Language ability, a product or a byproduct of evolution?

Addresses the debate over whether language ability is an adaptation that evolved as a result of natural selection or just a byproduct of brain development. Adaptationists argue that language ability is a product of natural selection, while anti-adaptationists see it as a byproduct of brain development. Various evidence and examples are used to argue that language ability is an adaptation that arose as a result of natural selection.

 

We use speech and writing to communicate our thoughts to others. When we use language, we use our language skills to construct sentences and organize our speech and writing using appropriate language and grammar. Are our language skills the result of adaptation? Adaptation is not a change in lifestyle or behavioral patterns that occurs over the course of an individual’s life. According to evolutionary biologists, adaptations are the product of natural selection, in which variations in an individual persist from generation to generation. They believe that natural selection is the only process that produces adaptations. Scientists are divided on the power of adaptation through natural selection. Those who believe in the power of natural selection are called adaptationists, while those who are skeptical of its power are called anti-adaptationists. Darwin’s Table is a great example of how they debate adaptation. In one of the discussions, they are at odds over whether language is an adaptation or not. While I am critical of extreme adaptationists who claim that everything in life is the result of evolutionary adaptation, I think that natural selection is certainly a powerful enough force that language ability in particular is an adaptation that has arisen as a result of natural selection.
Evolutionary biologists are clearly divided on the issue of language ability. Adaptationists believe that language ability is an adaptation that is the product of natural selection, while anti-adaptationists argue that language ability is merely a byproduct of brain development and evolution. To show that language is a byproduct of the brain, anti-adaptationists explain the development of language as follows They claim that the one-dimensional function of language is mental language, where we talk to ourselves in a monologue. But I disagree. I think language arose as a means of communication. Humans evolved the ability to speak in order to communicate and convey information to each other. Groups of people who were able to communicate with each other to recognize danger or share helpful information were selected for through natural selection, and the process repeated itself, leaving language as an adaptation. The evidence is in our bodies. Humans have vocal organs for making sounds. Specifically, the vocal tract is the tube from the glottis to the pharynx, oral cavity, nasal cavity, and lips that allows us to breathe and speak by opening and closing the vocal folds. The existence of these organs shows that language ability is not a byproduct of the brain, but an adaptation through natural selection. We don’t call the eyes a byproduct of the brain just because they help us see things through our eyes. The eye is an independent organ that developed to see. Similarly, it’s not correct to say that language skills are a byproduct of the brain just because we use our brain to think and communicate those thoughts in language.
There is evidence to suggest that language skills are separate from brain development. As a child grows, grammar acquisition develops decisively between the ages of 1.5 and 7 and then gradually declines, while cognitive skills develop linearly between the ages of 1 and 10 and then slow down, peaking at age 20 and then beginning to decline. Williams syndrome and specific language impairment also illustrate the separation of the two abilities. Williams syndrome is a rare disorder caused by a deletion of part of chromosome 7, resulting in a number of cosmetic problems and diseases. Growth and development is delayed, resulting in learning disabilities and attention deficits, and cognitive abilities are very poor, with an average IQ of only 58, especially in reasoning and spatial perception. However, they appear to be intact in their language skills. On the other hand, people with specific language impairment have cognitive abilities that are not different from those of the general population, but their language skills are exceptionally poor. These examples show that language skills and brain development are separate.
Furthermore, genetic analysis conclusively shows that there is a language module for language ability. Our gene is FOXP2. In the human gene, FOXP2 is a language gene associated with the ability to speak a language. All mammals, not just humans, have FOXP2, but during human evolution, this gene changed and became slightly different from the original FOXP2. These differences allow us to form elaborate sentences and converse fluently, unlike other apes and mammals. Remarkably, when analyzed through phylogenetic trees, the timing of this change – the mutation in human FOXP2 – coincides with the emergence of Homo sapiens. It’s estimated that the first mutation was perfected between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago and spread rapidly through natural selection. Thus, this gene reveals the genetic basis of language ability, confirming once again that it arose through natural selection.
It is important to be able to distinguish between language and language skills, whether they are adaptations or not. Conflating the two is a misunderstanding of the idea that language is an adaptation. Language is clearly a byproduct of the development of the brain and language skills. Language is a means to facilitate communication with each other. Language ability is the ability to communicate with one another, which includes understanding and accepting language and conveying information through language. In other words, the use of language is only possible if language ability is present. An example of this is the special language disorders we mentioned. This illustrates that even if language is present, if you lack the linguistic ability to utilize and understand it, you cannot take it in independently of your cognitive abilities.
In other words, language ability is an adaptation, a product of natural selection. Before the dawn of human civilization, exceptional linguistic ability arose from a single individual’s variation within a population and spread rapidly through generations of natural selection. This process alone is enough to show that language is an adaptation, and the vocal organs and genes that remain in our bodies today support this. Several anti-adaptationists, including Gould and Lewontin, criticized extreme adaptationist research and argued that language ability is a byproduct of brain development, not the result of adaptation. They began criticizing studies to warn against the fallacies of extreme adaptationist research and to remind us of the standards of adaptation. At a time when adaptationism was rampant in research, their critique was important because it led to a reflection on adaptationism and what adaptation really is, and corrected some of the misleading research that had been done. However, in the case of the adaptation of language skills, their arguments were not based purely on an examination of language skills, but rather on a critique of adaptationism, which is why their arguments became a just-so story that lacked evidence and was not convincing.