From Paul Ibbotson and Michael Tomasello at Scientific American:
The idea that we have brains hardwired with a mental template for learning grammar—famously espoused by Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—has dominated linguistics for almost half a century. Recently, though, cognitive scientists and linguists have abandoned Chomsky’s “universal grammar” theory in droves because of new research examining many different languages—and the way young children learn to understand and speak the tongues of their communities. That work fails to support Chomsky’s assertions.
The research suggests a radically different view, in which learning of a child’s first language does not rely on an innate grammar module. Instead the new research shows that young children use various types of thinking that may not be specific to language at all—such as the ability to classify the world into categories (people or objects, for instance) and to understand the relations among things. These capabilities, coupled with a unique human ability to grasp what others intend to communicate, allow language to happen. The new findings indicate that if researchers truly want to understand how children, and others, learn languages, they need to look outside of Chomsky’s theory for guidance. More.
It’s hard not to see this in relation to Tom Wolfe’s recent The Kingdom of Speech, where he sends up Chomsky along with Darwin.
See also: Tom Wolfe on how speech let humans rule planet
and
Jerry Coyne doesn’t like Tom Wolfe making fun of the Darwin legend
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OT: Here is a gem of a reference I picked up from Wolfe’s book (pg 70):
Methinks that they, like Chomsky, because of their shared materialistic philosophy, are not fully grasping the importance of language in the hierarchy of reality. In the article they stated:
Basically they, like Chomsky, are looking for a materialistic explanation for language. And because they are looking for a materialistic explanation for language then they too will fail to find a satisfactory materialistic explanation for language!
Indeed, it is as if materialists don’t have the first clue what their chosen atheistic philosophy actually entails. i.e. If materialism is true, then words can’t have any true meaning. Alex Rosenberg, an atheist who is far more consistent in following the implications of his materialism than most atheists are, demonstrates as much in his book entitled “The Atheist’s Guide to Reality”. In a debate, Dr. Craig called Dr. Rosenberg on the inconsistency of ‘naturalistic’ logic. (as if logic itself could even be grounded in materialism in the first place)
In the following article, Dr. Egnor nails the reason why all materialistic explanations proffered for human language will ultimately fail.
And whereas atheistic materialism cannot even begin to explain the immaterial ability of human language, Theism has a very different view of language. Indeed, Theism holds that God created through speech:
And the Theist actually has some fairly strong evidence suggesting that sound and material reality are connected at a very deep fundamental level
And unlike the now falsified materialistic presupposition of material particles randomly bumping into each other in order to achieve communication in the cell, (Bruce Alberts, Carl Zimmer), there is now found to be a very sophisticated phonon/photon method of communication in the cells of our bodies
And while it is a popular saying, when we are growing up, to say, ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’, the fact of the matter is that negative words are found to have pronounced negative effects and positive words are found to have pronounced positive effects:
That words can have such a pronounced effect on reality, and on us personally, should not really be all that surprising since words, besides carrying vibrational energy, also carry information. And as Dr. Egnor alluded to in his article, information is immaterial. And it this immaterial information that lies at the very foundation of physical reality and also lies at the very foundation of life itself:
Moreover information, besides being foundational to physical reality is also found to be foundational to biological life.
It is hard to imagine a more convincing proof that we are made ‘in the image of God’, than finding that both the universe and life itself are ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information, and have come to ‘master the planet’ precisely because of our ability infuse immaterial information into material substrates.
I guess a more convincing evidence could be if God Himself became a man, defeated death on a cross, and then rose from the dead to prove that He was God.
But who has ever heard of such overwhelming evidence as that?
Verses and Music:
Of supplemental note: At the 17:45 minute mark of the following Near Death Experience documentary, the Life Review portion of the Near Death Experience is highlighted, with several testimonies relating how every word, deed, and action, of a person’s life (all the ‘information’ of a person’s life) is gone over in the presence of God:
Verse:
of note: as to my citing of Masaru Emoto’s work on ice crystals, I cannot find anywhere where his results were replicated and thus I can not personally stand behind his results. But I do still stand behind the claim for positive and negative words having pronounced effects on us personally since that particular line of evidence is corroborated by many different lines of evidence.
A cursory look combined with some simple logic informs us that “the ability to classify the world into categories … and to understand the relations among things” precedes the use of language. If that “finding” overturns Chomsky’s theory, then one cannot help but wondering why on Earth it “dominated linguistics for almost half a century”.
How long until a SciAm article titled “Dawkins largely overturned”? I mean come on – a bit overdue? A bit.
Blind unguided purposeless Watchmaker. Who believes that crud anymore? Ooops a Rolex. Seriously?
The important point here is that linguists are DOING REAL SCIENCE. Unlike most paid “scientists”, they are testing theories and QUICKLY ABANDONING the theories that don’t work. They’re not waiting for Kuhnian attrition.
Even Chomsky is acting like a scientist, willingly revising his old theories and offering new ones. This behavior is ABSOLUTELY UNIQUE among academics.
Bornagain77:
“of note: as to my citing of Masaru Emoto’s work on ice crystals, I cannot find anywhere where his results were replicated and thus I can not personally stand behind his results. But I do still stand behind the claim for positive and negative words having pronounced effects on us personally since that particular line of evidence is corroborated by many different lines of evidence.”
Just out of interest, are you making an equivalence between yourself and a pool of water?