Replies

"‘Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world ... There is no reason to suppose that the ‘gaps’ are bridgeable. There is no more of a basis for assuming an evolutionary development from breathing to walking.’"

Interesting that you quote Chomsky from 1972, 33 years ago. You'd have gotten a very different response from him in more recent years. We've discovered that a wide range of animals use language. They're not as good at it as we are, of course, but use it they do. I suspect Chomsky would have been very interested in that research.

You see, that's the problem with using old quotes. They're out of date.

Here's what Chomsky wrote in 1995, somewhat later than your earlier quote. You'll need to read this closely. Chomsky is an obtuse sort of writer:

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, alternatives have since been proposed, illustrating the same point). In general, when we consider the space of physical possibilities and specific contingencies, the apparent difficulty "even to imagine a course of evolution that might have given rise to [language or wings]" may be overcome.

We've discovered that a wide range of animals use language. They're not as good at it as we are, of course, but use it they do. I suspect Chomsky would have been very interested in that research.

Chomsky made a lot of ant-evolution statements in the 1970's. It goes back to his feud with B.F. Skinner. Skinner proposed that evolution and animal learning were commensurate, the same phenomenon with different infrastructures. He wrote a 900 page tome explaining how human language could be learned, essentially through natural selection. Chomsky pretty much destroyed the notion that language was learned on a blank slate.

Unfortunately for Chomsky, that left evolution to account for the language learning structures in the brain, and evolution, according to Skinner, is the same process as learning. So Chomsky went on record denying that animals had any language facility at all, and whatever humans had was too complex to have evolved.

It's interesting to see old scientific feuds playing out over the decades. My first exposure to Chomsky was reading an article of his denouncing evolution. That was long before I heard about his politics.

Interesting that you quote Chomsky from 1972, 33 years ago. You'd have gotten a very different response from him in more recent years. We've discovered that a wide range of animals use language. They're not as good at it as we are, of course, but use it they do.

The degree of difference is in kind. Animals do not have the software or the hardware for language in the sense that humans do. The difference is fundamental, not just in degree. Not to denigrate them, but animals do not have a special region in the brain devoted to language and they lack the anatomy to speak the words they may think. Animals don't ask questions. The animals that can learn and even use some aspects of human language can only do so because of the environment provided by their human trainers.

‘So this is the real mystery. Even under these loosened criteria, there are no simple languages used among other species, though there are many other equally or more complicated modes of communication. Why not? And the problem is even more counterintuitive when we consider the almost insurmountable difficulties of teaching language to other species. This is surprising, because there are many clever species. Though researchers report that language-like communication has been taught to nonhuman species, even the best results are not above legitimate challenges, and the fact that it is difficult to prove whether or not some of these efforts have succeeded attests to the rather limited scope of the resulting behaviors, as well as to deep disagreements about what exactly constitutes language-like behavior.’
Deacon, T., The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain, W.W. Norton, New York, p. 25, 1997.

Cordially,