Babel's Dawn

Honesty is the Cheapest Policy

Lies do not make everyone's nose grow, but they do have costs.

Contrarians occasionally proposed that speech evolved in order to tell lies. Darwinian logic seems to undercut this idea because any communication system must co-evolve, producing both speakers and listeners. We are all devilish enough to imagine some benefits of lying, but why should listeners to lies evolve? Once a communication system does evolve, however, an opportunity for liars arises. The listeners are out there, so lie to them and win big in the Darwinian struggle. Happily then, a recent paper finds there are costs to lying.

A Vote for Group Selection

This classic work has had enormous impact on professional and popular thought. Could it be wrong?

The “selfish gene” theory of evolution is incomplete and cannot account for many biological facts including the presence of language among humans, say two eminent evolutionary biologists, David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson, in a paper titled, “Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology,” published in the current (December) issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology (early draft of paper available here). Of course, this does not mean the idea of evolution itself is in any jeopardy. Instead, the authors hope to restore respectability to the mechanism of group selection.

The selfish gene theory holds that as genes compete to replicate themselves the most selfish ones will triumph. In a society of selfish sociopaths and generous saints the sociopaths will out-prosper the saints, if only because the saints will be generous to the sociopaths while the sociopaths will not reciprocate. Thus, generosity will always be beaten by freeloaders who take from the group without ever giving to it. After a few generations the freeload gene triumphs.

This argument has always had its difficulties in trying to explain human evolution. We are communal by nature, utterly dependent on culture and organization to survive. The idea of having to live entirely on our own individual wits, experience, and strength is too frightening to contemplate. Even Robinson Crusoe depended on a huge body of craft that has been developed by others before he tried to live alone on his predator-free island. Thus, the idea has grown that some sort of special circumstances were required to develop humans. The anti-evolutionists have found strength in the inherent contradiction between what selfish-gene theory says must be true, and what is obvious in human society.

The notion of a selfish gene has been a particular thorn for this blog because speech is a form of sharing. Speakers share what they know; listeners put their attention under the control of another. How is that possible within the context of a selfish gene? So it is with some relief that I find a biologist of E.O. Wilson’s stature saying that the selfish gene theory has created “theoretical disarray” [p. 327] and cannot be the full story.

Three Mysteries

Nature at work.

If there is one thing this blog takes for granted, it is that evolution played a critical role in the origins of speech and its spread throughout the species, so I was caught off guard to find a skeptical article in a journal put out by graduate students at the University of Colorado. Like most writing that leans toward Intelligent Design, it does not offer a counter-theory so much as a critique of existing knowledge. The article, “The Evolution of Evolutionary Linguistics,” by Jeff Roesler Stebbins can be found here.

Saints and Socopaths

Tony Soprano's recurring line was, "You got something to say to me?" Usually the listener replied with silence; it is not smart to tell a sociopath what's on your mind.

From its origins on, speech has demanded more saints than sociopaths.

Sociopaths are frequently defined as people who are completely lacking in a conscience, but, as consciences are a little hard to observe, in this post I’m going to call them people whose behavior, including speech, is utterly devoid of generosity. According to Martha Stout’s The Sociopath Next Door most of them are not murderers or con artists. They can be capable and hardworking. They can also be sociable, in the sense of being charmers, good networkers, active leaders. But in the words of Don Vito Corleone, they “refuse to be a fool.” Meaning they are not interested in the acts of generosity. As for speech, their attitude was also summed up by Vito Corleone, “Never tell anyone outside the family what you are thinking.”

Speech Prerequisites

Pointing holds the secret of language, maybe.

The last several posts have been diving down, trying to find what foundation language requires. By the time I got to the end of last week's post it was clear that I was going to need to really understand the difference between human and ape pointing if I was going to get the distinguishing basis of speech. After all, apes point but don’t talk. What’s the difference? I've passed the week checking out that question.

Darwin on Language

Darwin as dandy. That is some vest he is wearing.

Darwin’s letters are being posted on the Internet (here). The first 5000 are now available, with more to come. and I thought I would see what he had to say about speech and its origins. It makes for some agreeable browsing. From this blog’s perspective the most interesting issue discussed is the relationship between the evolution of species and the evolution of language. The analogy is intriguing and suggestive, but elusive.

Anthropoid Gestures

Photo by Frans B.M. de Waal showing a young chimpanzee demanding the return of food stolen out of his hand.

The argument that language began as gesture picked up some more ammunition last week, although this blog remains dubious. An article by Amy Pollick and Frans de Waal appears in the May 8 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (abstract here and supporting data here) reporting that gesture has become a serious candidate for the origins of expressing “symbolic meaning in early hominins,” and “the present study supports the gestural origin hypothesis of language.” Their most important observation was that gestures can have different uses in different contexts.

This blog has often reported that our closest evolutionary relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, appear to be smart enough to use language. They can reason and learn names. Now it appears that they can also take context into account when interpreting gestures.

The Language of ET

Thanks to Adobe's Photoshop software, UFOs should be more common than ever, but they remain as invisible as God.

Last Saturday’s (April 28) New York Times had a column ($here$)  by Robert Wright that spurred me to rethink the old question Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? Having worked on this blog I no longer accept this form of science fiction’s central question. Apes can reason when put to the test, but that has not proven enough for them to do anything likely to catch the eye of a visitor arriving on a UFO.  Ask instead, Is there articulate life elsewhere in the universe? Computer programming conundrums have shown us that speaking aptly is a much more remarkable skill than putting 2 and 2 together.

Is Speech Still Evolving?

Has the brain and language faculty really changed since the days of these great artworks?

Human brain evolution is still underway, University of Chicago biologist Bruce Lahn told at audience at the New York Academy of Sciences last Wednesday (April 18), so naturally I immediately began wondering about the continued evolution of speech and language faculties.

The academy event featured Stephen Pinker, author of The Language Instinct, introducing two young scientists whose work he admires. Besides Dr. Lahn, Dr. Pinker introduced a presentation by Rebecca Saxe, a neuropsychologist at M.I.T. The three of them together gave the audience with much to think about, including questions about the role of language in making humans human.

Balancing With All Three Hands

Speaking well is a juggler's art.

One of the narrow ledges this blog has to cross without falling over the side is the issue of human difference. Veer too far in one direction and the link between humanity and the rest of the biological world is forgotten; swerve a bit too generously the other way and the distinction between humanity and the rest is trivialized. Two stories in the New York Times this week show how tricky it can be to maintain your balance.

The first story was a discussion of the origins of human morality. Are they biological? Many researchers into ape behavior say yes; moral philosophers, even ones like Peter Singer, who defend animal rights as (essentially) equal to our own turn, are less biologically oriented. (Story here.) The other report was titled “Brain Injury Said to Affect Moral Choices,” and says that damage to an area of emotional judgment can leave people making utilitarian choices that people without the brain damage do not make. (Story here.) It didn’t say whether the rationalist moral philosophers interviewed for the first story might favor some brain surgery, turning people into more utilitarian thinkers.