Birds with Vocal Learning Display a Talent Superior to Monkeys

Although animal trainers and investigators since the seventeenth century have tried to teach chimpanzees to talk, no chimpanzee has ever managed it. A chimpanzee's sound-producing anatomy is simply too different from that of humans. Chimpanzees might be able to produce a muffled approximation of human speech-if their brains could plan and execute the necessary articulate maneuvers. But to do this, they would have to have our brains, which they obviously do not.38

As noted, some birds' ability to imitate sounds renders the "evolutionary tree," one of the evolutionists' most important claims, meaningless from another angle. The fact is, a parrot bears no physical resemblance to a human; yet if it has an ability such as speech requiring a high level of intelligence. This does not conform to any evolutionary model. According to the evolutionists, chimpanzees are just a step or two below humans on the said evolutionary tree. But the high level of consciousness and ability to mimic sounds that talking birds demonstrate, disprove the evolutionists' claims.


According to evolutionists, chimpanzees are just one step below humans in the so-called evolutionary tree. Nevertheless, the fact that a parrot, bearing no physical resemblance to a human, has the ability to speak-which requires such a high level of intelligence-does not conform to any evolutionary model.

Syrinx (the voice box of a bird)

Larynx (the voice box of a human)
Defenders of evolution are well aware that from the perspective of their theories, talking birds present a great difficulty. Another troublesome aspect for the evolutionists is related to the root of intelligence in birds. If birds, as evolution suggests, are less developed than the primates, then how have they, in spite of their tiny brains, suddenly managed to acquire this talent that primates-above them in the imaginary evolutionary tree-do not yet have? The Mynah bird, a member of the crow family, can also imitate human speech, but primates cannot. When evolutionists try to provide an explanation for this, they attribute the primate's inability to speak to its different laryngeal structures. However, this explanation is by no means adequate. Birds' laryngeal structures certainly do not resemble ours, but thanks to the ability God has given them, they can imitate human speech with ease. W. H. Thorpe, a Cambridge University zoologist and known authority on the subject, invalidates this claim of the evolutionists:

"How is it that an animal with this can talk?" he would say: "It is utterly impossible" 39

As we noted, certain birds' God-given talent is one of the important refutations of evolutionists' explanations. However different these birds' laryngeal structures may be, God has created them with an ability to speak in a way that fills us with admiration. It should not be forgotten that our Lord is the incomparable Creator; and it is by His will that "He has given speech to everything." (Qur'an, 41:21)

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  • 38.Philip Lieberman, "Peak Capacity," The Sciences, 37:27, November/ December, 1997.
  • 39http://members.aol.com/rmallott2/origin.htm; The Origin of Language:The General Problem, Cracow, 1986; Thorpe, W.H., "Animal vocalisation and communication. In Brain Mechanisms Underlying Speech and Language," Grune & Stratton, New York, 1967, pp. 11