Over at Evolution News & Views, Casey Luskin reports on a paper in which leading scientists of evolution admit that there is no satisfactory explanation for the origin of human language.
(No? Not baby chimp arm-waving or monkeys throwing poop? Oh well, another thesis awaits the next download of science PRs.
Here’s the abstract:
Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved. We show that, to date, (1) studies of nonhuman animals provide virtually no relevant parallels to human linguistic communication, and none to the underlying biological capacity; (2) the fossil and archaeological evidence does not inform our understanding of the computations and representations of our earliest ancestors, leaving details of origins and selective pressure unresolved; (3) our understanding of the genetics of language is so impoverished that there is little hope of connecting genes to linguistic processes anytime soon; (4) all modeling attempts have made unfounded assumptions, and have provided no empirical tests, thus leaving any insights into language’s origins unverifiable. Based on the current state of evidence, we submit that the most fundamental questions about the origins and evolution of our linguistic capacity remain as mysterious as ever, with considerable uncertainty about the discovery of either relevant or conclusive evidence that can adjudicate among the many open hypotheses. (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, “The mystery of language evolution<http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00401/abstract>,” Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014) Open access here.
Note, however: The first author is disgraced Marc “monkeys talk to me” Hauser, who seems to be climbing back into the good graces of the academic world.
All that said, see also: Can we talk? Language as the business end of consciousness (for a brief outline of the problems). More later.
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