Unintelligent Design - Another Failure By Creationism's Blundering Designer

Biology

Machine for repairing broken mtDNA.

AI-Generated image
(with apologies to William Heath Robinson)

The graphic shows images of a cell under mtDNA replication stress made using so-called Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy (for short: CLEM). The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA, green) is ejected from the mitochondria (magenta) and taken up by a lysosome, which contains the retromer (cyan). The highlighted section was also analysed using 3D-CLEM to obtain volumetric information.

Fig.: HHU/David Pla-Martín.

Medicine: Publication in Science Advances

Yet Another Workaround for a Flawed Design.

Researchers led by Professor Dr David Pla-Martín of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, alongside colleagues from the University of Cologne, have uncovered yet another complex but error-prone workaround—this time, to fix a problem that stems from an earlier design flaw.

They have identified a mechanism used to repair mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) when it breaks. From an intelligent design perspective, mitochondria — once free-living bacteria—were supposedly the 'quick fix' to give eukaryotic cells the ability to efficiently convert glucose into adenosine triphosphate (ATP) using oxygen. ATP is the primary energy currency used in metabolic reactions, formed from adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and phosphate.

A truly intelligent designer, however, could have simply endowed cells with this biochemical machinery from the start—no need to incorporate foreign bacteria complete with their own DNA. But apparently, that would have been too simple.

This convoluted solution, predictably, comes with problems. Mitochondria often replicate their DNA imperfectly, or the DNA becomes damaged, leading to mitochondrial failure and a range of diseases. So, yet another layer of biological complexity has evolved to patch up the broken mtDNA. And, in classic Heath Robinson fashion, this repair mechanism is itself error-prone.

Refuting Creationism - The Long Pre-'Creation Week' Evolutionary History of Bacteria

The Great Oxidation Event

AI-Generated Image (ChatGPT4o)

Machine learning helps construct an evolutionary timeline of bacteria - UQ News - The University of Queensland, Australia

A helpful analogy employed by Richard Dawkins in Unweaving the Rainbow illustrates the vastness of evolutionary time:

Fling your arms wide in an expansive gesture to span all of evolution from its origins at your left fingertip to today at your right fingertip. All the way across your midline to well past your right shoulder, life consisted of nothing but bacteria. Multi-celled invertebrate life flowers somewhere around your right elbow. The dinosaurs originate in the middle of your right palm and go extinct around your last finger joint. The whole story of Homo sapiens and our predecessor Homo erectus is contained in the thickness of one nail-clipping.

We can construct such a timeline because, although microbial life leaves few conventional fossils, it does leave behind chemical signatures in ancient rocks—clues to how bacteria lived, metabolised, and evolved.

By correlating this geochemical record with genomic data, a multinational collaboration – led by researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, the University of Bristol, UK, Queensland University of Technology, Australia and the University of Queensland, Australia, has used machine learning to reconstructed an evolutionary tree of bacterial lineages. This allows us to trace how different taxa adapted to major environmental changes, such as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). Remarkably, this study suggest that some microbes had already evolved the capacity to utilise oxygen even before it became abundant during the GOE.

The disturbing fact for creationists is not the evidence of common origins and descent with modification that this study reveals, but the fact that it all happened billions of years before their mythical 'Creation Week' when their god allegedly created a small flat planet with a dome over it in the Middle East. But then this is hardly surprising, since 99.9975% of the history of life on Earth happened before that alleged act of magic.

How the team of scientists conducted this study, and their conclusions are the subject of a research paper in Science and a news item from the University of Queensland, Australia:

Refuting Creationsm - Evolution By Loss of Genes, Horizontal Gene Transfer And Gene Duplication

Nitzschia sp

By Kristian Peters - Own work,
CC BY-SA 3.0,
Wikimedia

This article is best read on a laptop, desktop, or tablet

Nitzschia sing1 lives on the alginate in the cell walls of decaying brown algae.

A borrowed bacterial gene allowed some marine diatoms to live on a seaweed diet | PRESS-NEWS.org

A fundamental axiom of creationism is the claim that any loss of genetic information is invariably detrimental—so much so that any mutation resulting in such a loss would be fatal and could therefore play no role in evolution. A second axiom asserts that new genetic information cannot arise naturally and must instead be supplied by a supernatural intelligent designer.

Both of these assertions are demonstrably false. Nevertheless, they continue to feature in creationist apologetics, relying on the audience's ignorance and incredulity to pass as justification for belief in an intelligent creator.

To add further difficulty for creationist claims, scientists have now identified a marine diatom, Nitzschia sing1, that has not only lost the genes and organelles required for photosynthesis — present in its photosynthetic relatives — but has also adapted successfully without them. It achieved this by acquiring new genetic information through horizontal gene transfer from a marine bacterium. The transferred gene subsequently underwent extensive duplication and diversification into three gene families, each with complementary functions. Together, these 91 versions of the acquired gene enable N. sing1 to metabolise alginate, a carbohydrate found in the cell walls of brown algae such as kelp.

Refuting Creationism - People Of the Green Sahara - No Flood Noticed

View of the Takarkori rock shelter in Southern Libya.

© Archaeological Mission in the Sahara,
Sapienza University of Rome

View from the Takarkori rock shelter in Southern Libya.

© Archaeological Mission in the Sahara,
Sapienza University of Rome.

First ancient genomes from the Green Sahara deciphered

According to literal interpretations of biblical creationism, the first two humans were created approximately 6,000 years ago without any ancestors. Subsequently, around 4,000 years ago, the Earth was supposedly submerged by a global flood. According to this narrative, all present-day humans descended from the eight survivors who endured a year-long voyage in a large vessel accompanied by two (or, in some accounts, seven) individuals of each animal species. After the flood receded, these survivors are said to have repopulated a barren and sterile world in which all previously existing life had been destroyed.

In contrast, scientific evidence indicates that more than 7,000 years ago, human populations inhabited a Sahara region that was markedly different from today's desert. At the time, a wetter climate supported forests, grasslands, lakes, and rivers. These Saharan people were only distantly related to other non-African populations, as they had diverged from East and South African Homo sapiens around the same period—approximately 50,000 years ago—that modern non-African populations migrated out of Africa into Eurasia. Subsequently, the Saharan population remained largely isolated from both sub-Saharan African and Eurasian populations.

The critical distinction between these two accounts lies in their evidence base. Creationism relies solely on written narratives from a text of uncertain historical authenticity, whereas science relies upon verifiable, physical evidence, in this case DNA extracted from two mummified Saharan individuals discovered in Algeria.

This fundamental difference exemplifies the contrast between religion and science: religion typically relies on tradition, superstition, and narratives lacking empirical support, whereas science is grounded in observable evidence and logical deduction.

The evidence for the existence and origin of this Saharan population comes from the work of researchers at the Dept. of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. It's significance is that it argues against the green Sahara being one of the migration routes for modern humans out of Africa and a return migration back into Africa because the Saharan population were genetically distinct and have a very low level of Neanderthal DNA unlike the western Eurasian Homo sapiens.

The findings of the group are published open access in Nature. The research is described in a Max Planck Institute News release:

Unintelligent Design - The Heath-Robinson Machine That Keeps Rogue DNA Under Control

How a critical enzyme keeps potentially dangerous genes in check – lji.org

The human body, like those of most multicellular organisms, exhibits numerous instances of suboptimal design. These imperfections arise from evolutionary processes that balance competing demands, often prioritizing immediate reproductive success over long-term well-being and efficiency. As a result, many biological structures and functions are prone to errors, which tend to accumulate and manifest more prominently with age.

These inherent imperfections have driven the evolution of additional layers of complexity aimed at mitigating potential failures. Such complexity would likely be unnecessary if these biological systems had been optimally designed from the outset. Therefore, the presence of intricate mechanisms to counteract inherent errors serves as compelling evidence for evolution and challenges the notion of intelligent design. Examples of these compensatory complexities are abundant across all multicellular organisms.

A pertinent example involves the regulation of transposable elements (TEs), often referred to as "jumping genes." These DNA sequences can move within the genome, potentially causing significant disruptions if not properly controlled. In healthy cells, TEs are kept in check within heterochromatin — a tightly packed form of DNA that serves as a "prison" for these elements. Recent research led by Professor Anjana Rao, Ph.D., at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, has shed light on this control mechanism. The study reveals that the enzyme O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) plays a crucial role in suppressing TE activity by restraining TET enzymes, thereby maintaining genomic stability.

This intricate system of checks and balances underscores the evolutionary arms race within our genomes, highlighting the complexity that arises from natural selection's ongoing efforts to mitigate the potential harms posed by transposable elements.

Refuting Creationism - A Exceptionally Detailed Fossil - From 440 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

The fossil Keurbos susanae - or Sue - in the rock.

New species revealed after 25 years of study on ‘inside out’ fossil – and named after discoverer’s mum | News | University of Leicester

A major problem for creationists who cling to the delusion that Earth was magically created only 6,000 to 10,000 years ago is that this timescale leaves approximately 99.9975% of Earth's actual history unaccounted for. Consequently, there is an overwhelming abundance of evidence contradicting their beliefs. To maintain their position, creationists are forced to rely on increasingly elaborate mental gymnastics to dismiss the clear indications of an ancient Earth within an even older Universe—evidence consistently revealed and verified by multiple scientific disciplines, including palaeontology and geology.

Unintelligent Design - How The Badly-Designed Immune System Destroys Lungs

Scientists Discover Immune Cell Networks Driving Deadly Lung Disease | Rutgers University

Autoimmune conditions and allergies provide strong evidence for evolution over intelligent design by highlighting the imperfections and trade-offs inherent in the immune system. These disorders demonstrate how a system shaped by natural selection can prioritize short-term survival at the expense of long-term health, leading to vulnerabilities that are difficult to reconcile with the concept of a perfect designer.

Autoimmune diseases occur when the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissues. Examples include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes.

The immune system must strike a delicate balance: it must be reactive enough to fight infections but tolerant enough to avoid attacking the body’s own cells. Evolution has shaped this balance, but it is imperfect. A hyperactive immune system, while better at combating infections, increases the risk of autoimmune diseases.

The Body of Evidence: How the Human Body Refutes Intelligent Design pp. 129-130

Now it's beginning to look like we must include the fatal lung disease known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) to the long list of autoimmune conditions that stem directly from the facts that the immune system evolved and was not intelligently designed.

The very existence of the immune system should prompt creationists to reconsider several basic beliefs and especially claims made by leading proponents, such as Michael J. Behe. Behe suggests that pathogens and the diseases they cause result from 'genetic entropy', a degradation enabled by biblical 'Sin', which supposedly causes genomes to 'devolve', thus creating parasites and pathogens. Other creationists suggest an alternative viewpoint, attributing the existence of parasites and diseases to an evil designer, such as Satan - a claim which is regarded as blasphemous by fundamentalists for whom it is doctrine that there is only one creative entity - God.

In contrast, William A. Dembski argues that any 'complex specified information' (CSI) within the genome must originate from an intelligent designer, typically inferred — though seldom explicitly acknowledged by prominent creationists — as the God described in the Bible or the Qur'an. The genes that enable parasites to evade our immune defences are clear examples of what Dembski would term CSI, whereas Behe regards these genes as 'devolved' from an initially perfect creation.

However, neither Behe nor Dembski adequately addresses the question of who or what designed the immune system itself. Was it the same designer responsible for Dembski's complex specified information, or was it Behe's designer of an initial, perfect creation? If we consider Dembski's argument, it raises a critical question: where is the intelligence in designing an immune system to protect organisms against pathogens created by the very same designer? Regarding Behe's perspective, if the immune system were part of the initial perfect design, why would the designer anticipate 'The Fall' and its consequences unless it was intentionally planned? Alternatively, did all organisms possessing immune defences receive an upgrade after 'The Fall', indicating a supposedly omniscient deity initially failed to foresee the need for such protection? This then raises the question, is the designer either not omniscient or not competent, or did it plan for the 'Fall' and the suffering caused by parasites all along?

Not only are there these gaping flaws in creationism's attempts to account for the immune system within their own theology, including its failure to protect us and its propensity to attack us because the delicate balance referred to above is not robust enough or sensitive enough. The fact is that a perfectly designed immune system should make much of medical science redundant. However, the evidence continues to accumulate that the immune system, like the rest of biology is not the result of intelligent design but of an evolutionary process with all its inherent faults, constraints and inevitable suboptimal compromises.

Evidence strongly supporting the theory that IPF is the result of an autoimmune response by an over-sensitive immune system has been provided by a team of researchers led by Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. Their findings are being published in the European Respiratory Journal and are described in Rutgers Today:

Refuting Creationism - How New Genetic Information Arises - Naturally

Scientists uncover key mechanism in evolution: Whole-genome duplication drives long-term adaptation | Research

Evolved macroscopic "snowflake" yeast from the MuLTEE experiment. The large size of the nuclei (yellow) and cells (cyan) are results of whole-genome duplication and aneuploidy.

Credit: Ratcliff Lab

It is a common claim in creationist circles, despite clear evidence to the contrary, that information theory prevents the creation of new genetic information. They argue incorrectly that Shannon Information Theory dictates that the total amount of information in the universe is fixed. According to this flawed view, creating new genetic information would violate the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

However, this interpretation demonstrates a misunderstanding of both thermodynamics and Shannon Information Theory, as well as how these concepts relate to genetic information. In reality, the creation of new genetic information can be readily observed each time cells replicate, as the total genetic content effectively doubles, The elements the 'information' is composed of are neither created nor destroyed in the process and, as the result of chemical processes, there is less energy in the system, so the laws of thermodynamics are conserved.

Gene duplication and entire genome duplication (polyploidy) are common occurrences in biology, particularly within the plant kingdom, where tetraploidy — possessing twice the usual diploid number of chromosomes — frequently arises. It is also sometime seen in arthropods, amphibians and reptiles.

Tetraploidy often appears spontaneously in laboratory populations of various organisms. Typically, without selective pressures favouring polyploid states, these conditions tend to revert to diploidy after several generations. However, recent studies by scientists at Georgia Tech, conducting multicellular long-term evolution (MuLTEE) research with 'snowflake yeast', Saccharomyces cerevisiae, have demonstrated that under specific selective pressures, polyploidy can become stable and confer advantageous survival traits to the organism.

The selection pressure in this case was selecting the largest yeast cells from which to produce the next generation. The researchers discovered that polyploidy had arisen early on in the experiment, after about 10 generations, and polyploid cells tended to be the largest cells, so a polyploid strain quickly arose and remained polyploid over thousands of generations - far longer than would be expected if selection had been random or unrelated to cell size.

Malevolent Designer News - How C. difficile is Designed to Kill Off Competition in Our Gut

C. diff uses toxic compound to fuel growth advantage VUMC News

Like all organisms, and particularly pathogenic parasites that colonise our intestines, Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) must compete with other organisms for nutrients. This competition inevitably fuels evolutionary arms races.

For devotees of creationism’s ‘intelligent designer’, C. diff might appear to be a cunning response to medical science's successful use of antibiotics against bacterial pathogens. This is because C. diff is equipped with multiple antibiotic-resistance genes, allowing it to thrive in hospital environments. It often infects patients who are already vulnerable due to other health conditions or compromised immunity, making it a significant medical challenge.

Furthermore, if one follows William A. Dembski's reasoning, the ‘complex specified information’ in C. diff’s genome, which grants it a competitive edge, must logically be attributed to an intelligent designer. Michael J. Behe’s attempt to absolve his version of an intelligent designer by blaming ‘sin’, ‘genetic entropy’, or alleged ‘devolution’ fails here. A mutation that clearly provides an adaptive advantage cannot logically be termed a ‘devolution’ from a supposedly more ‘perfect’ ancestral state.

If creationism’s intelligent designer intended to kick people when they were down, it could hardly have done better than designing C. diff.

How C. diff competes for resource in our gut by waging chemical warfare against the other gut biota is the subject of a paper in the journal Cell Host & Microbe by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Their findings are described in VUMC News:

The Unintelligent Designer - Another Error-Prone Bungle to Compensate for a Bungled Design

William Heath Robinson

Peacekeeper cells protect the body from autoimmunity during infection | Biological Sciences Division | The University of Chicago

A significant issue with our immune system is that it is poorly "designed." If it were truly the product of an intelligent designer, as creationists claim, that designer would hardly be competent enough to design a simple household item, let alone a complex biological system.

Because our immune system is so disorganized and inefficient, multiple layers of complexity have evolved to mitigate its worst shortcomings. However, these added layers themselves remain prone to errors, as they reflect the same flawed foundation. The central problem arises because the immune system must balance two contradictory requirements: it needs to be sensitive enough to identify and eliminate genuine threats, yet not so sensitive that it mistakenly attacks the body's own tissues.

While an omnipotent, supremely intelligent designer should have easily resolved such a contradiction, the reality is that our immune system frequently fails on both counts. It often permits pathogens and parasites to invade, and it also frequently turns against the body itself, leading to autoimmune diseases such as lupus, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, and kidney or liver failure, among numerous other debilitating conditions that cause immense suffering.

Like the whimsical contraptions created by cartoonist William Heath Robinson — complex machines built from objects originally intended for entirely different purposes - the mammalian immune system is not designed top-down from a clear blueprint. Rather, it's built up gradually from one makeshift adaptation piled onto another, each new solution attempting to compensate for the shortcomings of earlier ones. Eventually, this process results in a ramshackle system so intricate that its complexity itself creates new opportunities for failure. Such complexity is not indicative of intelligent, purposeful design, which would typically favour simplicity and efficiency. Instead, it reflects an ad hoc, utilitarian approach driven by evolutionary constraints and an inability to anticipate future challenges.

And of course, this embarrassment for creationism is made worse by the fact that, according to Michael J. Behe, pathogenic parasites such as E. coli and Plasmodium falciparum are examples of irreducible complexity, so are, in creationist circles, unarguable 'proof' of intelligent design, so the immune system is allegedly designed by the designer of these pathogens to protect us from them.

It seems creationists have no difficulty in believing the same designer would design parasites to make sick, then design a system to protect us from its pathogenic designs, and even though that system doesn't work very well, it is nevertheless evidence of supreme intelligence.

Creationism in Crisis - The Evolution of Bird Feathers From Dinosaur Ancestors

From dinosaurs to birds: the origins of feather formation - Medias - UNIGE

Feathers provide a fascinating example of how evolution can repurpose structures over time. Initially evolving in response to one set of selective pressures, feathers later opened the door for entirely new functions unrelated to their original purpose.

Early feathers appeared among dinosaurs primarily as an adaptation for thermoregulation. Simple, filamentous feathers offered significantly better insulation than traditional reptilian scales, helping dinosaurs maintain stable body temperatures. Among bipedal theropod dinosaurs, these insulating feathers eventually evolved into more complex structures, freeing forelimbs to develop into wings. Feathers subsequently became specialized for powered flight, having first likely served intermediate functions such as display or gliding.

The presence of insulating feathers likely provided a survival advantage during the dramatic climate changes following the asteroid impact that marked the end of the Cretaceous period, approximately 66 million years ago, contributing to the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.

This is why we see a clear progression through the fossil record, unlike what would be expected of an intelligent design process, where birds, complete with flight feathers, would be expected to make a sudden appearance without ancestry.

Today, feathers in modern birds retain their important role in thermoregulation while also facilitating flight and serving as display structures. Vibrant and diverse plumage has evolved under sexual selection pressures, playing a crucial role in mating rituals, mate choice, and reinforcing genetic isolation among closely related species, thereby preventing hybridization.

Unintelligent Design - How 'Selfish' Genes Can Act Like Killer Parasites

Fluorescent microscopy images of highly variable wtf genes’ poison proteins (Wtf^poison) exhibit similar aggregation and distribution within yeast cells.

Graphical illustration showing rules for effective and ineffective neutralization of poison proteins. Yeast cells are “rescued” when wtf^poison and wft^antidote specifically co-assemble and localize toward the vacuole (left panel). Otherwise, yeast cells are destroyed (right panels).

Stowers scientists uncover… | Stowers Institute for Medical Research

As Richard Dawkins explained in his influential book, The Selfish Gene, all genes can be thought of as "selfish" in the sense that natural selection favours those most effective at surviving and replicating. Such genes persist over generations at the expense of rival alleles. Even when genes form cooperative alliances, as they commonly do, it ultimately serves their own evolutionary success. Of course, genes are merely chemical entities - mindless, emotionless, and incapable of intention or planning - so the concept of "selfishness" is simply a metaphor designed to illustrate gene-cantered evolution.

However, within the genomes of many multicellular organisms, certain genes can more literally be described as selfish. These genes act parasitically, exploiting the host cell’s replication machinery solely to propagate themselves, despite having no beneficial function and often harming their host by reducing its fertility. The mechanisms behind this parasitic behaviour have puzzled scientists since these genes were first discovered.

Refuting Creationism - Human Language Had Evolved At Least 100,000 years Before 'Creation Week'!

Image: MIT News; iStock

World languages (for key, see Wikipedia source)

When did human language emerge? | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In stark contrast to biblical literalism's simplistic and contradictory story, recent research provides a very different picture of the origins of human language. According to Bible literalists, there are two versions of how languages come about. In the first, the descendants of each of the sons of Noah spoke different languages; in the second, language originated just five generations after the mythical global flood, when the human population — miraculously expanded from eight closely related survivors - grew large enough to undertake a massive construction project. Supposedly, this project so alarmed God that he intervened by 'confounding their tongues' to stop their cooperation.

In contrast to these Bible stories which compete for the most ludicrous and unlikely, scientists led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have recently suggested that human language actually evolved between 100,000 and 135,000 years before creationists claim the universe itself existed. v

What is the current consensus on the time and place of the origins of language in humans?

There is currently no clear scientific consensus regarding the exact timing and location of the origins of human language, primarily because language leaves no direct fossil evidence. However, there is broad agreement around certain key points:

Timing of Language Origin:

• General timeframe: Most researchers propose that fully-developed spoken language originated between 50,000 and 200,000 years ago, during the late Middle or early Upper Palaeolithic period, associated with anatomically modern Homo sapiens.
• Genetic clues: Genetic evidence, particularly the emergence of the FOXP2 gene mutation (linked to speech and language capability), suggests language capacity existed at least around 150,000–200,000 years ago.
• Cultural and archaeological indicators: A notable increase in symbolic behaviour, such as sophisticated art, toolmaking, and ritual practices approximately 40,000–70,000 years ago (often referred to as the "cognitive revolution"), is widely viewed as indirect evidence of fully developed linguistic capabilities. However, many linguists argue for a much earlier, more gradual development extending back hundreds of thousands of years.

Place of Origin:

• Africa hypothesis: The widely supported "Out of Africa" theory of modern human evolution implies that language, like other uniquely human traits, likely emerged first in Africa, associated with early Homo sapiens populations around 150,000–200,000 years ago.
• Multiple origins or dispersal: While most linguists and paleoanthropologists favour an African origin due to genetic and fossil evidence, some researchers have proposed language capabilities could have evolved independently or spread quickly as humans migrated. However, the single-origin hypothesis currently dominates.

Mechanism of Origin:

• Gradual evolution: The prevailing view today is that language evolved gradually through incremental cognitive, anatomical, and social adaptations, rather than appearing abruptly.
• Social complexity: Most researchers believe language emerged alongside increasing social complexity, facilitating cooperation, teaching, and cultural transmission, which in turn provided strong evolutionary advantages.

Current Scientific Consensus:

• No direct fossil evidence means pinpointing exact dates or locations remains speculative.
• Broad consensus: Language emerged gradually, probably in Africa, between 50,000–200,000 years ago, closely tied to the cognitive evolution of anatomically modern humans.

In summary, while the exact details remain debated, the dominant scientific consensus positions the origin of human language firmly within the evolutionary context of anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Africa, sometime around or shortly before humans began their global migrations.

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The findings of the MIT group are published, open access, in the journal Frontiers in Psychology and are explained by Peter Dizikes in MIT News:

When did human language emerge?

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A new analysis suggests our language capacity existed at least 135,000 years ago, with language used widely perhaps 35,000 years after that.

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It is a deep question, from deep in our history: When did human language as we know it emerge? A new survey of genomic evidence suggests our unique language capacity was present at least 135,000 years ago. Subsequently, language might have entered social use 100,000 years ago.

Our species, Homo sapiens, is about 230,000 years old. Estimates of when language originated vary widely, based on different forms of evidence, from fossils to cultural artifacts. The authors of the new analysis took a different approach. They reasoned that since all human languages likely have a common origin — as the researchers strongly think — the key question is how far back in time regional groups began spreading around the world.

The logic is very simple. Every population branching across the globe has human language, and all languages are related. [Based on what the genomics data indicate about the geographic divergence of early human populations] I think we can say with a fair amount of certainty that the first split occurred about 135,000 years ago, so human language capacity must have been present by then, or before.

Professor Shigeru Miyagawa, co-author.
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.

The paper, “Linguistic capacity was present in the Homo sapiens population 135 thousand years ago,” appears in Frontiers in Psychology. The co-authors are Miyagawa, who is a professor emeritus of linguistics and the Kochi-Manjiro Professor of Japanese Language and Culture at MIT; Rob DeSalle, a principal investigator at the American Museum of Natural History’s Institute for Comparative Genomics; Vitor Augusto Nóbrega, a faculty member in linguistics at the University of São Paolo; Remo Nitschke, of the University of Zurich, who worked on the project while at the University of Arizona linguistics department; Mercedes Okumura of the Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology at the University of São Paulo; and Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus of human origins at the American Museum of Natural History.

The new paper examines 15 genetic studies of different varieties, published over the past 18 years: Three used data about the inherited Y chromosome, three examined mitochondrial DNA, and nine were whole-genome studies.

All told, the data from these studies suggest an initial regional branching of humans about 135,000 years ago. That is, after the emergence of Homo sapiens, groups of people subsequently moved apart geographically, and some resulting genetic variations have developed, over time, among the different regional subpopulations. The amount of genetic variation shown in the studies allows researchers to estimate the point in time at which Homo sapiens was still one regionally undivided group.

Miyagawa says the studies collectively provide increasingly converging evidence about when these geographic splits started taking place. The first survey of this type was performed by other scholars in 2017, but they had fewer existing genetic studies to draw upon. Now, there are much more published data available, which when considered together point to 135,000 years ago as the likely time of the first split.

The new meta-analysis was possible because “quantity-wise we have more studies, and quality-wise, it’s a narrower window [of time],” says Miyagawa, who also holds an appointment at the University of São Paolo.

Like many linguists, Miyagawa believes all human languages are demonstrably related to each other, something he has examined in his own work. For instance, in his 2010 book, “Why Agree? Why Move?” he analyzed previously unexplored similarities between English, Japanese, and some of the Bantu languages. There are more than 7,000 identified human languages around the globe.

Some scholars have proposed that language capacity dates back a couple of million years, based on the physiological characteristics of other primates. But to Miyagawa, the question is not when primates could utter certain sounds; it is when humans had the cognitive ability to develop language as we know it, combining vocabulary and grammar into a system generating an infinite amount of rules-based expression.

Human language is qualitatively different because there are two things, words and syntax, working together to create this very complex system. No other animal has a parallel structure in their communication system. And that gives us the ability to generate very sophisticated thoughts and to communicate them to others.

Professor Shigeru Miyagawa.

This conception of human language origins also holds that humans had the cognitive capacity for language for some period of time before we constructed our first languages.

Language is both a cognitive system and a communication system. My guess is prior to 135,000 years ago, it did start out as a private cognitive system, but relatively quickly that turned into a communications system.

Professor Shigeru Miyagawa.

So, how can we know when distinctively human language was first used? The archaeological record is invaluable in this regard. Roughly 100,000 years ago, the evidence shows, there was a widespread appearance of symbolic activity, from meaningful markings on objects to the use of fire to produce ochre, a decorative red color.

Like our complex, highly generative language, these symbolic activities are engaged in by people, and no other creatures. As the paper notes, “behaviors compatible with language and the consistent exercise of symbolic thinking are detectable only in the archaeological record of H. sapiens.”

Among the co-authors, Tattersall has most prominently propounded the view that language served as a kind of ignition for symbolic thinking and other organized activities.

Language was the trigger for modern human behavior. Somehow it stimulated human thinking and helped create these kinds of behaviors. If we are right, people were learning from each other [due to language] and encouraging innovations of the types we saw 100,000 years ago.

Professor Shigeru Miyagawa.

To be sure, as the authors acknowledge in the paper, other scholars believe there was a more incremental and broad-based development of new activities around 100,000 years ago, involving materials, tools, and social coordination, with language playing a role in this, but not necessarily being the central force.

For his part, Miyagawa recognizes that there is considerable room for further progress in this area of research, but thinks efforts like the current paper are at least steps toward filling out a more detailed picture of language’s emergence.

Our approach is very empirically based, grounded in the latest genetic understanding of early homo sapiens. I think we are on a good research arc, and I hope this will encourage people to look more at human language and evolution.

Professor Shigeru Miyagawa.

Recent genome-level studies on the divergence of early Homo sapiens, based on single nucleotide polymorphisms, suggest that the initial population division within H. sapiens from the original stem occurred approximately 135 thousand years ago. Given that this and all subsequent divisions led to populations with full linguistic capacity, it is reasonable to assume that the potential for language must have been present at the latest by around 135 thousand years ago, before the first division occurred. Had linguistic capacity developed later, we would expect to find some modern human populations without language, or with some fundamentally different mode of communication. Neither is the case. While current evidence does not tell us exactly when language itself appeared, the genomic studies do allow a fairly accurate estimate of the time by which linguistic capacity must have been present in the modern human lineage. Based on the lower boundary of 135 thousand years ago for language, we propose that language may have triggered the widespread appearance of modern human behavior approximately 100 thousand years ago.

1 Introduction
More than any other trait, language defines us as human. Yet there is no clear agreement on when this crucial feature emerged in our evolution. Some who have studied the archaeological record suggest that language emerged in our lineage around 100 thousand years ago (kya) (Tattersall, 2012, 2017, 2018; Wadley, 2021), while others have claimed that some form of language preceded the emergence of modern humans (Albessard-Ball and Balzeau, 2018; Botha, 2020). Indeed, it has been argued [e.g., by Progovac (2016) and Dediu and Levinson (2018)] that language is not uniquely the property of the lineage that produced H. sapiens. Here we accept the reasoning of that behaviors compatible with language and the consistent exercise of symbolic thinking are detectable only in the archaeological record of H. sapiens (Tattersall, 2012; Berwick et al., 2013; Berwick and Chomsky, 2016), and approach the issue of the antiquity of language in our species by showing that, although it is not yet possible to identify the time when a linguistic capacity emerged, genomic evidence allows us to establish with reasonable certainty the latest point at which it must have been present in early H. sapiens populations.

Over the past 15 years, numerous studies have addressed the question of exactly when the first division occurred in the original stem population of early H. sapiens. While those studies do not tell us exactly when language emerged, they allow us to make a reasonable estimate of the lower boundary of the possible time range for this key occurrence. H. sapiens emerged as an anatomically distinctive entity by about 230kya (Vidal et al., 2022). Sometime after that speciation event, the first division occurred, with all descendant populations of that division having full-fledged language. From this universal presence of language, we can deduce that some form of linguistic capacity must have been present before the first population divergence. If the linguistic capacity had emerged in humans after the initial divergence, one would expect to find modern human populations that either do not have language, or that have some communication capacity that differs meaningfully from that of all other human populations. Neither is the case. The 7,000 or so languages in the world today share striking similarities in the ways in which they are constructed phonologically, syntactically, and semantically (Eberhard et al., 2023).

Genomic studies of early H. sapiens population broadly agree that the first division from the original stem is represented today by the Khoisan peoples of Southern Africa (Schlebusch et al., 2012). This conclusion was reached early on Vigilant et al. (1989), Knight et al. (2003), Tishkoff et al. (2007), and Veeramah et al. (2012), and it has more recently been bolstered by studies using newer genomic techniques (Fan et al., 2019; Lorente-Galdos et al., 2019; Schlebusch et al., 2017; Schlebusch et al., 2020; Pakendorf and Stoneking, 2021). The term “Khoisan” refers to a bio-genetic affiliation that is linked both to a proposed ancestor-group and to some modern peoples, living in present-day South Africa, who include modern speakers of the Khoe-Khwadi, Tuu, and Ju-ǂHoan languages that have some genetic affiliation to the first divergence of the human population (Güldemann and Sands, 2009; du Plessis, 2014). It follows that, if we can identify when the first division occurred, we can with reasonable certainty consider that date to define the lower boundary of when human language was present in the ancestral modern human population. Based on the results of studies focusing on whole genome single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), we estimate that this first division occurred at approximately 135kya. ¹

Huybregts (2017) was the first to attempt to pinpoint the timing of the first division in this way. Although he suggested a date of ~125kya, close to our estimate of ~135kya, his estimate was necessarily based on a fairly narrow set of studies showing a remarkably variable range. The studies he examined ranged from the clearly implausible 300kya (Scally and Durbin, 2012), to 180kya (Rito et al., 2013) and as little as 100kya (Schlebusch et al., 2012). Pakendorf and Stoneking (2021) later listed several studies proposing that the first division was older than 160kya (Fan et al., 2019; Lorente-Galdos et al., 2019; Schlebusch et al., 2020), along with four others, from 140 to 110kya, that overlapped with the range suggested by Huybregts (Gronau et al., 2011; Veeramah et al., 2012; Mallick et al., 2016; Song et al., 2017). Several newer studies now allow us to approach the age of the first division with greater precision.

In conclusion, the researchers say:

4 The picture that emerges
Based on the recent genetic studies of early H. sapiens, we have pinpointed approximately 135kya as the moment at which some linguistic capacity must have been present in the human population. Looking forward from this event, modern human behaviors such as body decoration and the production of ochre pieces with symbolic engravings appeared as normative and persistent behaviors around 100kya. We believe that the time lag implied between the lower boundary of when language was present (135kya) and the emergence of normative modern human behaviors across the population suggests that language itself was the trigger that transformed nonlinguistic early H. sapiens (who nonetheless already possessed “language-ready” brains acquired at the origin of the anatomically distinctive species) into the symbolically-mediated beings familiar today. This development of the most sophisticated communication device in evolution allowed our ancestors to accelerate and consolidate symbolically-mediated behaviors until they became the norm for the entire species.

Miyagawa, Shigeru; DeSalle, Rob; Nóbrega, Vitor Augusto; Nitschke, Remo; Okumura, Mercedes; Tattersall, Ian
Linguistic capacity was present in the Homo sapiens population 135 thousand years ago Frontiers in Psychology (2025) 16 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1503900

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by Frontiers Media S.A. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

It appears that the evolution of language in humans followed a familiar evolutionary pattern. Genetic mutations, including those affecting the FOXP2 gene—which influences brain development and vocal control—provided cognitive advantages, opening new opportunities for natural selection. This genetic foundation set human evolution onto a new trajectory, much like how feathers, originally evolved for insulation or display in dinosaurs, eventually led to powered flight in birds.

In contrast, simplistic explanations—such as the Bible's depiction of Noah's descendants rapidly diverging into different languages (Genesis 10–11), or a deity magically imposing language barriers to thwart human cooperation at Babel (Genesis 11)—reflect limited imagination and a profound misunderstanding of how closely related languages evolve geographically.

Today, science provides a coherent and evidence-based explanation, emphasizing gene-culture co-evolution and language divergence within geographically dispersed and partially fragmented human populations.

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Last Modified: Wed Apr 09 2025 18:32:31 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Refuting Creationism - How Chimpanzees Have Evolved For Different Parasites, Including Malaria

Mother and baby chimpanzee in Uganda.

Kevin Langergraber, The Ngogo Chimpanzee Project.

Chimpanzees are genetically adapted to local habitats and infections such as malaria | UCL News - UCL – University College London

It can't be easy making a living as a creationist grifter when science continually undermines your claims, exposing your misrepresentation of evolutionary biology and eroding your credibility — even among the faithful supporters you count on to pay for confirmation of their biases. It must be a relief that your target will rarely, if ever fact check your claims, making them easy victims of your disinformation.

So, you can take comfort in the fact that none of your marks will read this piece of research that shows how chimpanzees are closely related to humans and have evolved over time to adapt to a number of different environments, much the way the ancestors of modern humans adapted when their environment changed from forest to savannah, some 6 million years ago.

Included in the study is how chimpanzees, who have been suffering from malaria for much longer than humans, humans having acquired their most deadly species of the plasmodium parasites from chimpanzees only some 300,000 years ago and possibly as recently as 50,000 years ago, have evolved resistance to the parasite so they now show almost no signs of infection.

Malevolent Design - How a Design Blunder Caused Parkinson's Disease - Or Was It Malevolence?

Two PINK1 proteins are shown attached to the membrane of a mitochondrion for the first time.

Scientists solve decades-long Parkinson’s mystery | WEHI

One of the causes of Parkinsonism is the accumulation of defective mitochondria in neurone leading to the death of these cells and reduced neurotransmitter production. Under normal circumstances, a protein known as PTEN-induced putative kinase 1 (PINK1) attaches to the surface of damaged mitochondria and facilitates their destruction, but when a mutation causes PINK1 to malfunction, this cell hygiene mechanism fails.

The question for creationists is why this cell hygiene process is needed in the first place when an intelligent designer could have designed more robust mitochondria, and why does it depend on an error-prone process where a simple mutation is the gene for a key protein can cause the whole thing to fail?

In fact, of course, what we have here is an example of a layer of complexity being necessary because a fundamental process is suboptimal, when a well-designed process would need no such additional layer of complexity. Additional complexity simply multiplies that opportunity for failure, especially when the additional complexity is itself suboptimal.

As an example of putative intelligent design, the result is exactly what we would expect a mindless, unintelligent process to produce.