The Evolution of Language

Somewhere along the Thames in London

Just finished reading this article titled "The Evolution of Language: What songbirds, dancing, and knot-tying can tell us about why we speak" on the Seed website. I subscribe to Seed print magazine. The tag line is "Science is Culture." It usually has very interesting articles, more science than culture, but clearly shows the relations between the two (more than does Wired, for instance, which is more techie than scientific, and isn't "meta" enough to realize that technology isn't culture).

Please read the article and see what you think. Quotes from the article are in double-quotes, followed by my comments - tell me what you think:

“If innate, language must be genetic.” Only half right. This premise supposes the assumption that consciousness and all its faculties arise only from a stimulated organism. My comments below suggest a prima faciae case for this being false. Further, if it was “hardwired within us from conception” then we’d be stuck as with our hair color and predilection to specific diseases. Language, and language development in the individual, are nothing like these genetic traits.

“In a sense, language is universal.” In what sense? In fact, the only “sense” of universal that makes sense is “not essentially tied to the individual or genetics”. Thus "universal" and "genetic" are contradictory, or "universal" simply means.... I don't know what.

“the only species with the ability for what may rightly be called language” This is either patently false, or requires a detailed definition of language, one that doesn't entirely depend on genetics - otherwise, the claim that "language is innate and therefore genetic" is viciously circular.

“the remarkable possibilities of language? If speech…” This equates language with speech - a very debatable claim.

Why does the author proceed on the patently false claim that only humans have language? Thus, to him, we have a “quasi-paradox” in that other species share much of the same biochemistry, yet don’t have language? Three possibilities: other species DO have language; language is not based on DNA; both of these together.

“Knot-tying, dancing, and typing, for instance, are all part of the unique equation that gave rise to language.” Are we talking Lamarckism here? These human activities effected the genome? Otherwise, again, these are simply phenotypes of an existing genotype.

“Most damning for its role as the language gene…” This is an obsession of unimaginative molecular biologists (not all molecular biologists) – that there is one gene for every trait, and each trait has one gene responsible for it.

"Finches do not just imitate one another; they are creative, and compose parts for their own songs. Again, this is not speech in any sense of the term, and to the best of our knowledge these songs have no patterns of meaning." The author really should come up with definitions from the start... What is speech then, if these learned, but also creative, finch songs aren't speech? Further, he has already (implicitly and debatably) equated speech with language, thus finches don't have language, because (presumably) language is not just learned, creative utterances. And finally, good grief, what is a "pattern of meaning"?

"The finch's FoxP2 differs from the human's in only eight out of 200,000 positions". Again, the quantitative obsession that equates "few" with "ineffectual" and "lots" with "effectual" (which is the simplistic assumption responsible for people being skeptical of homeopathy, among other facts). And thus I'm sure the author will be surprised when, in the upcoming sentences, this difference turns out to be effectual...

"but all indications are that Neanderthals also had meaningful thoughts, enough to bury their dead or control fire, without much of a language. What they don't have is a way to externalize their thoughts." But the author has already equated speech with language, ergo, no speech=no language. And now he's just pulled "thoughts" out of a hat. What are thoughts in relation to speech/language?

"Within a decade or two, these tasks could finally explain how we speak, at the genetic level." Yes, perhaps this tinkertoy genetic experimentation will tell us how our physical organism is regulated, but only if one equates speech with language does that tell us anything of substance about LANGUAGE. And it tells us nothing about thoughts and meaning.

The genetic hypotheses and experimentation - though I'm not sure I want to know what they're doing with the poor finches in order to get this information - are not the problem pieces. It is everything else - almost entirely everything else except the mere experimental design and genetic implications - that is debatable, spurious, or simply false.