Evolutionary psychologists believe the human brain evolved dozens of specialized "modules" (to perform specific tasks, like "liar detection" and "mate selection") that helped us to survive as a species. Humans evolved a "language acquisition" module some 200,000 years ago, they say, since without it we would be unable to speak and learn complex grammar.
Later abilities, such as the ability to read, were built as side-effects on top of existing modules. Since writing was only developed 5,000 years ago, that is too recent for the brain to have evolved a special module for reading.
Taking this argument one step further, do we really believe that language ability itself developed for the first time in humans some 200,000 years ago? Or is it also a side-effect of other modules that evolved millions or even billions of years ago, before organisms even had neurons and brains and minds. All they had then was their DNA, with viruses transferring some DNA back and forth between them.
The first cellular organisms evolved on earth some 3,600,000,000 years ago. There were no multi-cellular organisms on earth for the first 3 billion years, only arriving a mere 600 million years ago. Primates (monkeys) evolved only 55 million years ago, which is but a blink in time, compared to the history of life on earth.
So my theory is that many (if not all) mental modules are actually built upon abilities which evolved many millions (or billions) of years earlier, when we were still single or multi-cellular organisms. Specifically, I think the ability to plan and design things (including our own evolution) may be billions of years old. The interesting question will be figuring out how these DNA-based modules were able to transfer their capability to neuron-based modules in the brain.
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