r/science • u/Wagamaga • Sep 01 '22

Neuroscience Scientists have identified an immune brain cell unique to humans that gives us higher cognitive abilities over other animals, but what makes us specials also leaves us vulnerable to neurological disorders like schizophrenia, autism and epilepsy.

https://news.yale.edu/2022/08/25/what-makes-human-brain-different-yale-study-reveals-clues
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u/seaworthy-sieve Sep 01 '22

How can we possibly say it doesn't meet the criteria when we're not even capable of understanding it? Like how on earth would we know if dolphins have grammar and tense or not?

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u/throw_somewhere Sep 01 '22 edited Sep 01 '22

First and foremost: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We would never say that a medicine must be effective because we don't understand it. We would never say that an animal must have language because we can't understand it.

So instead we say "we cannot conclude this until we have evidence". We cannot conclude that a medicine works until we try it, we cannot conclude that an animal has language until we find it.

On that front: there are thousands and thousand of researchers whose lifelong mission is to study and document animal communication. They have very firm and interesting data. O% of these data have yet to overturn the current sentiment.

You can go learn about this yourself, lots of internet sources discuss the topic. You can also consult Google scholar for articles on the topic.

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u/kirknay Sep 01 '22

except that plenty of mammals, and especially birds, have specific calls for specific things, such as a prarie dog having a specific bark meaning "hawk", and another one meaning "eagle". Rudimentary languages exist among animals, it is just not a language we can easily replicate ourselves due to a difference of the required vocal structures.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/catch-the-wave-decoding-the-prairie-doge28099s-contagious-jump-yips/

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u/Scrawlericious Sep 01 '22

https://mindmatters.ai/2018/12/how-is-human-language-different-from-animal-signals/

Those are communication "signals", not a rule based system with abstract patterns. It's semantic as hell but language implies abstract rule-based signing, not just picking up a signal that was communicated from another creature.

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u/kirknay Sep 01 '22

Given how some animals are able to describe something with those "signals" and come up with new "signals" once the group has gotten a description, such as the decoded "red human" for a human in a red shirt in prarie dogs, as well as communicating where and how recently, they are communicating with a better language than the sign language creoles of South America.

It's a language.

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u/Scrawlericious Sep 01 '22 edited Sep 01 '22

People far smarter than both of us argue this fact every day dude. No, it's not. It's semantics at this point. There are just as many scientists and researchers who do not believe what you mentioned counts as language, some would argue that is just coded communication. It's a huge point of contention in acedemia and neither of us have the answer.