Languages and Genes: Can They be Built up through Random Change and Natural Selection?

Abstract

Can natural selection operating on random arrangements of material building blocks (i.e., subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, and larger collections and structures of matter), produce the genomes of all living things, the human language capacity, and all of the world's 6000 plus natural languages? There are two polar views on this question that are widely held by practicing scientists. At one extreme there is the neo-Darwinian claim that chance aided by natural selection can arrange dynamic information systems as they are now. At the other end there is the view that a transcendent Intelligence not limited by matter, space, and time is required. Here an argument is presented from logico-mathematical proofs developed in theoretical semiotics to show unequivocally that the known symbol systems seen in genomes and in human languages cannot be produced by chance arrangements of any kind of material building blocks. The argument is general. It applies to all possible symbol systems, though the emphasis here is on the genetic system evidently underlying all living organisms and the human language capacity, which is manifested in the multitude of natural languages.