Creation Moment 10/26/2024 - What do the Mouth of babes teach us?

"A fascinating article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explores the amazing ability of infants to acquire language skills, identify words, and recognize syntax. 

 

A couple of quotes from the paper are sufficient to arouse awe:

"Imagine that you are faced with the following challenge. You must discover the internal structure of a system that contains tens of

thousands of units, all generated from a small set of materials. These units, in turn, can be assembled into an infinite number of combinations. Although only a subset of those combinations is correct, the subset itself is for all practical purposes infinite. Somehow you must converge on the structure of this system to use it to communicate. And you are a very young child. This system is human language. The units are words, the materials are the small set of sounds from which they are constructed, and the combinations are the sentences into which they can be assembled. Given the complexity of this system, it seems improbable that mere children could discover its underlying structure and use it to communicate. Yet most do so with eagerness and ease, all within the first few years of life."

The researchers ran experiments with infants presented with artificial languages interspersed with subtle elements of surprise to see how they adapted to novel elements. They also investigated a Nicaraguan school for deaf children who were learning sign language. A review of the literature revealed no commonly accepted evolutionary explanation for the remarkable ability of children to acquire language. 

The authors conclude:

"These examples of language learning, processing, and creation represent just a few of the many developments between birth and

linguistic maturity. During this period, children discover the raw materials in the sounds (or gestures) of their language, learn how they are assembled into longer strings, and map these combinations onto meaning. These processes unfold simultaneously, requiring children to integrate their capacities as they learn, to crack the code of communication that surrounds them. Despite layers of complexity, each currently beyond the reach of modern computers, young children readily solve the linguistic puzzles facing them, even surpassing their input when it lacks the expected structure.

No less determined, researchers are assembling a variety of methodologies to uncover the mechanisms underlying language acquisition . . . . As these techniques and others probing the child’s mind are developed and their findings integrated, they will reveal the child’s solution to the puzzle of learning a language."

The gap between humans and animals is more than just biological.  Unlike the animals, we have the ability to communicate meaning, not just signals, and to form relationships based on mutual love and understanding.

Evolutionists strive to package humanness into a materialistic box that is too small for it. 

---King David, in Psalm 8, said, “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, because of Your enemies, that You may silence the enemy and the avenger.” 

---The enemies today are the materialists who would rob God of His honor as Creator, and who would ascribe His wonders to chance. The strength He has ordained is the powerful evidence of nature. Look no farther than the feeble infant in a mother’s arms, focusing its little eyes and ears on her every gentle word." 

CEH