The 'TALK' Gene

Scientists know that man and animals have a gene known as the FOXP2 gene, that is linked to language.
It has now been found that the gene in humans has two tiny mutations that allow man to talk, by controlling the facial movements.
It is claimed that this mutation occurred about 200,000 years ago and that is why man can talk and animals can't.

Now, what I find interesting is, tiny mutations (macromutations) are only supposed to occur every 100,000,000 years but man has gone through several in 6,000,000 years. (including this one)
Does this indicate that man had 'outside' help in his evolution?

We could all have scooby doo's, would be pretty awesome.

It's an interesting theory.Why is it that man seems to be the only animal that goes through such rapid change.And why do the changes occur in the first place.If you follow your theory dogs and cats should be able to talk,being mammels they too should also mutate.

Monkeys would look and talk like little gnomes!

Why read fantasy books when you can alter or change genetics on animals? Mua ha ha ha ha. But it's illegal.

I think that the cause of the (relatively) rapid mutations in humans *could* be due to the intensive socialization that allowed us to pass on ideas & knowledge over the eons. For example, as the earlier primates began to communicate more intensively, heredity passed on minor mutations required for better communication more rapidly than the less social animals.

Of course, that's only one possible opinion...

Your opinion probably has some truth to it.But why just humans? Most primates also live in a social enviroment.Yet they still just chirp and screech.Or maybe I just answered my own question,maybe chirps and screeching is all they need.They communicate just fine with each other.

I suppose the last thing the world needs is talking chimps.

Originally posted by ZerOmuS
We could all have scooby doo's, would be pretty awesome.

Yeah, and we could have Planet Of The Apes too.

I don't want to hear my dog telling me
" Hi dude, it was a hard workingday today ?
Me , I did STRICTLY nothing. Ok, look, I'm hungry.Gimme some foods "...

And you know, somes animals are already speaking. My neighbor. He's an animal, and he's speaking. And it's not funny !

[Edited on 17-8-2002 by ultra_phoenix]

aren't most animals not intelligent enough to talk though? besides apes and dolphins, most animals are pretty far from being as smart as humans. i'm pretty sure apes would be the only animals that would be smart enough to have a spoken language.

Addman, your avatar picture, is it you ?

[Edited on 18-8-2002 by ultra_phoenix]

[Edited on 18-8-2002 by ultra_phoenix]

haha no its Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) from the movie Fight Club

Originally posted by addman987
haha no its Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) from the movie Fight Club

He's not looking smart on this pic.

Dolphins are reported to have a brain larger than ours and are very social creatures, they even enjoy interacting with humans, yet they still can't 'talk'.
They still communicate using clicks and squeeks. Apes are also very 'social' animals, but still can't talk.

So what caused man to go through this macromutation?

See with Darwin.

Originally posted by nyeff
Your opinion probably has some truth to it.But why just humans?

I didn't mean to imply that only humans evolved intelligence through socialization. Even wolves are highly social animals, so it's not just primates either. Even wolf packs had their own "language", which consisted of growls, whines (vocal noises) combined with gestures & postures; The earliest forms of human language were the same way.

Human socialization advanced more because the early humans would *share* the food around the campfire at night...Also, the telling of campfire stories had something to do with it. You must also remember that the early humans didn't evolve natural weaponry (such as claws & horns) like other animals...They had to rely on the use of tools & the use of fire to help them survive. This is where the opposable thumb came in handy (to coin a phrase). Like other primates, the early humans had the dexterous hands & stereoscopic vision, so they were *hunters* instead of "herd-animals" or scavengers (even though they did *some* scavenging, they didn't *rely* on it to the extent of other animal-packs).

The strange thing about the use of fire by humans is that I haven't yet found anything that explains why humans had a weird fascination with fire while all of the other animals were afraid of it. Nothing I've found, except the Bible & a few theories involving aliens, has been able to explain where that first *spark* of self-cognizance originated in the human species.

As intelligence began to grow more sophisticated & the use of tools progressed, they had to rely more on cooperation with each other...This helped spur socializing to a higher extent than the other animals could manage. Cooperation led to more births, which led to sharper divisions between the gender-based roles & duties, which led to passing on the ideas for more technology to produce more food, which led to more cooperation...

Basically, the concept of cooperation was a self-promoting feedback that led to civilization of the species.


[Edited on 22-8-2002 by MidnightDStroyer]

Thats what I meant when I said I answered my own question. That other animals have evovled their own own language. It may be chirps and screeching,but they can comunicate with each other.


Oddly enough I was watching a show on wolves,when I came up with my answer.

Yes, all lifeforms needs to communicate. Language, sights, even keyboards ( look at us ) If you can communicate with others, it's ok.

>>You must also remember that the early >>humans didn't evolve natural >>weaponry (such as claws & horns) like >>other animals...

Actually, we do have natural weaponry. Most humans, though not all, have canine teeth (they are really sharp and can bite through skin and hard objects very easily, they're kind of like a dogs). Humans also have claws (toe nails and finger nails). Speech is also a natural weapon; with it we are/were able to devise plans, coups, and traps with other humans to trick other animals to add to our food supply.
Also, muscles should be considered natural weaponry. Compared to most animals, men are very strong. One last natural weapon is our intelligence; it naturally makes us able to build artificial weapons such as guns, and devise computers that will make other computers that will one day, in the distant future, make us more powerful and intelligent than we already are.

Human canine teeth (& even the earliest primate species of humans) didn't have *fangs* like other predators did...They weren't long enough to do any serious damage when confronting the other animals we preyed upon.

The same thing goes with our fingernails...They are not *claws*. Other species that were primarily tree-dwellers had actual clws that allowed them to dig into the branches to hold on, but our primate ancenstors had to *grasp* the branches to avoid falling.

However, like other hunter-species, we did have stereoscopic vision, not like most herbivores that have wider perepheral vision. This allowed us to focus our depth perception.

At any rate, speech & intelligence don't really count as weapons, considering how far back in time we've been referring to; The only use speech had as a weapon was to shout or growl at a potential enemy & intelligence developed as the need for better communication became necessary to provide better cooperation to hunt bigger game for food.


[Edited on 28-8-2002 by MidnightDStroyer]

Humanity's single evolved weapon is the mind. But its a bloody useful one.

[Edited on 28-8-2002 by Kano]

It is indeed strange.

Since the beginning of life, it is estimated that several billion of species have existed. We are the ONLY ONE to have developped speach.

This suggests that:
- this feature tried to appear in other species, but was not helpful, so disappeared.
- it appeared only in homo, which is very unlikely.

Why would it not have been "kept" in other species?

One thing is for sure, without this unique feature among billion of species, we would never have evolved like that and created civilization.