Humans as Non-Animal: Can any inferences be drawn?

[untermensche]

 

[Politesse]

Chomsky proposes that a single gene mutation caused a "rewiring" of the brain. A gene that controlled a lot of other genes changed and caused cells to arrange themselves very differently.

He proposes that this rewiring did not initially create a language. It initially ordered thoughts and allowed the animal with the mutation to think better.

Because this gene caused the animal to think better the animals with it eventually dominated.

The rewiring, he calls it the language capacity, is what allows a person to learn a language at an age they can't learn much else.

Chomsky also claims that since there are only individual and not group differences in language acquisition abilities the language capacity has not evolved since it appeared.

With, of course, no actual evidence to support his hypothesis. Why does Evo Psych attract all the armchair speculators?

 

[untermensche]

Chomsky proposes that a single gene mutation caused a "rewiring" of the brain. A gene that controlled a lot of other genes changed and caused cells to arrange themselves very differently.

He proposes that this rewiring did not initially create a language. It initially ordered thoughts and allowed the animal with the mutation to think better.

Because this gene caused the animal to think better the animals with it eventually dominated.

The rewiring, he calls it the language capacity, is what allows a person to learn a language at an age they can't learn much else.

Chomsky also claims that since there are only individual and not group differences in language acquisition abilities the language capacity has not evolved since it appeared.

With, of course, no actual evidence to support his hypothesis. Why does Evo Psych attract all the armchair speculators?

There is no evidence about how the language ability arose.

It is all speculation.

Chomsky is far from an armchair spectator.

He has his reasons. No living human understands language better than Chomsky.

 

[Politesse]

Chomsky proposes that a single gene mutation caused a "rewiring" of the brain. A gene that controlled a lot of other genes changed and caused cells to arrange themselves very differently.

He proposes that this rewiring did not initially create a language. It initially ordered thoughts and allowed the animal with the mutation to think better.

Because this gene caused the animal to think better the animals with it eventually dominated.

The rewiring, he calls it the language capacity, is what allows a person to learn a language at an age they can't learn much else.

Chomsky also claims that since there are only individual and not group differences in language acquisition abilities the language capacity has not evolved since it appeared.

With, of course, no actual evidence to support his hypothesis. Why does Evo Psych attract all the armchair speculators?

There is no evidence about how the language ability arose.

It is all speculation.

Chomsky is far from an armchair spectator.

He has his reasons. No living human understands language better than Chomsky.

I'm certain Chomsky himself would make no such claim. Don't deify men, it leads to navel-gazing.

 

[untermensche]

There is no evidence about how the language ability arose.

It is all speculation.

Chomsky is far from an armchair spectator.

He has his reasons. No living human understands language better than Chomsky.

I'm certain Chomsky himself would make no such claim. Don't deify men, it leads to navel-gazing.

Chomsky turned linguistics into a science.

As a science it has moved out in many directions.

There is a lot more to linguistics besides Chomsky now because people are free to explore what they want to explore.

But here is a video of Chomsky addressing a group of modern highly intelligent scientists and telling them they are not doing anything productive in terms of understanding language acquisition. He's about 84 years old in this video. I don't think he could do this today. He has slowed somewhat in his 90's.



If you don't know Chomsky well you don't understand language as well as you could. He is not everything but he is crucial.

 

[Bomb#20]

Chomsky turned linguistics into a science.

Linguistics has been a science since William Jones et al. discovered the Indo-European language family in the late 1700s.

 

[Politesse]

I have enormous respect for Noam Chomsky, and it is certainly true that his work on structural linguistics and that of his disciples has greatly influenced the past 60 years of research in that field. But he is a scientist, not a demigod, and though tenacious (even dogged) like any scientist he cheerfully invites critique and commentary on his hypotheses. Science when functional is a community of shared discovery, not an autocracy. I had the opportunity to attend a public address of his some years ago (a very enjoyable evening) and can testify that he most certainly did not make any attempt to supplant or replace his linguist forebears as you have done. Genetics, in particular, and paleobiology, are not fields in which Dr. Chomsky has any advanced training nor has contributed any work, so I am less inclined to take his opinions on those matters as authoritative.

 

[untermensche]

Chomsky turned linguistics into a science.

Linguistics has been a science since William Jones et al. discovered the Indo-European language family in the late 1700s.

Nope.

 

[untermensche]

I have enormous respect for Noam Chomsky, and it is certainly true that his work on structural linguistics and that of his disciples has greatly influenced the past 60 years of research in that field. But he is a scientist, not a demigod, and though tenacious (even dogged) like any scientist he cheerfully invites critique and commentary on his hypotheses. Science when functional is a community of shared discovery, not an autocracy. I had the opportunity to attend a public address of his some years ago (a very enjoyable evening) and can testify that he most certainly did not make any attempt to supplant or replace his linguist forebears as you have done. Genetics, in particular, and paleobiology, are not fields in which Dr. Chomsky has any advanced training nor has contributed any work, so I am less inclined to take his opinions on those matters as authoritative.

I never said Chomsky doesn't welcome criticism.

I never came close to making any exaggeration in terms of his importance.

This is pure non sequitur.

 

[Bomb#20]

Chomsky turned linguistics into a science.

Linguistics has been a science since William Jones et al. discovered the Indo-European language family in the late 1700s.

Nope.

Good argument.

 

[untermensche]

Nope.

Good argument.

Why is Chomsky called the father of modern linguistics?

 

[Politesse]

Nope.

Good argument.

Why is Chomsky called the father of modern linguistics?

You say you aren't deifying him, but you are appealing to a grandiose title awarded by his students rather than to the content of his argument as pertains to the topic of the thread, that is, the development of uniquely human language.

 

[Bomb#20]

Nope.

Good argument.

Why is Chomsky called the father of modern linguistics?

Better argument. Still not a good argument.

In the first place, Galileo is called the father of science. Are we supposed to infer that Copernicus wasn't a scientist? "The father of X" is an honorific handed out to people who make important advances in a field. Changing a field from non-science to science isn't the only advance important enough to rate the honor. See "List of people considered father or mother of a scientific field". As you'll note, it's a bloody long list.

In the second place, modern linguistics already had a father before Chomsky was even born. The notion that Saussure wasn't doing science is ludicrous.

And in the third place, linguistics is a broad field with many subspecializations. Chomsky did a lot for the study of syntax and child language acquisition, but not much for comparative linguistics. When people call him the father of linguistics, that's just them parochially regarding the specializations Chomsky paid attention to as worthier than the ones he didn't.

 

[untermensche]

Why is Chomsky called the father of modern linguistics?

You say you aren't deifying him, but you are appealing to a grandiose title awarded by his students rather than to the content of his argument as pertains to the topic of the thread, that is, the development of uniquely human language.

His students did not give him that name.

Biography of Noam Chomsky, Writer and Father of Modern Linguistics

https://www.thoughtco.com/noam-chomsky-4769113

Noam Chomsky – ‘The Father of Modern Linguistics’

https://www.immerse.education/articles/noam-chomsky-the-father-of-modern-linguistics/

Noam Chomsky: The Father of Modern Linguistics.

http://www.modlingua.com/blogs/1349-noam-chomsky-the-father-of-modern-linguistics.html

About Noam Chomsky

Considered the founder of modern linguistics

https://linguistics.arizona.edu/user/noam-chomsky

Right now there is only one thing we know for certain.

You have no clue why Chomsky is called the father of modern linguistics.

 

[untermensche]

Why is Chomsky called the father of modern linguistics?

Better argument. Still not a good argument.

In the first place, Galileo is called the father of science. Are we supposed to infer that Copernicus wasn't a scientist? "The father of X" is an honorific handed out to people who make important advances in a field. Changing a field from non-science to science isn't the only advance important enough to rate the honor. See "List of people considered father or mother of a scientific field". As you'll note, it's a bloody long list.

In the second place, modern linguistics already had a father before Chomsky was even born. The notion that Saussure wasn't doing science is ludicrous.

And in the third place, linguistics is a broad field with many subspecializations. Chomsky did a lot for the study of syntax and child language acquisition, but not much for comparative linguistics. When people call him the father of linguistics, that's just them parochially regarding the specializations Chomsky paid attention to as worthier than the ones he didn't.

You are simply ignoring the facts.

Chomsky is considered the father of modern linguistics by many people.

And you have no idea why.

 

[Politesse]

His students did not give him that name.

Biography of Noam Chomsky, Writer and Father of Modern Linguistics

https://www.thoughtco.com/noam-chomsky-4769113

Noam Chomsky – ‘The Father of Modern Linguistics’

https://www.immerse.education/articles/noam-chomsky-the-father-of-modern-linguistics/

Noam Chomsky: The Father of Modern Linguistics.

http://www.modlingua.com/blogs/1349-noam-chomsky-the-father-of-modern-linguistics.html

About Noam Chomsky

Considered the founder of modern linguistics

https://linguistics.arizona.edu/user/noam-chomsky

Right now there is only one thing we know for certain.

You have no clue why Chomsky is called the father of modern linguistics.

If you did, you'd be explaining generative grammar to us instead of expecting platitudes to serve in place of empirical evidence. Seriously, this aside is only relevant to the OP if we take it back in the direction of the tangible evidence that exists for the development of complex language.

 

[untermensche]

His students did not give him that name.



https://www.thoughtco.com/noam-chomsky-4769113



https://www.immerse.education/articles/noam-chomsky-the-father-of-modern-linguistics/

Noam Chomsky: The Father of Modern Linguistics.

http://www.modlingua.com/blogs/1349-noam-chomsky-the-father-of-modern-linguistics.html

About Noam Chomsky

Considered the founder of modern linguistics

https://linguistics.arizona.edu/user/noam-chomsky

Right now there is only one thing we know for certain.

You have no clue why Chomsky is called the father of modern linguistics.

If you did, you'd be explaining generative grammar to us instead of expecting platitudes to serve in place of empirical evidence. Seriously, this aside is only relevant to the OP if we take it back in the direction of the tangible evidence that exists for the development of complex language.

So now you understand it?

I don't think so.

He is not called the father of modern linguistics because of any specific theory he devised.

He changed the way language was looked at.

He made the field scientific.

 

[Politesse]

His students did not give him that name.



https://www.thoughtco.com/noam-chomsky-4769113



https://www.immerse.education/articles/noam-chomsky-the-father-of-modern-linguistics/



http://www.modlingua.com/blogs/1349-noam-chomsky-the-father-of-modern-linguistics.html

About Noam Chomsky

Considered the founder of modern linguistics

https://linguistics.arizona.edu/user/noam-chomsky

Right now there is only one thing we know for certain.

You have no clue why Chomsky is called the father of modern linguistics.

If you did, you'd be explaining generative grammar to us instead of expecting platitudes to serve in place of empirical evidence. Seriously, this aside is only relevant to the OP if we take it back in the direction of the tangible evidence that exists for the development of complex language.

So now you understand it?

I don't think so.

He is not called the father of modern linguistics because of any specific theory he devised.

He changed the way language was looked at.

He made the field scientific.

Your post is internally contradictory; one's theories are not irrelevant to one's practice of science. And what do you even mean by "made the field scientific"? It was already scientific, and if it were not, making it such is not something a single person working alone could possibly do as independent reproducibility is key to any scientific endeavor and indeed the definition of science itself.

Chomsky is justifiably respected for a number of reasons, but the development of the generative grammar methodology, and to a lesser extent the connected explanatory hypothesis of universal grammar, are his principal achievements and those for which he is (quite rightly) commonly respected by other linguists, along with the more practical reality that his work revivified interest in a then-languishing field and recruited a lot of talent to the field. He is also important for discrediting behaviorist models of language acquisition, which had dominated conversations up until that point but were becoming something of a dead end. You should do some reading on Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Pearce, Franz Boaz, and Roman Jakobson, if you mistakenly believe that he was the first person to apply a scientific methodology to linguistics. This is not correct, and Dr Chomsky himself would be quick to point that out. In the sciences, we always stand on the shoulders of those who came before us; a lifetime is not enough time to pierce the true mysteries of the universe. Hero worship is an unavoidable reality of social life but irrelevant to the scientific craft.

 

[untermensche]

What is linguistics?

While Skinner focused on the language people were observed using, Chomsky was interested in the underlying structure of language. This shift in focus affected not only how we view the structure of language, but how it might be learned as well; while Skinner believed that children learn language by imitating and repeating what they hear, Chomsky hypothesized that language learning went far deeper than that.

Chomsky made the study of language scientific. He demonstrated that despite the observable variety of the world’s languages, there is likely only one inventory of linguistic features. All languages — dead, still used, or even future ones — are combinations of these elements. After Chomsky, linguistics is defined as 'the scientific study of language'— 'language' in the singular.

https://blog.mangolanguages.com/noam-chomsky-his-contribution-to-linguistics/

 

[steve_bank]

Humans and cats are very similar. Cats can be easiiy entertained by a laser pointer spot on the floor.

More complex for humans, humans are easily entertained by laser light shows.

Male cats are sexualy agrr essive, so are human males.

Conclusion cats and humans share many characteristics.

Humans and chimps are similar but with one njhor difference. Chimps have to be trained to do tricks for our entertainment, humans train themselves to do tricks.