We start to be talkative and skillful

2009/05/23 Lakar Iraizoz, Oihane - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Eboluzioa
• Genetika
• Zoologia
• Paleontologia
• Arkeologia

Chimpanzees have greater limitations to acquire the knowledge necessary to use the basic tools. (Photo: Tim Parkinson )

Chimpanzees, for example, animals closest to us, are not able to speak. In their research, it has been observed that they have greater limitations in acquiring the knowledge necessary for the use of basic tools, such as the possibility of using a stone to break nuts. They have difficulty using tools to teach each other.

With the beginning of linguistic communication, human beings began to build increasingly complex tools. Thanks to the language, individuals were able to transmit that knowledge, which allowed them to have more and more complex knowledge.

Thus exposed, it seems that the ability to speak is independent of the rest of skills. However, research that is being carried out in recent times in this matter suggests that the relationship between capacities is superior to this. In an article written in the journal Nature, two researchers at the University of Budapest, EÃ>tv??s Loránd, affirm that we simultaneously develop different traits of human intelligence.

Apparently, we develop simultaneously, among other things, the ability to speak and the ability to make tools.

Intelligence in the genes

Human beings have been able to develop all our capacities thanks to intelligence. It allows us to speak, communicate, create tools and organize ourselves in complex societies. All this we learn as we grow and grow, but our body, in itself, has to have certain characteristics in order to develop these skills. In fact, intelligence, and all the characteristics associated with it, are natural phenomena that emerged at a specific time of evolution.

Experts have been studying the genes that are found after the ability to speak for ten years. Of course, there is no gene that enables us to speak, or enables us to make tools. Genes can have several functions, some provide information to produce proteins, others perform regulatory tasks, that is, they drive or prevent the start-up of other genes, etc.

Communication through words is fundamental, that is what makes us, among other things, a human being.

The ability to speak is more than a protein. It is a very complex mechanism, a puzzle with many pieces. For example, in 2001 it was discovered that a gene called FOXP2 had a huge influence on speaking ability. In fact, they saw that a London family with great difficulty speaking was affected by the gene.

When analyzing the gene itself, they saw that their function is to launch other genes. Today we know that FOXP2 affects 285 genera. In addition, scientists have seen that all animals, plants, and fungi have that gene. In the human being not only affects the ability to speak, but it is also expressed in guts, heart, lungs, etc. This means that the gene's obligation is fundamental and goes far beyond the ability to speak.

It seems that, in addition, several research has found that people with speaking ability problems also have problems in other behaviors. Therefore, what scientists who have written in the journal Nature suggest can be true, that is, the anatomical characteristics that made us capable of speaking gave us the ability to make tools. And vice versa.

Published in Ortzadar