Animal Culture

Psalm 26:7
“That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works.”

Language is an important part of culture. As the theory of evolution was being developed, evolutionists were quite successful in convincing people that language, education and culture separated humans, whom they described as animals, from other animals. After all, they reasoned, we are evolutionarily much more advanced than animals, and that’s why we have language and traditions.

We know from the Bible’s description of humans and animals that evolutionists are wrong on all counts. Additional support for this comes as naturalists learn that animals not only have language but also have a learned culture, which they teach to the next generation.

A study of white crowned sparrows in the San Francisco Bay area shows that the sparrows’ songs from one area to another are very much alike, but they have different dialects. Sparrows from opposite ends of the same town may even have variations in their songs. Researchers have found that young sparrows experiment with a variety of sounds – just as human babies babble. But they learn their song in the dialect of the adults around them. Likewise, each dialect group has its own unique variations on the mating ritual, to which only birds from the same dialect group respond. Dozens of birds are known to have dialects.

We now know that many birds learn their language from their parents and culture, just as do human infants. Language and culture are clearly not the result of our evolutionary progress but the gift of our Creator!

Prayer:
Dear Lord, You have given us so many things that we take for granted. Help me never to take for granted your forgiving grace to me. Help me always to live in highest thanksgiving to You. Amen.

Notes:
Gould, Carol Grant, 1983, “Out of the mouths of beasts.” Science 83, April, p. 69.