It seems that the impression that Chomsky ". . . actively resists Darwinian
explanations for language, as if he prefers language's origins to remain
unknown and unknowable", is not accurate.

Evidence?

John Maynard Smith wrote a review of Daniel C. Dennett's book: ('Darwin's
Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life'), in  The New York
Review of Books(Nov. 30, 1995) in which he expresses the same impression.

Chomsky wrote a letter of the Journal (Feb.,1. 1996) in reply to Smith that
runs as follows:

"John Maynard Smith[NYR, November 30, 1995] quotes a phrase of mine that he
finds 'completely baffling' though 'typical of' what I say about evolution.
It is mere truism, as is clear when we restore the context, which he
virtually repeats.

Smith is referring to 1986 lectures of mine which (as often before) begin
with the assumption that language is part of 'shared biological endowment'
and can be studied in the manner of other biological systems. I pointed out
that 'evolutionary theory. . . has little to say, as of now,' about such
matters as language, and progress may require better understanding of 'what
kinds of physical systems can develop under the conditions of life on
earth,' exactly as in the study of evolution of the visual system, for
example. One research direction is suggested by cases in which 'organs
develop to serve one purpose, and, when they have reached a certain form in
the evolutionary process, became available for different purposes, at which
point the processes of natural selection may refine them further for these
purposes' (well-known proposals about evolution of insect wings are
mentioned as a possible illustration; irrelevantly, altenatives have since
been proposed, illustrating the same point). In general, when we consider
the space of physical possibilities and specefic contingencies, the apparent
difficulty 'even to imagine a course of evolution that might have given rise
to [language or wings]' may be overcome.

Smith cites only the last phrase quoted, misreading it as placing language
and wings outside the scope of evolutionary theory -- 'baffling' no doubt,
and exactly the opposite of what the passage unambiguously states, which he
then repeats, noting that the apparent difficulty of imagining a course of
evolution might be overcome by recognizing that organs 'usually arise. . .
as modifications of preexisting organs with different functions,' as in the
illustration I gave to make just that point. He then advises 'Chomsky's
students, if not the great man himself,' that 'linguistics cannot ignore
biology'; or to put it more strongly, that the 'language organ' can be
studied in the manner of other biological systems. It's nice to have the
acquiescence of another distinguished evolutionary biologist, though one
might think of a different way to express it.

The frantic efforts to 'defend Darwin's dangerous idea' from evil forces
that regard it as neither 'dangerous' nor even particularly controversial,
at this level of discussion, hardly merit comment. Perhaps it is possible to
disentangle issues worth discussion. Only under quite different ground
rules, however."

As for John Maynard Smith, he wrote a short reply to this letter in the same
issue of NYR:

"I am delighted that Professor Chomsky agrees that the origin of language,
like that of other complex organs, must ultimately be explained in Darwinian
terms, as result of natural selection. If I have misinterpreted his earlier
writings on this topic, I am sorry, although in self-defense I must add that
the remark of his that I quoted does not readily bear the interpretation he
now places on it. However, the important thing now is that the way is open
for linguists and geneticists to work together on the origin of linguistic
competency, both in evolution and in individual development."


Hamza Al-Mozainy


----- Original Message -----
From: Tresy Kilbourne <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2000 10:18 PM
Subject: [CHOMSKY] Darwin and Chomsky


> So last night I attended a reading and book signing for William Calvin's
new
> book (with Derek Bickerton), "Lingua ex Machina: Reconciling Darwin and
> Chomsky with the Human Brain." Although Prof. Calvin's talk was lopsided
> towards an unnecessary and somewhat self-regarding recapitulation of his
> bibliographic resume, and consequently short on discussion of the book
> itself, his talk was relaxed yet focussed, and straddled the academic and
> non-academic worlds with admirable skill. If the rather short book--which
I
> am only just starting--maintains that achievement it should be a useful
> addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in following the Chomskyan
> Revolution (what Calvin refers to drolly as the "principal intellectual
> spectator sport of the last 40 years").
>
> The starting point of the book is not novel. In fact, it's the central
> paradox of Chomsky's contribution to the understanding of language: if
> Universal Grammar is an innate biological endowment of the human organism,
> as it plainly is, where the hell did it come from? That is, how does one
> explain it in evolutionary terms?
>
> This is not a simple exercise. Under Darwinism, gradualism rules
> evolutionary theory; random mutations do not spontaneously generate
entirely
> new, complex biological strutctures overnight. Rather, incremental changes
> in DNA structure are retained because of their survival value, and if
enough
> of them occur over time, more complex, and sometimes biologically
> unnecessary skills and abilities develop laterally; case in point, music.
> Bird wings are also thought to have started out as appendages for keeping
> their dinosaur ancestors warm, until they got long enough to serve their
> present purpose. (To any bona fide evolutionary biologists or linguists
> reading this, please forgive any terminological solecisms I commit in this
> summary.) But Darwinism simply does not admit "macromutations" that skip
> over intermediate developmental stages to highly complex structures such
as
> a "language organ" or a bird's wing. Not that unspecified and unexplained
> "macromutations" have NOT been advanced to "explain" high-level language
> ability in humans; apparently any number of such explanations have been.
But
> Calvin and Bickerton regard this as a form of deus ex machina--a cheat
that
> avoids the problem rather than explaining it. (I get the sense that they
are
> far from alone in this opinion.)
>
> Calvin did not try to summarize their book, but instead gave a taste of
> their approach. Like the Chomskyan Steven Pinker, whose books on cognitive
> psychology delight in a colloquial approach to his subject, Calvin
deployed
> a number of ordinary analogies to get at their methodology. The principal
> one was that of "curb cuts," the cutaways built into curbs some decades
ago
> to accommodate wheelchairs. Although curbcuts initially served one simple
> purpose--to provide access for wheelchairs--they quickly came to serve
other
> purposes, such as strollers, which didn't have to "pay" for the
development,
> nor which would have justified them, and helped spur the development of
> things like wheeled suitcases, that might never have become ubiquitous
> without them.
>
> So, what are the possible curbcuts that helped midwife (horribly mangled
> metaphor here, sorry) the emergence of Universal Grammar in humans(as
> distinct from the relatively easily explained, "proto-language" of single
> words and phrases that lack a recursive syntax)?
>
> Calvin only mentioned two.
>
> One, which no doubt would find fertile soil on a list like this, is
> cooperative behavior in early human society. That is, the development of a
> complex language would exploit the manifold survival advantages of group
> cooperation. The reason advanced by Calvin and Bickerton, however, is
rather
> less New Agey than this simple assertion might seem. The immediate
objection
> to any kind of evolutionary theory of complex cooperative social
arrangement
> is the Freeloader Problem. Simply put, if the individual can get something
> out of the system without putting something in, it's in the individual's
> survival interest to do so. Lacking any restraint on freeloading,
therefore,
> a form of social organization that relies on altruism alone from its
members
> is doomed to fail. (Pinker discusses the rather cynical strategies of
> potlatch cultures and the like that have evolved for precisely this
reason.
> Adherents of "libertarian socialism," as as I can see, avoid the issue
> entirely.)
>
> High-level language would solve this problem, in an evolutionist's view,
by
> allowing members to keep accounts of who owed what to whom. Provocatively,
> "who owes what to whom" is deep structure grammar at its simplest:
> Subject-->Action-->Goal. Therefore, an evolutionary nudge to this stage
> would have survival value while setting the stage for increasingly
> sophisticated elaboration of syntactical structures, all without violating
> Darwinist principles.
>
> The second possible curbcut Calvin mentioned was Planning. That is, there
is
> survival value in being able to plan a complex action before carrying it
> out, especially if it's a crucial, non-repeatable action such as throwing
a
> spear at your dinner. (Miss, and it runs away.) Language, to the extent
that
> it is synonymous with thought, would allow early man to plan such actions,
> thus increasing their likelihood of success and thus possessing survival
> value.
>
> Unmentioned by Calvin was at least one more explanatory mechanism: war. In
> "The Nurture Assumption" Judith Rich Harris cites research suggesting that
> homo sapiens may have developed language (or at least, intelligence, which
> I'm not sure are one and the same or not) as a weapon for enthusiastically
> exterminating the peace-loving (and consequently extinct) Neanderthals.
> Perhaps this explanation also falls under Planning, and so is redundant.
> Then again, perhaps it's too unpleasant to think about (not the least of
> which reasons being it turns Chomsky into a quasi-student of warfare).
> Anyway, I thought it worth mentioning.
>
> I have problems with both of Calvin's curbcuts--not that he offered them
as
> the only possible, self-evident explanations for the problem of Universal
> Grammar. However, I would much rather save my objections until some kind
of
> real discussion develops (if I'm lucky).
>
> Where does Chomsky stand on this problem? Answer: he's agnostic, at least
if
> you follow Calvin's characterization of Chomsky's position. That is, he
> doesn't have an opinion on the subject, and he doesn't particularly care
> about the answer. His interest lies in the question of "what?," not "why?"
> That is, Chomsky studies the structure of spoken language to uncover the
> underlying deep structure that generates it. No one seems to mind.
Moroever,
> as Bickerton writes, "one man can't do everything." Indeed. However, in
> Pinker one gets the impression that Chomsky actively resists Darwinian
> explanations for language, as if he prefers language's origins to remain
> unknown and unknowable. If so, that seems like an unscientific attitude,
one
> worthy of some discusion.
>
> That said, I end this little report from the trenches of the linguistics
> wars. Anyone with any comments/observations, please contribute them. I
look
> forward to new directions in the list discussion.
>
> PS The book is easily located on Amazon.com, and is the ninth and latest
of
> Calvin's books on the brain.