Why do intellectually superior humans have around 7,000 distinct languages?

[dad]

Because there is no evidence for it.

The fact it best explains languages is evidence. The fact that bible prophesy and accuracy is tested and proven is evidence.

What we have NO evidence for is your claim there was no Babel. No evidence whatsoever or reason, or logic etc.

You should just admit you have no clue whatsoever either way.

The tower, if buried deeply would not be expected to be seen! The evidence for it existing is in the results. The proof is in the result pudding.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

The fact it best explains languages is evidence. The fact that bible prophesy and accuracy is tested and proven is evidence.

Yes. This is truth for thousands of years.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

The fact it best explains languages is evidence. The fact that bible prophesy and accuracy is tested and proven is evidence.

What we have NO evidence for is your claim there was no Babel. No evidence whatsoever or reason, or logic etc.

You should just admit you have no clue whatsoever either way.

The tower, if buried deeply would not be expected to be seen! The evidence for it existing is in the results. The proof is in the result pudding.

None of that is evidence. You have absolutely no way to back up any of the claims you made and that renders all of your claims moot and pointless.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

The fact it best explains languages is evidence. The fact that bible prophesy and accuracy is tested and proven is evidence.
What we have NO evidence for is your claim there was no Babel. No evidence whatsoever or reason, or logic etc.
You should just admit you have no clue whatsoever either way.
The tower, if buried deeply would not be expected to be seen! The evidence for it existing is in the results. The proof is in the result pudding.

Is it written how come a new heart, a heart of flesh, accepts the truth , and old hearts of stone don't ?
I don't think "evidence" can change a stone into a heart of flesh, can it ?
Only prayer, and Yahweh, thru Jesus ?

 

[dad]

None of that is evidence. You have absolutely no way to back up any of the claims you made and that renders all of your claims moot and pointless.

I have studied prophesy to some degree actually. I was also not born yesterday, and have seen a string of discoveries from archaeology where they confirm the bible was true after all, despite the naysayers previous claims/unfounded doubts etc. I have also took the litmus test Jesus gave us, to try it and then we would know. I came, I tried, I know.

I also was gifted with a brain as so many were, and can see that the account of how languages originated is the best fit with history and common sense, and geography etc etc.

From you I see utterly empty and baseless doubts (however deeply held, or self convinced you may have become)

 

[dad]

Is it written how come a new heart, a heart of flesh, accepts the truth , and old hearts of stone don't ?
I don't think "evidence" can change a stone into a heart of flesh, can it ?
Only prayer, and Yahweh, thru Jesus ?

I guess you have a point. However it seems that Jesus sent His peeps into all the world to try just in case

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I have studied prophesy to some degree actually. I was also not born yesterday, and have seen a string of discoveries from archaeology where they confirm the bible was true after all, despite the naysayers previous claims/unfounded doubts etc. I have also took the litmus test Jesus gave us, to try it and then we would know. I came, I tried, I know.

I also was gifted with a brain as so many were, and can see that the account of how languages originated is the best fit with history and common sense, and geography etc etc.

From you I see utterly empty and baseless doubts (however deeply held, or self convinced you may have become)

A lot of words but absolutely zero substance. Or evidence for any of your claims.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I have studied prophesy to some degree actually. I was also not born yesterday, and have seen a string of discoveries from archaeology where they confirm the bible was true after all, despite the naysayers previous claims/unfounded doubts etc. I have also took the litmus test Jesus gave us, to try it and then we would know. I came, I tried, I know.

I also was gifted with a brain as so many were, and can see that the account of how languages originated is the best fit with history and common sense, and geography etc etc.

From you I see utterly empty and baseless doubts (however deeply held, or self convinced you may have become)

(expected positively) You also, most importantly, have a spirit in union with Jesus and the Father, and by the spirit Yahweh trains and teaches and renews and washes us AS HIS WORD SAYS.
Without HIS WORD, we would be lost also.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I guess you have a point. However it seems that Jesus sent His peeps into all the world to try just in case

Never to try.
He NEVER said try - in that sense, per se.

TO make disciples, yes.
TO plant seed (true message from Yahweh), yes.
TO water the seed, yes.
TO make it grow ? No conrol over that - we might plant, water, fertilize, pray, lay down our lives for anyone, but we cannot even make growth in OURSELVES, nor in another person, not even in our own sons.

We can pray the rocky soil get plowed up. The greedy soil get transformed into generous good soil. The cares and riches of this world become of no importance for someone,
but
Yahweh and Jesus will not coerce anyone to believe if they don't want to.

We "DO " as HE SAYS. (in some human terms we are seeming to 'try'? perhaps, but rather just "DO HIS WORD", for the results are all up to HIM)

 

[dad]

Never to try.
He NEVER said try - in that sense, per se.

TO make disciples, yes.
TO plant seed (true message from Yahweh), yes.
TO water the seed, yes.
TO make it grow ? No conrol over that - we might plant, water, fertilize, pray, lay down our lives for anyone, but we cannot even make growth in OURSELVES, nor in another person, not even in our own sons.

We can pray the rocky soil get plowed up. The greedy soil get transformed into generous good soil. The cares and riches of this world become of no importance for someone,
but
Yahweh and Jesus will not coerce anyone to believe if they don't want to.

We "DO " as HE SAYS. (in some human terms we are seeming to 'try'? perhaps, but rather just "DO HIS WORD", for the results are all up to HIM)

I assume we had something to do with it since we were asked to go and preach. From down here it looks like some receive and some reject. They do this based on our attempts to convey the message. I also assume it is not all pre arranged and that people have choices and respond to the gospel.
It is not our job to make them born again or make them believe, or make them grow in faith etc. We sort of turn them over to God and He starts to work in them after they choose Him. But it seems an important part of the process that the folks get to hear somehow.

 

[Astrophile]

space.com/41163-universe-expansion-rate-changes-near-far

I found two links for this: Universe's Expansion Rate Is Different Depending on Where You Look, and https://www.iopscience.iop.org/artice/10.3847/1538-4357/aac82e. The original paper is 'Milky Way Cepheid Standards for Measuring Cosmic Distances and Application to Gaia DR21: Implications for the Hubble Constant' by A.G. Riess et al., Astrophysical Journal, vol. 861, no. 2 (published 12 July 2018).

The information in the paper is interesting and unexpected, and perhaps even disquieting. So far as I can understand it, it appears to say that there is a systematic discrepancy between the Hubble constant derived from the extragalactic distance scale derived from Cepheids and the Hubble constant derived from measurements of the cosmic microwave background. It does not appear to say that the rate of expansion of the 'nearby' universe is different from the rate of expansion of the distant universe, although I suppose that this is a possible interpretation.

These measurements may change the extragalactic distance scale and the inferred age of the universe. However, they don't negate the evidence for the 'Big Bang', that is the expansion of the universe from an initial state of extremely high temperature, density and pressure, nor do they provide evidence for young-universe-creationism.

I should be interested to know how you interpret the results of these measurements.

 

[ThievingMagpie]

The OP title is a quote from answers in Genesis

"“Why do intellectually superior humans have around 7,000 distinct languages?” queries evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel. Pagel heads a team searching for an evolutionary explanation for our many languages. The biblical history of the dispersion from the tower of Babel indicates that diversity of language emerged from the area of “a plain in the land of Shinar.”

Tower of Babel

The simplest and best explanation for languages and where man started is the bible!

Another interesting fact is how major kingdoms started at Babel, Babylon was started about 13 years after the birth of Peleg according to AIG! Then Egypt some aprox 60 years after Peleg's birth! This makes sense since Egypt is further away. Then even further we have Greece, which the same article says got going about 160 years after the birth of Peleg. Finally, the article places the tower of Babel at the time when Peleg was five years old!

In the Days of Peleg

The best and most accurate answers are in the bible about creation and history.

Why do you think there is a discrepancy between our intellectual abilities and the number of human languages?

 

[dad]

Why do you think there is a discrepancy between our intellectual abilities and the number of human languages?

Well, I think of it more like this..if man had a good intellect he would realize that the best explanation for languages is the one in the bible. In what way is it intellectual to think that Babel doesn't fit? The first big kingdoms there after Babel (within I think it was about 60 years or something) both used pictures to communicate for example!

These kingdoms were close to Babel, coincidence?

Then I see this article that seems to have some valid points about languages devolving rather than evolving...

"From the historical perspective, specialists have estimated that one very important language, Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a theoretical reconstruction of what may have been the original ancestor or progenitor of the Indo-European family of languages, was spoken about 4,500–6,500 years ago according to evolutionists—not a terribly long time into the past. The fact that modern languages seem to have devolvedfrom their relatively ancient predecessors caused considerable consternation among early historical linguists who had earnestly sought to establish a logical progression in their development, from simple to increasingly complex forms and structures. August Schleicher (circa 1870) argued that languages were independent organisms with lives of their own that underwent a period of development (evolutionary progress) followed by one of decay, indicating the ebb and flow of evolution. However, the evidence shows language evolution as mostly a process of decay.Historical Linguistics, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 25, 45, 1977. " style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(34, 139, 246); border-bottom: none; margin-bottom: 4px; cursor: pointer;">1,Language Typology: A Historical and Analytic Overview, The Hague: Mouton, 1974. " style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(34, 139, 246); border-bottom: none; margin-bottom: 4px; cursor: pointer;">2 Faced with overwhelming evidence that extant languages have undergone a process of degression from their progenitors (e.g. gradual morphological simplification and consequent loss of syntactic variation of old Anglo-Saxon into present varieties of English), most linguists had abandoned theories that languages naturally evolve by the middle to late parts of the nineteenth century."

The language faculty: following the evidence - creation.com


The same article goes on to point out..
"the task is to account for the simultaneous evolution of both.."



I would also point out that language according to Scripture was not a product of man at all or his intellect!

 

[Speedwell]

I assume we had something to do with it since we were asked to go and preach. From down here it looks like some receive and some reject. They do this based on our attempts to convey the message. I also assume it is not all pre arranged and that people have choices and respond to the gospel.
It is not our job to make them born again or make them believe, or make them grow in faith etc. We sort of turn them over to God and He starts to work in them after they choose Him. But it seems an important part of the process that the folks get to hear somehow.

But you never preach the Gospel. All you ever preach is your goofy interpretation of Genesis.

 

[dad]

But you never preach the Gospel. All you ever preach is your goofy interpretation of Genesis.

Maybe you think creation is not an important part of what God is all about?

Perhaps the angel preaching in this verse really meant evolution is where it is really at and what God meant, as some nominal christians preach?

Re 14:7 -Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

 

[Speedwell]

Maybe you think creation is not an important part of what God is all about?

Perhaps the angel preaching in this verse really meant evolution is where it is really at and what God meant, as some nominal christians preach?

Re 14:7 -Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

So we do, us "nomiminal" Christians, Just as the Angel commands. But we don't have to believe silly things about the Book of Genesis on account of it.

 

[klutedavid]

I found two links for this: Universe's Expansion Rate Is Different Depending on Where You Look, and https://www.iopscience.iop.org/artice/10.3847/1538-4357/aac82e. The original paper is 'Milky Way Cepheid Standards for Measuring Cosmic Distances and Application to Gaia DR21: Implications for the Hubble Constant' by A.G. Riess et al., Astrophysical Journal, vol. 861, no. 2 (published 12 July 2018).

The information in the paper is interesting and unexpected, and perhaps even disquieting. So far as I can understand it, it appears to say that there is a systematic discrepancy between the Hubble constant derived from the extragalactic distance scale derived from Cepheids and the Hubble constant derived from measurements of the cosmic microwave background. It does not appear to say that the rate of expansion of the 'nearby' universe is different from the rate of expansion of the distant universe, although I suppose that this is a possible interpretation.

These measurements may change the extragalactic distance scale and the inferred age of the universe. However, they don't negate the evidence for the 'Big Bang', that is the expansion of the universe from an initial state of extremely high temperature, density and pressure, nor do they provide evidence for young-universe-creationism.

I should be interested to know how you interpret the results of these measurements.

The Hubble constant is different when the Hubble constant is derived from two different sources. So which one is correct, or are both incorrect?

 

[dad]

So we do, us "nomiminal" Christians, Just as the Angel commands. But we don't have to believe silly things about the Book of Genesis on account of it.

Ah so the angel existed and never believed the 'silly' Scripture account? Interesting fantasy.

Here is a question for you. Do you actually believe there was a tower of Babel as the bible describes?

I understand nominal bible believers do not generally believe in the real garden or the real ark. How about the tower, is that fiction also in your religion?

 

[Astrophile]

The Hubble constant is different when the Hubble constant is derived from two different sources. So which one is correct, or are both incorrect?

First, the two values of the Hubble constant agree to better than 10%; from the Cepheid variables, H = 73.24±1.7 km/s/megaparsec, and from the Planck measurements of the cosmic microwave background H = 66.93±0.62 km/s/megaparsec. The agreement between values obtained by two completely independent methods tends to strengthen my confidence in the general accuracy of the measurement. The age of the universe obtained from the Planck measurements is 13.8 billion years, so if the Cepheid measurements are correct, they would yield an age for the universe of about 12.6 billion years.

I think that the measurements of the cosmic microwave background are to be preferred, since this background radiation is derived directly from the events of the Big Bang, whereas the Cepheid measurements are indirect, using 'standard candles' to establish a Galactic and extragalactic distance scale. Also, the measurements of the microwave background have consistently yielded an age for the universe of 13.7 billion years (WMAP in 2003) to 13.8 billion years (Planck). This good agreement again strengthens my confidence in the accuracy of the result. Obviously I could be wrong. No doubt there will be more studies, both of Cepheid variables and of the microwave background, which will lead to adjustments in the accepted value of the Hubble constant.

 

[klutedavid]

First, the two values of the Hubble constant agree to better than 10%; from the Cepheid variables, H = 73.24±1.7 km/s/megaparsec, and from the Planck measurements of the cosmic microwave background H = 66.93±0.62 km/s/megaparsec. The agreement between values obtained by two completely independent methods tends to strengthen my confidence in the general accuracy of the measurement. The age of the universe obtained from the Planck measurements is 13.8 billion years, so if the Cepheid measurements are correct, they would yield an age for the universe of about 12.6 billion years.

I think that the measurements of the cosmic microwave background are to be preferred, since this background radiation is derived directly from the events of the Big Bang, whereas the Cepheid measurements are indirect, using 'standard candles' to establish a Galactic and extragalactic distance scale. Also, the measurements of the microwave background have consistently yielded an age for the universe of 13.7 billion years (WMAP in 2003) to 13.8 billion years (Planck). This good agreement again strengthens my confidence in the accuracy of the result. Obviously I could be wrong. No doubt there will be more studies, both of Cepheid variables and of the microwave background, which will lead to adjustments in the accepted value of the Hubble constant.

The Hubble-Gaia conclusions were based on a different technique, the direct observation of Cepheid variable stars close to home and in remote galaxies. Cepheids pulsate in a predictable manner that indicates their true brightness. By observing the apparent brightness of a Cepheid in a distant galaxy, astronomers can compute how far away the star must be.

Gaia provided the most accurate data yet on 50 Cepheids in the Milky Way. That allowed the Hubble astronomers to carefully calibrate their observations of extra-galactic Cepheids.

Comparing the positions of those stars and galaxies with the expansion of space as indicated by the red shifting of light from nearby galaxies, Riess’ team was able to derive an outward velocity at different points and from that, the Hubble constant.

“Gaia is the new gold standard for calibrating distance,” said Stefano Casertano of Space Telescope Science Institute. (space.com)