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By Daniel March 2, 2016 In Blog

ONLY WE SPEAK – SCIENCE AND RELIGION AGREE

“And He blew into his nostrils the soul of life; and man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:19). This is the Genesis account of how man acquired his divine soul. “Living being” is interpreted as “a speaking spirit.” Thus the biblical position is that humans are uniquely endowed with the power to speak. In fact, The Broken Gift: Harmonizing the Biblical and scientific accounts of human origins, shows that according to the Bible it is language and the ability for abstract reasoning that differentiate humans from animals, and in particular apes.

What about science?
Scientists have been trying to understand what it takes to speak- both in the make-up of our genes and our physiology. Apes, who do not have our physiology, cannot peak but can be taught sign language.  Experiments where apes have been taught 100’s of signs show that they are unable to string more than a few very simple sings together- they do not possess the capability for abstract reasoning  required to compose speech. The search for earlier human like species that possess the ability to speak like us has revealed that it’s unlikely any other, now extinct human like species could speak. In the words of the latest research “It seems more likely, from the existing evidence at least, that our ability to bend each other’s ear is indeed unique. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2075666-how-humans-evolved-language-and-who-said-what-first/

The Broken Gift, addresses all unique human characteristics, from the biblical and scientific perspective, showing remarkable agreement between scripture and the latest peer reviewed science. In particular, it shows that speech is a uniquely human ability and is innate.

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