Ok but how did each organism acquire this nature how

OK! But how did each organism acquire this nature? How did this nature arise in them? The very word
seems to imply a process that is natural, that is part of nature .
Man’s best guess to date is that they evolved, through a process called natural selection. And why can’t we
prove this out any better than has already been done? Because the only ones alive today are the survivors!
Those who were selected out have disappeared with only minute traces of them remaining to tease us about
who they were, and what they were. Some of these teasings occurred as a byproduct of the massive extinctions
evidenced in the geological record. Because these evidences are not complete does not argue against an
existence and chronology for those long- gone entities. “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!”
Berlinski goes on to critique another observation, “This is widely seen as offering dramatic confirmation of
Darwinian evolution. It is easy to see why. What is ‘innate’ in an organism, so it is claimed, reflects its genetic
endowment, and its genetic endowment reflects the long process in which random variations were sifted by a
stern and unforgiving environment.”
Exactly! Even though Berlin ski doesn’t seem to wholly agree with that postulation, the evidence of massive
extinctions in the geologic record seems to indicate that the environment has, at times, proven to be very
unforgiving.
And the scythe of extinction has swept most brutally among those large successful entities most well
adapted to a long stable environment that suddenly changed. The “mighty shall be brought down,” indeed!
Then he begins an attempt at refutation of that statement by adding, “If we are born with an ability to
ac quire a natural language…”
Wrong! Language is not a naturally acquired trait. To the opposite of the linguist Noam Chomsky, whom he
cites earlier, “Just as children are not taught to walk, they are not taught to speak.” Tell that to any mother or
father a nd they’ll laugh you out of the house!
The three most important requirements of survival are a food source, the ability to articulate emotional
states, and mobility. A human baby is said to be born with a sucking reflex, but in many cases this reflex
rema ins uncoordinated until the mother moistens the baby’s lips with milk and places the nipple in contact with
them. When it tastes food it learns with alacrity the coordination necessary to acquire a purposeful supply. But
still, it is largely a learned experience, as any mother will attest as she watches her infant so quickly increase the
efficiency of the suckling process. The organic structures are there but the coordination needed to use them is
learned.
In its first moment of awareness after birth, an infant is surrounded by upright creatures looking down upon
it, helplessly lying upon its back. Much later it will learn to crawl, and then walk. And all this time it is
surrounded with examples of upright posture, that it first desires to, then seeks to, emulate. All that it has been