E.T. Talk by Fernando J. Ballesteros

Author:Fernando J. Ballesteros
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer New York, New York, NY

Vervet Communications

If we can find animals in nature whose system of communication shares some characteristics with ours, especially if these animals show clear signs of intelligence, we will have an argument supporting the idea that we need a symbolic language for intelligent communication. This would be a question of evolutionary convergence. If this occurs it is because such common characteristics are somehow favored by natural selection and entail a certain adaptive advantage for the species that possesses them. In short, for similar problems, natural selection provides similar solutions for different species.

There are many examples of evolutionary convergence on our planet. Look at the case of wings that very different types of flying animals, such as insects, birds, extinct flying reptiles, and bats possess, or how so many different aquatic animals, including the dolphin (a mammal), the shark (a fish), or the missing reptile ichthyosaurus share the same aerodynamic form. Therefore, it is likely that if we find the same driving solutions in different animal species on Earth, we will also find wings and aerodynamic forms in the fauna of other worlds. Likewise, if in our world we can find common characteristics in communication systems among beings with a certain intelligence, it will be more likely that we find the same characteristics in the communication system of an intelligent extraterrestrial species.

As we have seen before, one of the defining characteristics of human symbolic language is the use of words. Do we find something equivalent to words in animal languages? The vervet monkey is a small cercopithecus with a black face that lives in the African savanna. Vervets form a group of primates that have a very cooperative social structure. As with other species living in open areas, when vervet monkeys are eating in the savanna, there is always one on watch, up on a high place, in order to locate possible predators and to alert the others in time (Fig. 7.1).

Fig. 7.1Vervet monkey: a notable chatterbox. Courtesy of William H. Calvin, University of Washington

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