat every time. She then took a puppy and put it with the adult dog and the ten cans. The puppy followed the adult dog one or two times, and then when it was alone, it ran straight to the can with the treat and turned it over. Clearly, animals can learn from their peers since the puppy had learned by watching the adult dog.

Various experiments show animals learning from others of their species, but what about insects? Researchers at Queen Mary University in London trained bumblebees to do complex behavioral actions. The researchers set up a container with bumblebees and a blue lever that unlocked a door when pushed. There was also a red lever to open another door leading to a container of sugar water. The researchers successfully taught a group of bumblebees how to press the two levers in sequence to access the sugar water.

When they added new bees to the container, the newcomers “watched the original bees and figured out how to complete the puzzle—showing for the first time that insects can learn multistep processes through social interaction.” We could challenge this experiment since bees have a built-in ability to convey information to other bees. When a bee returns to the hive after finding food, it can do a “dance” that tells its fellow bees where the food is.

Animals and insects communicate, but language is unique to humans. The Bible story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) shows how essential language is to human interaction. Animals can learn from their peers, but God gave humans alone the ability to communicate using language and symbols. Only humans can convey moral issues, beliefs, and values through grammar and vocabulary.

References: phys.org and nationalgeographic.com

December 2, 2022December 2, 2022

Recursive Sequences and Language

One of the most interesting differences between animals and humans is language. All animals communicate, and most animals that humans relate to use sounds to facilitate their communication. In recent studies, researchers have suggested that the use of recursive sequences by monkeys and crows is a type of language. However, communication and language are not the same.

The dictionary definition of recursive is “doing or saying the same thing several times in order to produce a particular result.” The newest research shows that crows and monkeys use recursive sequences at a level comparable to what a three or four-year-old child would do. There are a variety of explanations as to why these animals use recursive sequences, but this does not mean that crows and monkeys are using language or that they possess culture or express identity.

A woodpecker likes to pound on the flashing of my chimney with such enthusiasm that people can hear it throughout the neighborhood. This is communication warning all other woodpeckers to stay out of his territory. Likewise, the cardinal that sits in a bush near my office window “sings,” but the song is a warning, not an expression of language or music.

The dictionary defines language as “a system of conventional spoken, manual (signed), or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves. The functions of language include communication, the expression of identity, play, imaginative expression, and emotional release.”

The Bible defines humans as beings uniquely created in the image of God. This is a spiritual definition and does not involve intelligence or skills. We see the spiritual nature of humans in a variety of characteristics. Those include our creative ability in art and music, self-concept and recognition, and the ability to feel guilt, sympathy, and empathy. Those are all manifestations of the spiritual nature of humans. Recursive sequences may or may not be among these characteristics, but they are not a singular indicator of being human. Because of our spiritual nature, humans also have the capacity to worship and envision life beyond death.

Reference: https://dictionary.cambridge.org.

July 17, 2020July 14, 2020

Difference Between Communication and Language

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh has made a career of studying bonobo apes. She would have us believe that there is no barrier between bonobos and humans. Her research raises the question of who we are as humans, and she would respond that we are just another animal. There are so many difficulties with this viewpoint that it is hard to know where to start. The most fundamental scientific problem is that there is a difference between communication and language.

Savage-Rumbaugh’s research is the main story in the July/August 2020 issue of Smithsonian magazine. She assumes that environment is not a factor in what distinguishes apes from humans, and she has lived with the bonobos in her research. A tool she uses in studying the bonobos is a “lexigram keyboard” with pictorial symbols corresponding to English words. One particular bonobo named Kanzi has used it to communicate with her. This ape could use some 660 English sentences functioning at a level higher than a two-and-a-half-year-old human child.

The difference between communication and language is an old issue. Aristotle wrote that animals could exchange information, but only humans could articulate what was just and unjust. The famous philosopher Rene’ Descartes in the 1600s, wrote that God had gifted human beings with souls, and, along with souls, language and consciousness. On this website and in our printed materials, we have talked about God’s design in animals that allows elaborate communication. Bees communicate by dancing information to other bees. Birds make sounds that carry meanings and warnings to other birds. The ultrasonic emissions of whales are elaborate communication tools.

Savage-Rumbaugh has shown that bonobos have a flexible capacity to communicate. However, she falls into the old trap of anthropomorphizing animal behavior – reading human interpretations into something an animal does. Statements such as, “She would look at me with a pleading expression on her face” is ascribing human interpretations to the ape’s facial expressions. The symbols on the keyboard are human symbols, and pigeons can learn to peck a particular symbol to get a desired result.

The Smithsonian article quotes one researcher as saying, “Work with Kanzi has always lived somewhere between rigorous science and social closeness and family life.” The difference between communication and language is a topic of hot debate. If you look up the word “language” you will see a significant variation in how different people define it. Humans have language that involves the meaning of symbols, the standards by which we measure behavior, and the values accepted by one’s peers.

The Bible deals with language, and God’s Spirit is involved with our language. When researchers have tried to humanize a chimpanzee by bringing it into their home, they do so with communication, but language is never a part of the process. Trying to turn an animal into a human being has disastrous results. We are created in the image of God, and language is a part of that image.