Famously – or perhaps notoriously – Steven Jay Gould proposed that science and religion constituted non-overlapping magisteria. In my opinion, his claim was not plausible; but a similar claim regarding the sciences and the arts does stand up.
I want to focus here on the issues of self-expression and collaboration.
Individual and creative thinking plays an important role in science, but it involves a form of creativity which is far removed from the sort of creativity which applies in the arts. The latter is always associated with self-expression; whereas self-expression has no role to play in science.
So self-expression can be seen not only as a key demarcation criterion between the arts and the sciences but also as an indicator that these pursuits are opposites, incompatible, non-overlapping. It is a crucial part of the one, and plays no part in the other.
Collaboration, on the other hand, occurs in both the arts and the sciences. But it is an essential – and defining – feature only of the latter.
The vast majority of the greatest works of literature, music and the visual arts are attributable essentially to one man or woman. The artist draws, of course, on his or her teachers and the broader culture but in a real sense owns – as author or creator – the finished product.
Similar notions can apply even to necessarily collaborative arts like the cinema. Think of the director, Alfred Hitchcock. The best of the early films he made in England have the same winning combination of suspense, latent eroticism and humor as his American masterpieces even though he was working with entirely different people in a very different cultural context.
The arts are by their nature self-expressive, even if the expression is often, as in theatre, cinema, etc., group-based or, as in much medieval art for example, anonymous. But even in these cases, I would argue, the greater works will be more likely to bear the stamp of an individual genius or personality.
Science is just not like that. It is the antithesis of self-expression, and is all about building a common body of knowledge. To the extent that the individual's ideas are deemed to be important, to that extent the science is undeveloped and uncertain. As a science matures all traces of pioneering individual contributions are erased or at least merged into a greater, more complex and more subtle body of knowledge than any single mind could even begin to comprehend.
There was an interesting exchange a while ago on a comment thread at Rationally Speaking about the nature and the scope of science which has a bearing on this point. A German botanist working in Australia was arguing that science is concerned with everything empirical and is defined primarily in terms of its communal nature.
"... [I]t is not science if I personally figure out whether Craspedia species are apomictic. I have to share this information in a way that allows other humans to test it, reproduce it, and build on it, because science is a community effort. But then it would be science no matter how trivial the fact."
Though not everyone will see the collaborative side of science as a key defining feature – another commenter calls it "unusual" as a demarcation criterion – science has, in my opinion, an essentially communal, individual self-erasing nature. (It imposes self-effacement, as it were.)
This criterion also fits mathematics. You get untutored geniuses (like Ramanujan) but it's only when they are integrated into the mathematical community (as Ramanujan was, thanks to G.H. Hardy) that they become real mathematicians.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Myths with pretensions
I commented recently – in the context of a post about myths relating to race and (Jewish) identity – that one of the things I like about science is its myth-destroying power.
And science (broadly construed to take in the historical sciences) certainly does have that power. But it is – I readily admit – a strangely disturbing power. It goes against the grain of human psychology and culture which is irredeemably myth-ridden.
So when I said I 'like' that aspect of science, I was oversimplifying – leaving out the sense of ambivalence.
Let me give an illustration based on the final couple of years of my religious phase which relates not just to myths but to metaphysicalized myths – myths, if you like, with pretensions.
Two kinds of thinker appealed to me, but each in a different way.
On the one hand were those who distilled the essence (as they saw it) of the Christian myth and offered a deeply satisfying (for those who could accept it) way of relating to the challenges of life which incorporated a very deep, intuitive but historically-validated understanding of human psychology. For me, these thinkers were largely those in the Protestant (and particularly the Reformed) tradition who embraced Paul's emphasis on the absolute power of God. My favourite was Karl Barth.
But I was also attracted to a completely different kind of scholar – more scientifically- and historically-oriented – who offered none of that psychological comfort, but who offered another kind of liberation entirely. Rudolf Bultmann spoke of demythologizing the faith, but what he was doing was simply reinterpreting the old myths. More convincing were those who didn't talk about faith at all but who sought merely to elucidate the historical background of the New Testament. And the more I understood that background, the less plausible the Christian interpretations (and myths) came to seem.
But when one gets rid of one myth another will often arise to take its place. Social and political myths, for example, often take the place of religious ones.
Our brains have a special affinity for simple narratives which is explicable no doubt – at least in part – in terms of the need to generate the sense of a coherent, continuing self. We also have a strong tendency (which manifests itself in the grammars of natural languages) towards animism – seeing even inanimate nature as exhibiting human-like intentions and purposes. And though we have come to accept science's non-teleological explanations, many still shy away from these as ultimate explanations. For example, there is resistance to the view that randomness is, as modern physics suggests, a fundamental characteristic of reality.
In a sense, science is – and always will be – an unnatural activity, and the scientific worldview is a peculiarly unsatisfying one. Those of us who are committed to a scientific view of the world will always be, I fear, to some extent at war with our own natures.
I have also been thinking about mathematical Platonism again recently. Though such a view is essentially a timeless one (and so renounces narratives in the normal sense), it may still be seen to incorporate elements of myth (and teleology) as well as metaphysics. How else would it manage to exert such a strong emotional attraction (as it clearly does for many)?
The question of the plausibility of mathematical Platonism (or realism) is so important because it impinges on broader questions, such as the viability of an empiricist worldview. In fact, mathematical realism can be seen – and is seen by many – as posing major challenges not only for empiricism but also for physicalism.
And, as my instincts are (for want of a less abstract way of characterizing them) deeply empiricist and physicalist, I need to settle on a particular view of mathematics and see if, or to what extent, I will be forced to modify the basic way I see the world.
I am quite resigned to the fact that I will never entirely escape mythical thinking, but my goal is – if possible – to rid myself completely of the grand, intellectualized and metaphysicalized kind of myth and settle instead for the humble and commonplace variety.
Like the perennially-appealing prospect, mooted in a famous section of Homer's Odyssey and revived in the 18th and 19th centuries, of retiring to an exotic island paradise and drifting extremely slowly into a peaceful and uncomplicated old age.
And science (broadly construed to take in the historical sciences) certainly does have that power. But it is – I readily admit – a strangely disturbing power. It goes against the grain of human psychology and culture which is irredeemably myth-ridden.
So when I said I 'like' that aspect of science, I was oversimplifying – leaving out the sense of ambivalence.
Let me give an illustration based on the final couple of years of my religious phase which relates not just to myths but to metaphysicalized myths – myths, if you like, with pretensions.
Two kinds of thinker appealed to me, but each in a different way.
On the one hand were those who distilled the essence (as they saw it) of the Christian myth and offered a deeply satisfying (for those who could accept it) way of relating to the challenges of life which incorporated a very deep, intuitive but historically-validated understanding of human psychology. For me, these thinkers were largely those in the Protestant (and particularly the Reformed) tradition who embraced Paul's emphasis on the absolute power of God. My favourite was Karl Barth.
But I was also attracted to a completely different kind of scholar – more scientifically- and historically-oriented – who offered none of that psychological comfort, but who offered another kind of liberation entirely. Rudolf Bultmann spoke of demythologizing the faith, but what he was doing was simply reinterpreting the old myths. More convincing were those who didn't talk about faith at all but who sought merely to elucidate the historical background of the New Testament. And the more I understood that background, the less plausible the Christian interpretations (and myths) came to seem.
But when one gets rid of one myth another will often arise to take its place. Social and political myths, for example, often take the place of religious ones.
Our brains have a special affinity for simple narratives which is explicable no doubt – at least in part – in terms of the need to generate the sense of a coherent, continuing self. We also have a strong tendency (which manifests itself in the grammars of natural languages) towards animism – seeing even inanimate nature as exhibiting human-like intentions and purposes. And though we have come to accept science's non-teleological explanations, many still shy away from these as ultimate explanations. For example, there is resistance to the view that randomness is, as modern physics suggests, a fundamental characteristic of reality.
In a sense, science is – and always will be – an unnatural activity, and the scientific worldview is a peculiarly unsatisfying one. Those of us who are committed to a scientific view of the world will always be, I fear, to some extent at war with our own natures.
I have also been thinking about mathematical Platonism again recently. Though such a view is essentially a timeless one (and so renounces narratives in the normal sense), it may still be seen to incorporate elements of myth (and teleology) as well as metaphysics. How else would it manage to exert such a strong emotional attraction (as it clearly does for many)?
The question of the plausibility of mathematical Platonism (or realism) is so important because it impinges on broader questions, such as the viability of an empiricist worldview. In fact, mathematical realism can be seen – and is seen by many – as posing major challenges not only for empiricism but also for physicalism.
And, as my instincts are (for want of a less abstract way of characterizing them) deeply empiricist and physicalist, I need to settle on a particular view of mathematics and see if, or to what extent, I will be forced to modify the basic way I see the world.
I am quite resigned to the fact that I will never entirely escape mythical thinking, but my goal is – if possible – to rid myself completely of the grand, intellectualized and metaphysicalized kind of myth and settle instead for the humble and commonplace variety.
Like the perennially-appealing prospect, mooted in a famous section of Homer's Odyssey and revived in the 18th and 19th centuries, of retiring to an exotic island paradise and drifting extremely slowly into a peaceful and uncomplicated old age.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Anti-metaphysical musings
I have been looking recently at some material relating to "the metaphysics wars", and thought it worthwhile to jot down a few notes.
No doubt, my general position would be characterized by those with other views as scientistic. It is also anti-metaphysical in that I don't see the traditional philosophical discipline of metaphysics as having much point these days.
I don't deny that there are very interesting questions in the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of logic which may be characterized as metaphysical. The meta-thinking that goes on at the margins of physics, other sciences and mathematics, etc. is necessary and valuable.
But somehow, when such thinking moves away from the discipline in question and becomes more generally philosophical, problems arise.
Timothy Williamson is perhaps the most powerful and impressive advocate for this broader kind of metaphysics (and analytic philosophy generally). As an avowedly non-religious person, he can't be dismissed as having ulterior motives of a religious nature; and, being at home with formal – and specifically modal – logic, he can't be dismissed as natural language-bound or as being daunted in any way by technical rigor.
Some of the points he makes in this interview are good ones – such as noting the light that modal logic can undoubtedly throw on the workings and nature of natural language (via Montague grammar, for example), and perhaps also on the foundations of set theory – but I have to say that I am strongly inclined to reject the basic thrust of his argument in defense of metaphysics, and, by extension, philosophy (as he understands it).
Essentially the questions he seems most interested in are reminiscent of medieval scholasticism. I too have great respect for thinkers such as Avicenna (to whom he refers approvingly) and respect also for more recent – and more mathematically sophisticated – exponents of that general tradition of thought (such as Bolzano, to whom he also refers), but it seems to me that it is now incumbent upon any thinkers who aspire to deal with questions of what there is in a fundamental sense to base their accounts – at least in large part – on contemporary physics; or on mathematics if they are restricting their focus to mathematical realities.
Williamson seeks to defend the relative independence of his core preoccupations from science by invoking the old shibboleths, scientism and reductionism, and rejecting naturalism as a confused and inadequate concept.
I grant that mathematics does pose problems for advocates of strong forms of naturalism and empiricism, and there are real unresolved issues in the philosophy of mathematics. But my preference is to address these issues in a broadly scientific and mathematical context rather than in a purely logical or philosophical one, or – worse – not to address them at all and instead merely to use them as a kind of justification or license for logical excess and metaphysical self-indulgence.
Williamson cites Quine as an example of scientistic naturalism.
"Quine privileged natural science, and in particular physics, over all other forms of inquiry, to the point of not taking very seriously any theory that couldn't be reduced to part of natural science."
Williamson's view, by contrast, more or less allows the analytic metaphysician carte blanche, and Williamson's own approach to analytic metaphysics is clearly – in my view at any rate – insufficiently constrained and guided by science.
Here, for example, is an extract from an old interview in which he explains his developing views:
"My work on vagueness and ontology doesn’t really concern ontology. Probably my most distinctive ontological commitment comes from my defence of a controversial principle in logic known as the Barcan formula, named after the American logician Ruth Barcan Marcus, who first stated it. An application of this principle is that since Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy could have had a child (although they actually didn’t), there is something that could have been a child of Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy. On my view, it is neither a child nor a collection of atoms, but rather something that merely could have been a child, made out of atoms, but actually has no location in space and time. The argument can be multiplied, so there actually are infinitely many things that could have been located in space and time but aren’t. It takes quite a bit of work to show that the Barcan formula is better than the alternatives! That’s what my next book will be on. The working title is Ontological Rigidity."
The book was actually called Modal Logic as Metaphysics, and this is how he recently stated its main point:
"I am ... saying that it is necessary what there is. Necessarily everything is necessarily something. There could not have been more or fewer things than there actually are, and which particular things there are could not have been different. What is contingent is only what properties those things have, and what relations they have to each other. I call that view necessitism. Its denial is contingentism. Who knows how far back necessitism goes? Maybe Parmenides was some sort of necessitist..."
On the face of it, talking about (apparently countable) things (minus their properties and relations!) as given strikes me as breathtakingly naïve in the context of a physics-based understanding of reality. I can only imagine that Williamson is – like the medieval scholastics – implicitly asserting a privileged role for logic.
Quine's assertion of a privileged role for physics makes a lot more sense to me.
Admittedly I haven't looked at Williamson's ideas in any depth, but what I have seen so far – and what he says in this latest interview – really makes me question whether it would be worth the effort. I am intrigued, however, by what is driving such thinkers.
Strangely, Williamson appears not to be quite sure whether his latest work is meaningful or not – or at least seems unwilling to commit himself on the matter. There is (don't you think?) just a touch of arrogance in this passage (from Chapter One of Modal Logic as Metaphysics)?
"This book compares necessitism and contingentism. Which is true? Of course the question has a false presupposition if the definitions of 'necessitism' and 'contingentism' lack meaning or content. But if every enquiry must first establish its own meaningfulness we are on an infinite regress, since the enquiry into the meaningfulness of the previous enquiry must first enquire into its own meaningfulness, and so on. Better to act on the assumption of intelligibility: readers can decide for themselves whether they understand the book as they go along, and recycle it if they don't."
This passage is a combination of facile reasoning and rhetorical sleight of hand. By using the word 'understand' in the final sentence, he subtly shifts the focus to the reader's possible inadequacy and away from the original question concerning the work's meaningfulness.
In fact, I am tempted to see Williamson's work as emblematic of a broader trend. On the basis of my (admittedly limited) knowledge of the history of the relevant intellectual cultures, I discern, since the middle years of the 20th century, a disturbing falling off in intellectual seriousness in secular circles accompanied by an equally disturbing rise in anti-scientific name-calling and credulity amongst those thinkers who remain favorably disposed towards religion.
I'll finish here with a few comments about Paul Horwich, Williamson's great philosophical antagonist, whose deflationary views on truth I have referred to favorably in the past.
Horwich is opposed to the sort of traditional theoretical philosophy ('T-philosophy') which Williamson defends. I have made the point that, though I broadly accepted Horwich's account of truth, I doubted that his Wittgensteinian view of philosophy was compatible with a continuation of philosophy as an academic discipline. And, interestingly, Williamson makes a similar point in the recent interview.
"...Horwich didn’t explicitly call for T-philosophy not to be funded. I pointed out that if the picture of philosophy in his book were accurate, philosophy should be abolished. The reader encounters just two sorts of philosophy: irrational T-philosophy, and level-headed Wittgensteinian debunkers of T-philosophers. Philosophy is presented as an activity in which some people make a mess and others clear it up. Why on earth should taxpayers fund that? It looks as though we’d be better off simply abolishing the activity altogether."
Finally, I was surprised (and a bit disappointed) to learn recently that Horwich rejects naturalism, and even more unequivocally than Williamson does. He cites not only mathematical but also moral claims as a basis for his view.
Horwich is more thoroughly Wittgensteinian than I had previously thought.
No doubt, my general position would be characterized by those with other views as scientistic. It is also anti-metaphysical in that I don't see the traditional philosophical discipline of metaphysics as having much point these days.
I don't deny that there are very interesting questions in the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of logic which may be characterized as metaphysical. The meta-thinking that goes on at the margins of physics, other sciences and mathematics, etc. is necessary and valuable.
But somehow, when such thinking moves away from the discipline in question and becomes more generally philosophical, problems arise.
Timothy Williamson is perhaps the most powerful and impressive advocate for this broader kind of metaphysics (and analytic philosophy generally). As an avowedly non-religious person, he can't be dismissed as having ulterior motives of a religious nature; and, being at home with formal – and specifically modal – logic, he can't be dismissed as natural language-bound or as being daunted in any way by technical rigor.
Some of the points he makes in this interview are good ones – such as noting the light that modal logic can undoubtedly throw on the workings and nature of natural language (via Montague grammar, for example), and perhaps also on the foundations of set theory – but I have to say that I am strongly inclined to reject the basic thrust of his argument in defense of metaphysics, and, by extension, philosophy (as he understands it).
Essentially the questions he seems most interested in are reminiscent of medieval scholasticism. I too have great respect for thinkers such as Avicenna (to whom he refers approvingly) and respect also for more recent – and more mathematically sophisticated – exponents of that general tradition of thought (such as Bolzano, to whom he also refers), but it seems to me that it is now incumbent upon any thinkers who aspire to deal with questions of what there is in a fundamental sense to base their accounts – at least in large part – on contemporary physics; or on mathematics if they are restricting their focus to mathematical realities.
Williamson seeks to defend the relative independence of his core preoccupations from science by invoking the old shibboleths, scientism and reductionism, and rejecting naturalism as a confused and inadequate concept.
I grant that mathematics does pose problems for advocates of strong forms of naturalism and empiricism, and there are real unresolved issues in the philosophy of mathematics. But my preference is to address these issues in a broadly scientific and mathematical context rather than in a purely logical or philosophical one, or – worse – not to address them at all and instead merely to use them as a kind of justification or license for logical excess and metaphysical self-indulgence.
Williamson cites Quine as an example of scientistic naturalism.
"Quine privileged natural science, and in particular physics, over all other forms of inquiry, to the point of not taking very seriously any theory that couldn't be reduced to part of natural science."
Williamson's view, by contrast, more or less allows the analytic metaphysician carte blanche, and Williamson's own approach to analytic metaphysics is clearly – in my view at any rate – insufficiently constrained and guided by science.
Here, for example, is an extract from an old interview in which he explains his developing views:
"My work on vagueness and ontology doesn’t really concern ontology. Probably my most distinctive ontological commitment comes from my defence of a controversial principle in logic known as the Barcan formula, named after the American logician Ruth Barcan Marcus, who first stated it. An application of this principle is that since Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy could have had a child (although they actually didn’t), there is something that could have been a child of Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy. On my view, it is neither a child nor a collection of atoms, but rather something that merely could have been a child, made out of atoms, but actually has no location in space and time. The argument can be multiplied, so there actually are infinitely many things that could have been located in space and time but aren’t. It takes quite a bit of work to show that the Barcan formula is better than the alternatives! That’s what my next book will be on. The working title is Ontological Rigidity."
The book was actually called Modal Logic as Metaphysics, and this is how he recently stated its main point:
"I am ... saying that it is necessary what there is. Necessarily everything is necessarily something. There could not have been more or fewer things than there actually are, and which particular things there are could not have been different. What is contingent is only what properties those things have, and what relations they have to each other. I call that view necessitism. Its denial is contingentism. Who knows how far back necessitism goes? Maybe Parmenides was some sort of necessitist..."
On the face of it, talking about (apparently countable) things (minus their properties and relations!) as given strikes me as breathtakingly naïve in the context of a physics-based understanding of reality. I can only imagine that Williamson is – like the medieval scholastics – implicitly asserting a privileged role for logic.
Quine's assertion of a privileged role for physics makes a lot more sense to me.
Admittedly I haven't looked at Williamson's ideas in any depth, but what I have seen so far – and what he says in this latest interview – really makes me question whether it would be worth the effort. I am intrigued, however, by what is driving such thinkers.
Strangely, Williamson appears not to be quite sure whether his latest work is meaningful or not – or at least seems unwilling to commit himself on the matter. There is (don't you think?) just a touch of arrogance in this passage (from Chapter One of Modal Logic as Metaphysics)?
"This book compares necessitism and contingentism. Which is true? Of course the question has a false presupposition if the definitions of 'necessitism' and 'contingentism' lack meaning or content. But if every enquiry must first establish its own meaningfulness we are on an infinite regress, since the enquiry into the meaningfulness of the previous enquiry must first enquire into its own meaningfulness, and so on. Better to act on the assumption of intelligibility: readers can decide for themselves whether they understand the book as they go along, and recycle it if they don't."
This passage is a combination of facile reasoning and rhetorical sleight of hand. By using the word 'understand' in the final sentence, he subtly shifts the focus to the reader's possible inadequacy and away from the original question concerning the work's meaningfulness.
In fact, I am tempted to see Williamson's work as emblematic of a broader trend. On the basis of my (admittedly limited) knowledge of the history of the relevant intellectual cultures, I discern, since the middle years of the 20th century, a disturbing falling off in intellectual seriousness in secular circles accompanied by an equally disturbing rise in anti-scientific name-calling and credulity amongst those thinkers who remain favorably disposed towards religion.
I'll finish here with a few comments about Paul Horwich, Williamson's great philosophical antagonist, whose deflationary views on truth I have referred to favorably in the past.
Horwich is opposed to the sort of traditional theoretical philosophy ('T-philosophy') which Williamson defends. I have made the point that, though I broadly accepted Horwich's account of truth, I doubted that his Wittgensteinian view of philosophy was compatible with a continuation of philosophy as an academic discipline. And, interestingly, Williamson makes a similar point in the recent interview.
"...Horwich didn’t explicitly call for T-philosophy not to be funded. I pointed out that if the picture of philosophy in his book were accurate, philosophy should be abolished. The reader encounters just two sorts of philosophy: irrational T-philosophy, and level-headed Wittgensteinian debunkers of T-philosophers. Philosophy is presented as an activity in which some people make a mess and others clear it up. Why on earth should taxpayers fund that? It looks as though we’d be better off simply abolishing the activity altogether."
Finally, I was surprised (and a bit disappointed) to learn recently that Horwich rejects naturalism, and even more unequivocally than Williamson does. He cites not only mathematical but also moral claims as a basis for his view.
Horwich is more thoroughly Wittgensteinian than I had previously thought.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Ideology and science
Science is not – nor can it be, in fact – immune to ideological influences. Sometimes such influences may have a positive effect, but it would be naive to believe that such factors do not have the potential to cause distortions also.
Scientists, like anybody else, need to be motivated and often this involves them seeing their own research as defending or furthering broad convictions they might have about human nature or the world in general.
There are many cases of great scientists whose major contributions to science were largely inspired by what we now see as utterly false assumptions. Copernicus and Newton might both be seen as examples of this, their discoveries as it were transcending the flawed intellectual matrix – or worldview – within which the theories were framed.
The institutions and practices of modern science are not designed to screen out personal biases and unwarranted assumptions so much as to ensure that published conjectures and theories and experimental results are exposed to rigorous testing and assessment procedures. The system works pretty well on the whole, encouraging intellectual rigor while not excluding the human element – imagination, creativity, etc. – which is essential for innovative thinking.
Areas such as evolutionary biology and the human sciences are particularly prone to ideological influences.
I have previously hinted at such influences in the case of research into linguistic development and evolution, notably in relation to the work of Michael Tomasello and his colleagues who seem to be adamantly opposed to certain formal approaches to the study of language. I am following up on this, and will have more to say in the future. (James Hurford's views appear to chart a sensible middle course, and are looking very plausible to me at the moment.)
And I have recently come across another example of ideology apparently driving scientific judgment and interpretation.
Last week Massimo Pigliucci published a list of his 'best' research papers on biological topics. It's clear from this list (and another on his Curriculum Vitae) that Pigliucci had from the beginning of his research career a special interest in defending and promoting the notion of phenotypic plasticity – the property of the genotype to produce different phenotypes in response to different environments.
In just about all the cited papers – most involving experiments with plants – the power of environmental factors to alter features of the organism are emphasized. A cursory look at the abstracts certainly suggests that the researchers (the papers are collaborative efforts) are highly unsympathetic to any approaches which could be construed as tending in the general direction of what has sometimes been characterized as genetic determinism.
Which is fine. It's only to be expected that researchers will approach such issues with strong opinions, and a degree of adversarial debate and discussion can be productive. In the end, the weight of evidence usually settles disputes, and the controversies then move on to other areas.
So I am not questioning the scientific value of Pigliucci's work – the scope and nature of phenotypic plasticity is clearly a topic of considerable interest.
But it is interesting to juxtapose his research interests in biology with his published comments about human intelligence.
In another of his recent blog posts, Pigliucci claims that environmental – cultural, in fact – factors are solely responsible for differences in patterns of involvement by males and females in different research areas. Genes don't have anything to do with it, apparently.
"[T]he fact," he writes, "that there are fewer women than men in a given field is likely the result of a large number of cultural factors (no, I don’t think it has anything at all to do with “native” intelligence, Larry Summers be damned)."
A commenter makes the point that "the greater variance of male intelligence is well established", and that genetic factors are obviously involved. The greater variance of male intelligence in this context means essentially that there is a greater proportion of individuals with very high intelligence amongst men than amongst women (and also a greater proportion of individuals with very low intelligence).
It is not impossible that some purely environmental explanation for this pattern could be found, but the evidence, even if it is not conclusive at this stage, certainly points to an at least partly genetic explanation. So the fact that Pigliucci seems to have a very strong disinclination to accept that genetics is significant here clearly goes beyond the science and points to a prior ideological commitment.
The emotional tone of his references to Lawrence Summers may not strengthen but certainly doesn't weaken my case. "I can't stand the bastard," Professor Pigliucci notes in a comment.
Pigliucci's strong ideological and moral convictions – which no doubt played a part in his decision some years ago to shift his focus from science to philosophy – may be able to be explained largely in terms of cultural factors.
But I just can't help thinking about Massimo's (hypothetical) monozygotic twin who was raised by a Swedish family. Did he too follow a scientific career? Does he have a penchant for bow ties? Is he a religious skeptic? Does he too have strong views on political and social questions? And what is his attitude to Lawrence Summers, I wonder?
Scientists, like anybody else, need to be motivated and often this involves them seeing their own research as defending or furthering broad convictions they might have about human nature or the world in general.
There are many cases of great scientists whose major contributions to science were largely inspired by what we now see as utterly false assumptions. Copernicus and Newton might both be seen as examples of this, their discoveries as it were transcending the flawed intellectual matrix – or worldview – within which the theories were framed.
The institutions and practices of modern science are not designed to screen out personal biases and unwarranted assumptions so much as to ensure that published conjectures and theories and experimental results are exposed to rigorous testing and assessment procedures. The system works pretty well on the whole, encouraging intellectual rigor while not excluding the human element – imagination, creativity, etc. – which is essential for innovative thinking.
Areas such as evolutionary biology and the human sciences are particularly prone to ideological influences.
I have previously hinted at such influences in the case of research into linguistic development and evolution, notably in relation to the work of Michael Tomasello and his colleagues who seem to be adamantly opposed to certain formal approaches to the study of language. I am following up on this, and will have more to say in the future. (James Hurford's views appear to chart a sensible middle course, and are looking very plausible to me at the moment.)
And I have recently come across another example of ideology apparently driving scientific judgment and interpretation.
Last week Massimo Pigliucci published a list of his 'best' research papers on biological topics. It's clear from this list (and another on his Curriculum Vitae) that Pigliucci had from the beginning of his research career a special interest in defending and promoting the notion of phenotypic plasticity – the property of the genotype to produce different phenotypes in response to different environments.
In just about all the cited papers – most involving experiments with plants – the power of environmental factors to alter features of the organism are emphasized. A cursory look at the abstracts certainly suggests that the researchers (the papers are collaborative efforts) are highly unsympathetic to any approaches which could be construed as tending in the general direction of what has sometimes been characterized as genetic determinism.
Which is fine. It's only to be expected that researchers will approach such issues with strong opinions, and a degree of adversarial debate and discussion can be productive. In the end, the weight of evidence usually settles disputes, and the controversies then move on to other areas.
So I am not questioning the scientific value of Pigliucci's work – the scope and nature of phenotypic plasticity is clearly a topic of considerable interest.
But it is interesting to juxtapose his research interests in biology with his published comments about human intelligence.
In another of his recent blog posts, Pigliucci claims that environmental – cultural, in fact – factors are solely responsible for differences in patterns of involvement by males and females in different research areas. Genes don't have anything to do with it, apparently.
"[T]he fact," he writes, "that there are fewer women than men in a given field is likely the result of a large number of cultural factors (no, I don’t think it has anything at all to do with “native” intelligence, Larry Summers be damned)."
A commenter makes the point that "the greater variance of male intelligence is well established", and that genetic factors are obviously involved. The greater variance of male intelligence in this context means essentially that there is a greater proportion of individuals with very high intelligence amongst men than amongst women (and also a greater proportion of individuals with very low intelligence).
It is not impossible that some purely environmental explanation for this pattern could be found, but the evidence, even if it is not conclusive at this stage, certainly points to an at least partly genetic explanation. So the fact that Pigliucci seems to have a very strong disinclination to accept that genetics is significant here clearly goes beyond the science and points to a prior ideological commitment.
The emotional tone of his references to Lawrence Summers may not strengthen but certainly doesn't weaken my case. "I can't stand the bastard," Professor Pigliucci notes in a comment.
Pigliucci's strong ideological and moral convictions – which no doubt played a part in his decision some years ago to shift his focus from science to philosophy – may be able to be explained largely in terms of cultural factors.
But I just can't help thinking about Massimo's (hypothetical) monozygotic twin who was raised by a Swedish family. Did he too follow a scientific career? Does he have a penchant for bow ties? Is he a religious skeptic? Does he too have strong views on political and social questions? And what is his attitude to Lawrence Summers, I wonder?
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Life, death and computation
I have been spending a bit too much time lately reading other people's blogs and (to some extent) participating in associated discussions. The main problem with this sort of activity is that – largely because the focus of discussions is always shifting – it encourages superficial debate at the expense of deep understanding.
But, interestingly, two recent blog discussions on two very different sites which I happen to follow touch on a similar theme.
Biologist and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci recently precipitated a freewheeling discussion of the relevance of computers and computing to understanding the human mind and the universe in general. In fact, Pigliucci's post on the topic prompted more than 200 comments, many of which are well worth reading.
Professor Pigliucci has a disarming tendency to rush in where more cautious academics fear to tread – that is, beyond his areas of specific expertise. (I suspect his approach owes something to the intellectual traditions of his native Italy, where academics have traditionally played an important role in the broader cultural, moral and political sphere.)
Pigliucci argues strongly against functionalist and computational views of the mind. I don't have strong views on this question, though I share Pigliucci's skepticism about some of the (as I see it) wilder claims about mind uploading and the scope of simulations etc.
I did, however, question his contention that seeing the operations of nature in computational terms is likely to lead to mathematical Platonism, commenting as follows:
My understanding is that many of the leading proponents of an information- and information processing-based approach to physics see information as physical. The bits or qubits are always 'embodied' in actual physical processes, albeit that these processes are understood at a deep level in terms of the processing of information. (There are close parallels between information theory and thermodynamics.)
So I'm not sure that such a view leads to Platonism. Seeing physical processes as algorithmic (and scientific theories as predictive algorithms) seems to me a genuinely interesting perspective: but it may well be that there is no way actual physical processes can be perfectly simulated (or predicted).
Adrian McKinty is a novelist with a strong interest in social, cultural and philosophical topics. In the comment thread of a post at McKinty's nicely named site, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (I know – Freud got there first), a post about Philip Larkin featuring his confronting poem, 'Aubade', McKinty mentions Nick Bostrom's simulation argument: that if we accept two fairly plausible-seeming assumptions then our universe is almost certainly a 'simulated' universe created by an advanced civilization.
As I commented there:
I am ... (prompted by your comments, Adrian) having a look at Nick Bostrom's ideas. My initial attitude is skepticism, but that may just be what he would call my status quo bias jumping in.
I do think it makes sense (simply in terms of physics) to see natural processes in terms of information processing, but it is a big jump from there to thinking about beings who might have set the process going (and to calling it a simulation).
And what would Larkin make of all this? (Turning in his grave, I suspect.)
I am continuing to look into the simulation argument which I first encountered some years ago. More later, perhaps.
But regular readers will know that I am very skeptical of arguments and points of view which take their origins from a philosophical (as distinct from a scientific) base. Bostrom's main argument for the simulation hypothesis is in part statistical but basically philosophical – and far from convincing from my point of view.
I can't help feeling that people like Bostrom (and David Pearce who influenced him) are driven by a kind of religious instinct. Certainly some of the groups with which they are associated have a cultish feel.
The other thinker mentioned by Adrian in the comment thread is Samuel Scheffler. Scheffler applies 'what if' scenarios to thinking about death. What if we knew the world was going to be destroyed soon after our death? His general point seems to be that we are underlyingly less concerned about our own personal fate per se than about our fate seen in the light of a continuing social context.
This may well be, and such thinking is very much in accordance with the view that the sense of self derives from the linguistic, cultural and social context in which we grow up. But I think Scheffler overplays the extent to which future generations give meaning to our lives.
Also, I had a look at Scheffler's background. And it seems pretty clear that his being a socialist (he is apparently a disciple of the 'analytical Marxist' G.A. Cohen) would have – to some extent at least – shaped and played a part in his approach to thinking about the future in general, and about ethics.
But, interestingly, two recent blog discussions on two very different sites which I happen to follow touch on a similar theme.
Biologist and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci recently precipitated a freewheeling discussion of the relevance of computers and computing to understanding the human mind and the universe in general. In fact, Pigliucci's post on the topic prompted more than 200 comments, many of which are well worth reading.
Professor Pigliucci has a disarming tendency to rush in where more cautious academics fear to tread – that is, beyond his areas of specific expertise. (I suspect his approach owes something to the intellectual traditions of his native Italy, where academics have traditionally played an important role in the broader cultural, moral and political sphere.)
Pigliucci argues strongly against functionalist and computational views of the mind. I don't have strong views on this question, though I share Pigliucci's skepticism about some of the (as I see it) wilder claims about mind uploading and the scope of simulations etc.
I did, however, question his contention that seeing the operations of nature in computational terms is likely to lead to mathematical Platonism, commenting as follows:
My understanding is that many of the leading proponents of an information- and information processing-based approach to physics see information as physical. The bits or qubits are always 'embodied' in actual physical processes, albeit that these processes are understood at a deep level in terms of the processing of information. (There are close parallels between information theory and thermodynamics.)
So I'm not sure that such a view leads to Platonism. Seeing physical processes as algorithmic (and scientific theories as predictive algorithms) seems to me a genuinely interesting perspective: but it may well be that there is no way actual physical processes can be perfectly simulated (or predicted).
Adrian McKinty is a novelist with a strong interest in social, cultural and philosophical topics. In the comment thread of a post at McKinty's nicely named site, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (I know – Freud got there first), a post about Philip Larkin featuring his confronting poem, 'Aubade', McKinty mentions Nick Bostrom's simulation argument: that if we accept two fairly plausible-seeming assumptions then our universe is almost certainly a 'simulated' universe created by an advanced civilization.
As I commented there:
I am ... (prompted by your comments, Adrian) having a look at Nick Bostrom's ideas. My initial attitude is skepticism, but that may just be what he would call my status quo bias jumping in.
I do think it makes sense (simply in terms of physics) to see natural processes in terms of information processing, but it is a big jump from there to thinking about beings who might have set the process going (and to calling it a simulation).
And what would Larkin make of all this? (Turning in his grave, I suspect.)
I am continuing to look into the simulation argument which I first encountered some years ago. More later, perhaps.
But regular readers will know that I am very skeptical of arguments and points of view which take their origins from a philosophical (as distinct from a scientific) base. Bostrom's main argument for the simulation hypothesis is in part statistical but basically philosophical – and far from convincing from my point of view.
I can't help feeling that people like Bostrom (and David Pearce who influenced him) are driven by a kind of religious instinct. Certainly some of the groups with which they are associated have a cultish feel.
The other thinker mentioned by Adrian in the comment thread is Samuel Scheffler. Scheffler applies 'what if' scenarios to thinking about death. What if we knew the world was going to be destroyed soon after our death? His general point seems to be that we are underlyingly less concerned about our own personal fate per se than about our fate seen in the light of a continuing social context.
This may well be, and such thinking is very much in accordance with the view that the sense of self derives from the linguistic, cultural and social context in which we grow up. But I think Scheffler overplays the extent to which future generations give meaning to our lives.
Also, I had a look at Scheffler's background. And it seems pretty clear that his being a socialist (he is apparently a disciple of the 'analytical Marxist' G.A. Cohen) would have – to some extent at least – shaped and played a part in his approach to thinking about the future in general, and about ethics.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Empathy and language
The practice of pointing by infants raises some interesting questions about the psychological foundations upon which human communicational and linguistic capacities are built.
As explained in an article cited in the comments section of the previous post, young children routinely point to direct the attention of a nearby adult to something the infant finds interesting and apparently wishes the adult to see and appreciate also.
When an infant doesn't start pointing by the appropriate age (about 12 months), it's often a sign that they don't have an intuitive sense of other minds – and also of linguistic problems ahead. (I originally came across discussions of this phenomenon in material on identifying the early signs of autism.)
The article referred to above draws on papers by Michael Tomasello and his colleagues which explore the phenomenon of infant pointing and associated behaviors. Tomasello and his fellow researchers argue for "a deeply social view [of the process] in which infant pointing is best understood – on many levels and in many ways – as depending on uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation and shared intentionality (e.g., joint intentions and attention with others). Children's early linguistic skills are built on this already existing platform of prelinguistic communication."
The researchers note that the kind of pointing they discuss is unique to humans and depends on certain key insights about the existence and nature of other minds as well as emotional factors – essentially a desire to share one's perceptions and to share in the perceptions of others.
A cursory reading of sources cited in the Slate article and related material suggests to me that Tomasello and his colleagues may well be overplaying their intuitions about sharing in their claims about the origins and development of human communication and language.
Of course, emotional factors cannot be ignored, but could not these elements be explained in terms of cognitive imperatives and the practical benefits of collaboration and reliable information transfer?
György Gergely and Gergely Csibra explicitly challenge Tomasello's views on the centrality of the emotions associated with shared intentionality and focus instead on the communication mechanisms necessary to ensure efficient cultural learning.
A crucial point relates to the efficacy of the highlighted emotions. Tomasello and his colleagues posit the desire to share emotional states as a key explanatory factor rather than merely as one element in a diverse suite of human abilities and behaviors.
But I am nowhere near having a sufficiently strong grasp of the material to take sides in this dispute.
It is clear that the same (or similar) perceptions and feelings which apparently motivate gestural communication – however we might characterize them – certainly do seem, in normal infants, also to motivate and facilitate the child's rapid and apparently easy acquisition of whatever language or languages they are routinely exposed to.
Significantly, though, the complexities of language can be learned (albeit often with some difficulty) even by those who lack a strong intuitive sense of other minds.
It's certainly plausible that the historical development both of prelinguistic modes of communication (like pointing) and language amongst our ancestors was dependent upon (amongst other things) certain empathetic perceptions and feelings. But, of course, the cognitive and affective factors involved are in practice always inextricably linked, sometimes in very complicated ways.
In his work on autism, Simon Baron-Cohen distinguishes between the cognitive and affective aspects of empathy. Cognitive empathy is all about what we perceive and understand about the mental states of others, whereas affective empathy concerns our emotional responses to this knowledge. Strength or appropriate responses in one area does not necessarily entail strength or appropriate responses in the other.
For example, the autistic person typically scores poorly on tests of cognitive empathy (e.g. reading particular emotions in pictures of faces cropped to reveal little more than the eyes), but often exhibits appropriate affective responses (e.g. to perceived suffering). By contrast, the psychopath typically has no problem at all with cognitive empathy (or language, for that matter), but displays deficiencies in terms of affective response.
Speculations about the way language evolved will necessarily draw on the findings of cognitive and developmental psychology as well as other areas. But, while it is reasonable to assume that affective responses played a role in the development of language, I have some doubts about the way Tomasello and his colleagues present the basic issues and about some of their key claims.
Also, as someone with a background in formal approaches to language and syntax, I am naturally wary of approaches which downplay the significance of this side of things. I was unimpressed, for example, by the comments by one of Tomasello's co-researchers, Malinda Carpenter, quoted in the Slate article.
The fact that pointing seems to call on a sophisticated understanding of what is going on in the heads of other people, she noted, "suggests that [infants] can do so much more with pointing prelinguistically than we ever thought before."
Until recently, people thought that this sort of knowledge only emerged with language. But when Carpenter, who was drawn to this work through an initial interest in language, started looking at prelinguistic gestures, her perspective changed.
"[E]verything’s already there!" she said. "I completely lost interest in language because you can see so much complexity already in infants' gestures."
It depends on what you mean by 'everything', I suppose, but I would have thought that language adds a little something to the mix.
As explained in an article cited in the comments section of the previous post, young children routinely point to direct the attention of a nearby adult to something the infant finds interesting and apparently wishes the adult to see and appreciate also.
When an infant doesn't start pointing by the appropriate age (about 12 months), it's often a sign that they don't have an intuitive sense of other minds – and also of linguistic problems ahead. (I originally came across discussions of this phenomenon in material on identifying the early signs of autism.)
The article referred to above draws on papers by Michael Tomasello and his colleagues which explore the phenomenon of infant pointing and associated behaviors. Tomasello and his fellow researchers argue for "a deeply social view [of the process] in which infant pointing is best understood – on many levels and in many ways – as depending on uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation and shared intentionality (e.g., joint intentions and attention with others). Children's early linguistic skills are built on this already existing platform of prelinguistic communication."
The researchers note that the kind of pointing they discuss is unique to humans and depends on certain key insights about the existence and nature of other minds as well as emotional factors – essentially a desire to share one's perceptions and to share in the perceptions of others.
A cursory reading of sources cited in the Slate article and related material suggests to me that Tomasello and his colleagues may well be overplaying their intuitions about sharing in their claims about the origins and development of human communication and language.
Of course, emotional factors cannot be ignored, but could not these elements be explained in terms of cognitive imperatives and the practical benefits of collaboration and reliable information transfer?
György Gergely and Gergely Csibra explicitly challenge Tomasello's views on the centrality of the emotions associated with shared intentionality and focus instead on the communication mechanisms necessary to ensure efficient cultural learning.
A crucial point relates to the efficacy of the highlighted emotions. Tomasello and his colleagues posit the desire to share emotional states as a key explanatory factor rather than merely as one element in a diverse suite of human abilities and behaviors.
But I am nowhere near having a sufficiently strong grasp of the material to take sides in this dispute.
It is clear that the same (or similar) perceptions and feelings which apparently motivate gestural communication – however we might characterize them – certainly do seem, in normal infants, also to motivate and facilitate the child's rapid and apparently easy acquisition of whatever language or languages they are routinely exposed to.
Significantly, though, the complexities of language can be learned (albeit often with some difficulty) even by those who lack a strong intuitive sense of other minds.
It's certainly plausible that the historical development both of prelinguistic modes of communication (like pointing) and language amongst our ancestors was dependent upon (amongst other things) certain empathetic perceptions and feelings. But, of course, the cognitive and affective factors involved are in practice always inextricably linked, sometimes in very complicated ways.
In his work on autism, Simon Baron-Cohen distinguishes between the cognitive and affective aspects of empathy. Cognitive empathy is all about what we perceive and understand about the mental states of others, whereas affective empathy concerns our emotional responses to this knowledge. Strength or appropriate responses in one area does not necessarily entail strength or appropriate responses in the other.
For example, the autistic person typically scores poorly on tests of cognitive empathy (e.g. reading particular emotions in pictures of faces cropped to reveal little more than the eyes), but often exhibits appropriate affective responses (e.g. to perceived suffering). By contrast, the psychopath typically has no problem at all with cognitive empathy (or language, for that matter), but displays deficiencies in terms of affective response.
Speculations about the way language evolved will necessarily draw on the findings of cognitive and developmental psychology as well as other areas. But, while it is reasonable to assume that affective responses played a role in the development of language, I have some doubts about the way Tomasello and his colleagues present the basic issues and about some of their key claims.
Also, as someone with a background in formal approaches to language and syntax, I am naturally wary of approaches which downplay the significance of this side of things. I was unimpressed, for example, by the comments by one of Tomasello's co-researchers, Malinda Carpenter, quoted in the Slate article.
The fact that pointing seems to call on a sophisticated understanding of what is going on in the heads of other people, she noted, "suggests that [infants] can do so much more with pointing prelinguistically than we ever thought before."
Until recently, people thought that this sort of knowledge only emerged with language. But when Carpenter, who was drawn to this work through an initial interest in language, started looking at prelinguistic gestures, her perspective changed.
"[E]verything’s already there!" she said. "I completely lost interest in language because you can see so much complexity already in infants' gestures."
It depends on what you mean by 'everything', I suppose, but I would have thought that language adds a little something to the mix.
Monday, July 8, 2013
A science of language?
A large part of the fascination which language holds for many is that it is one of the key markers of our humanity. Language is at the heart of human culture and human consciousness. Tense and aspect mark our sense of time, grammatical mood our sense of possibility, personal and possessive pronouns our very sense of identity and how we see ourselves as relating to other people and things.
Partly because language is an inextricable and defining part of us – and at once social and individual – it is impossible to clearly define a science of language in the way most other sciences can be defined.
To what extent should the study of language be subsumed into psychology and neuroscience? Language is behaviour, and the human language faculty can only be said to be understood to the extent that the neurological processes which drive it are known.
On the other hand, language is also a cultural object which can be studied in its own right, both structurally and historically.
It's hardly surprising, then, that, since its rise to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries, linguistics has, as sciences go, been unusually riven by competing frameworks and approaches, and these divisions have, if anything, increased over time. (Though I sometimes wonder how different things might have been if the later-20th century's most prominent linguist had not been such a relentless intellectual warrier and contrarian!)
Ultimately, the divisions between the sciences are merely for practical and administrative purposes: the quality – and worthwhileness – of research is not generally determined by discipline-specific but rather by more general criteria.
But I don't want to get into an abstract discussion about the unity of science or related matters. I really just wanted to make the point that language represents not so much a subject area as a number of interrelated subject areas. And, because the phenomenon of language can be approached from very different directions, it is difficult, if not impossible, to pull all these perspectives – and the knowledge implicit in them – together.
Perhaps, then, the best we can do is to focus on specific questions which may happen to relate to language in one way or another and to renounce as unrealistic the desire for a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of language per se.
I'll finish by mentioning a couple of language-related topics which I have been thinking about lately.
Last month I referred to the ideas of Simon Fisher and Matt Ridley on culture-driven gene evolution. The work of Fisher and others has shown that the FOXP2 gene has a crucial role to play in human linguistic abilities. The gene occurs in other species in slightly different forms and it plays various roles. Interestingly, it has been shown to play a key role in vocal expression in both birds (canaries and finches) and chimpanzees as well as in humans. Neanderthals are now believed to have had exactly the same form of the FOXP2 gene as modern humans.
I can't help thinking that the question of the origin of language retains its fascination in part because it promises to reveal something important about who we are and where we came from.
This is, I think, largely an illusion based on the idea that the abrupt discontinuity we see between ourselves and our nearest relatives (chimpanzees) always was. But intermediate forms did exist (until relatively recently, in fact).
In practice, I think we tend to assume, consciously or unconsciously, that our species has an essence.
It hasn't. Nonetheless, the development of human language as we know it does mark a clear historical and cultural discontinuity.
On a more practical note, I have also been thinking about the reputed benefits of bilingualism. It has been claimed, for instance, that bilingualism can delay the onset of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease by about five years. I have some reservations about the significance of these claims. More another time.
Partly because language is an inextricable and defining part of us – and at once social and individual – it is impossible to clearly define a science of language in the way most other sciences can be defined.
To what extent should the study of language be subsumed into psychology and neuroscience? Language is behaviour, and the human language faculty can only be said to be understood to the extent that the neurological processes which drive it are known.
On the other hand, language is also a cultural object which can be studied in its own right, both structurally and historically.
It's hardly surprising, then, that, since its rise to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries, linguistics has, as sciences go, been unusually riven by competing frameworks and approaches, and these divisions have, if anything, increased over time. (Though I sometimes wonder how different things might have been if the later-20th century's most prominent linguist had not been such a relentless intellectual warrier and contrarian!)
Ultimately, the divisions between the sciences are merely for practical and administrative purposes: the quality – and worthwhileness – of research is not generally determined by discipline-specific but rather by more general criteria.
But I don't want to get into an abstract discussion about the unity of science or related matters. I really just wanted to make the point that language represents not so much a subject area as a number of interrelated subject areas. And, because the phenomenon of language can be approached from very different directions, it is difficult, if not impossible, to pull all these perspectives – and the knowledge implicit in them – together.
Perhaps, then, the best we can do is to focus on specific questions which may happen to relate to language in one way or another and to renounce as unrealistic the desire for a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of language per se.
I'll finish by mentioning a couple of language-related topics which I have been thinking about lately.
Last month I referred to the ideas of Simon Fisher and Matt Ridley on culture-driven gene evolution. The work of Fisher and others has shown that the FOXP2 gene has a crucial role to play in human linguistic abilities. The gene occurs in other species in slightly different forms and it plays various roles. Interestingly, it has been shown to play a key role in vocal expression in both birds (canaries and finches) and chimpanzees as well as in humans. Neanderthals are now believed to have had exactly the same form of the FOXP2 gene as modern humans.
I can't help thinking that the question of the origin of language retains its fascination in part because it promises to reveal something important about who we are and where we came from.
This is, I think, largely an illusion based on the idea that the abrupt discontinuity we see between ourselves and our nearest relatives (chimpanzees) always was. But intermediate forms did exist (until relatively recently, in fact).
In practice, I think we tend to assume, consciously or unconsciously, that our species has an essence.
It hasn't. Nonetheless, the development of human language as we know it does mark a clear historical and cultural discontinuity.
On a more practical note, I have also been thinking about the reputed benefits of bilingualism. It has been claimed, for instance, that bilingualism can delay the onset of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease by about five years. I have some reservations about the significance of these claims. More another time.
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