612 lines
45 KiB
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612 lines
45 KiB
HTML
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<head><title>Academic authoritarians, language, metaphor, animals, and science</title></head>
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<h1>
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Academic authoritarians, language, metaphor, animals, and science
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<p></p>
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<h1><strong>Academic authoritarians, language, metaphor, animals, & science</strong></h1>
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A few years ago a group of researchers in Scotland studying learning in apes did some experiments (involving
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opening boxes to get a piece of candy inside) that showed that chimpanzees learn in a variety of "flexibly
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adaptive" ways, and that 3 year old children being presented with a similar task most often did it in ways that
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appear to be less intelligent than the apes. They "suggest that the difference in performance of chimpanzees and
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children may be due to<strong> </strong>
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a greater susceptibility of children to cultural conventions." (Horner and Whiten, 2005; Whiten, et al.,
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2004).<p></p>
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<p>
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In my newsletter on puberty, I described some of the effects of foods and hormones on intelligence. Here, I
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want to consider the effects of culture on the way people learn and think. Culture, it seems, starts to make
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us stupid long before the metabolic problems appear.
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</p>
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<p>
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For many years I described culture as the perceived limits of possibility, but people usually prefer to
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think of it as the learned rules of conduct in a society. In the late 1950s I was talking with a
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psychologist about the nature of "mental maps," and I said that I found my way around campus by reference to
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mental pictures of the locations of things, and he said that his method was to follow a series of rules, "go
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out the front door and turn left, turn left at the first corner, walk three blocks and turn right, ....up
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the stairs, turn right, fourth office on the left." He had been studying mental processes for about 40
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years, so his claim made an impression on me.
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</p>
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<p>
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I thought this style of thinking might have something to do with the growing technological preference for
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digital, rather than analog, devices. The complexity and continuity of the real world is made to seem more
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precise and concrete by turning it into rules and numbers.
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</p>
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<p>
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Around the same time, I found that some people dream in vivid images, while others describe dreams as
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"listening to someone tell a story."
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</p>
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<p>
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Several years later, a graduate student of "language philosophy" from MIT told me that I was just confused
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if I believed that I had mental images that I could use in thinking. His attitude was that language, in its
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forms and in the ways it could convey meaning, was governed by rules. He was part of an effort to define
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consciousness in terms of rules that could be manipulated formally. This was just a new variation on the
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doctrine of an "ideal language" that has concerned many philosophers since Leibniz, but now its main use is
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to convince people that cultural conventions and authority are rooted in the nature of our minds, rather
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than in particular things that people experience and the ways in which they are treated.
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</p>
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<p>
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George Orwell, whose novels showed some of the ways language is used to control people, believed that
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language should be like a clear window between minds, but knew that it was habitually used to distort,
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mislead, and control. Scientific and medical practices often follow the authority of culture and
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indoctrination, instead of intelligently confronting the meaning of the evidence, the way chimpanzees are
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able to do.
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</p>
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<p>
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Not so many years ago, people believed that traits were "determined by genes," and that the development of
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an organism was the result of--was caused by--the sequential expression of genes in the nucleus of the
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fertilized egg. When B.F. Skinner in the 1970s said "a gestating baby isn't influenced by what happens to
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its mother," he was expressing a deeply rooted bio-medical dogma. Physicians insisted that a baby couldn't
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be harmed by its mother's malnutrition, as long as she lived to give birth. People could be quite vicious
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when their dogma was challenged, but their actions were systematically vicious when they weren't challenged.
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</p>
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<p>
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An ovum doesn't just grow from an oocyte according to instructions in its genes, it is constructed, with
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surrounding nurse cells adding substances to its cytoplasm. Analogously, the fertilized egg doesn't just
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grow into a human being, it is constructed, by interactions with the mother's physiology. At birth, the
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environment continues to influence the ways in which cells develop and interact with each other.
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</p>
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<p>
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Even during adulthood, the ways in which our cells--in the brain, immune system, and other organs--develop
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and interact are shaped by the environment. When Skinner was writing, many biologists still believed that
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each synapse of a nerve was directed by a gene, and couldn't be influenced by experience.
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</p>
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<p>
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Our brain grows into our culture, and the culture lives in our nervous system. If a person grows up without
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hearing people speak, he will have grown a special kind of brain, making it difficult to learn to speak.
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(Genie, wolf boy, Kaspar Hauser, for example.)
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</p>
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<p>
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When we ask a question and find an answer, we are changed. Thinking with learning is a developmental
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process. But many people learn at an early age not to question. This changes the nature of subsequent
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learning and brain development.
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</p>
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<p>
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In the 1960s, many textbooks were published that claimed to use scientific language theory to improve the
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instruction of English, from grade school level to college level. They didn't work, and at the time they
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were being published they appeared fraudulent to people who didn't subscribe to the incipient cults of
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"Generative Grammar" and "Artificial Intelligence" that later developed into "Cognitive Science."
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</p>
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<p>
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At the time that Artificial Intelligence was coming to the attention of investors and academicians,
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Neodarwinism had already cleansed the university biology departments of its opponents who advocated more
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holistic views, and the idea of a brain that was "hard-wired" according to genetic instructions had entered
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both neurology and psychology. The field concept was disappearing from developmental biology, as Gestalt
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psychology was disappearing from the universities and journals.
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</p>
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<p>
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In the humanities and social sciences, a fad appeared in the 1960s, in which a theory of grammar advocated
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by Noam Chomsky of MIT was said to explain human thinking and behavior, and specialists in anthropology,
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psychology, literature, rhetoric, sociology, and other academic fields, claimed that it informed their work
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in an essential way. The rapid spread of a doctrine for which there was essentially no evidence suggests
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that it was filling a need for many people in our culture. This doctrine was filling some of the gaps left
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by the failure of genetic determinism that was starting to be recognized. It gave new support to the
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doctrine of inborn capacities and limitations, in which formulaic indoctrination can be justified by the
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brain's natural structure.
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</p>
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<p>
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Chomsky was committed to an idealistic, "rationalist" doctrine of innate ideas, and to argue for that
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doctrine, which held that there are transcendent forms (or "deep structures") that control mind, he disposed
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of the opposing "empiricist" approach to mind by claiming that children simply learn language so rapidly
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that it would be impossible to explain on the basis of learning from experience. Separating vocabulary from
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grammar, he acknowledged that each language is different, and can be learned as easily by the children of
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immigrants of different ethnicity as by children whose ancestors spoke it, but that all humans have a
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genetically encoded "universal grammar," a "language organ." It is this "inborn grammar" that allows
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children to learn what he said would be inconceivable to learn so quickly from experience.
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</p>
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<p>
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The abstract, computational nature of the "inborn" functions of the "language organ" would make a nice
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program for a translating machine, and the absence of such a useful program, after more than 50 years of
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trying to devise one, argues against the possibility of such a thing.
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</p>
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<p>
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Since Plato's time, some people have believed that, behind the changing irregularities of real languages,
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there is a timeless, context-free language. In the late 1950s, when I was studying language and the "ideal
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languages" of the philosophers, I realized that George Santayana was right when he pointed out that each
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time an artificial language is used by real people in real situations, it is altered by the experience that
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accrues to each component, from the context in which it is used. If real language were the model for
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mathematics, then the values of numbers would change a little with every calculation.
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</p>
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<p>
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Adults are usually slower than children at learning a new language, but they can make the process much
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quicker by memorizing paradigms. With those models, they can begin speaking intelligible sentences when they
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know only a few words. These basics of grammar are often outlined in just a few pages, but listing
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irregularities and exceptions can become very detailed and complex. The grammar that children use isn't as
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subtle as the grammar some adults use, and college freshmen are seldom masters of the grammar of their
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native language.
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</p>
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<p>
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There have been various studies that have investigated the number of words understood by children at
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different ages.
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</p>
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<p>
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The Virginia Polytechnic Institute website says that
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</p>
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<p>
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By age 4 a person probably knows 5,600 words
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</p>
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<p>
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By age 5 a person probably knows 9,600 words
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</p>
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<p>
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By age 6 a person probably knows 14,700 words
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</p>
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<p>
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By age 7 a person probably knows 21,200 words
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</p>
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<p>
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By age 8 a person probably knows 26,300 words
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</p>
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<p>
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By age 9 a person probably knows 29,300 words
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</p>
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<p>
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By age 10 a person probably knows 34,300 words
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</p>
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<p>
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By age 20 a college sophomore probably knows 120,000 words
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</p>
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<p>
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A dictionary with 14,000 words is a substantial book. The grammar used by a 6 year old person isn't very
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complex, because at that age a person isn't likely to know all of the subtleties of their language. There is
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no reason to assume that a mind that can learn thousands of words and concepts in a year can't learn the
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grammatical patterns of a language--a much smaller number of patterns and relationships--in a few years.
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</p>
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<p>
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Idioms and clich"s are clusters of words that are frequently used together in the same pattern to express a
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stereotyped meaning. There are thousands of them in English, and some of them have existed for centuries,
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while others are regional and generational. It is possible to speak or write almost completely in clich"s,
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and they are such an important part of language that their acquisition along with the basic vocabulary
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deserves more attention than linguists have given it. A mind that can learn so many clich"s can certainly
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learn the relatively few stereotypical rules of phrasing that make up the grammar of a language. In fact, a
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grammar in some ways resembles a complex clich".
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</p>
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<p>
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Recognition of patterns, first of things that are present, then of meaningful sequences, is what we call
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awareness or consciousness. There is biological evidence, from the level of single cells through many types
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of organism, both plant and animal, that pattern recognition is a basic biological function. An organism
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that isn't oriented in space and time isn't an adapted, adapting, organism. Environments change, and the
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organization of life necessarily has some flexibility.
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</p>
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<p>
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A traveling bird or dog can see a pattern once, and later, going in the opposite direction, can recognize
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and find specific places and objects. An ant or bee can see a pattern once, and communicate it to others.
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</p>
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<p>
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If dogs and birds lived in colonies or cities, as bees and ants do, and carried food home from remote
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locations, they might have a need to communicate their knowledge. The fact that birds and dogs use their
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vocal organs and brains to communicate in ways that people have seldom cared to study doesn't imply that
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their brains differ radically from human brains in lacking a "language organ."
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</p>
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<p>
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People whose ideology says that "animals use instinct rather than intelligence," and that they lack "the
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language instinct," refuse to perceive animals that are demonstrating their ability to generalize or to
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understand language.
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</p>
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<p>
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Organisms have genes, so a person could say that pattern recognition is genetically determined, but it would
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be a foolish and empty thing to say. (Nevertheless, people do say it.) The people who believe that there are
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"genes for grammar" believe that these mind-controlling genes give us the ability to generalize, and
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therefore say that animals aren't able to generalize, though their "instinctive behaviors" might sometimes
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seem to involve generalization.
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</p>
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<p>
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In language, patterns are represented symbolically by patterned sounds, and some of those symbolically
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represented patterns are made up of other patterns. Different languages have different ways of representing
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different kinds of patterns.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Things" are recognizable when they are far or near, moving or still, bright or dark, or upside down,
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because the recognition of a pattern is an integration involving both spatial and temporal components. The
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recognition of an object involves both generalization and concreteness.
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</p>
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<p>
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Things that are very complex are likely to take longer to recognize, but the nature of any pattern is that
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it is a complex of parts and properties.
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</p>
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<p>
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A name for "a thing" is a name for a pattern, a set of relationships.
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</p>
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<p>
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The method of naming or identifying a relationship can make use of any way of patterning sound that can be
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recognized as making distinctions. Concepts and grammar aren't separable things, "semantics" and "syntax"
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are just aspects of a particular language's way of handling meaning.
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</p>
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<p>
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As a child interacts with more and more things, and learns things about them, the patterns of familiar
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things are compared to the patterns of new things, and differences and similarities are noticed and used to
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understand relationships. The comparison of patterns is a process of making analogies, or metaphors.
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Similarities perceived become generalizations, and distinctions allow things to be grouped into categories.
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</p>
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<p>
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When things are explored analogically, the exploration may first identify objects, and then explore the
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factors that make up the larger pattern that was first identified, in a kind of analysis, but this analysis
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is a sort of expansion inward, in which the discovered complexity has the extra meaning of the larger
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context in which it is found.
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</p>
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<p>
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When something new is noticed, it excites the brain, and causes attention to be focused, in the "orienting
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reflex." The various senses participate in examining the thing, in a physiological way of asking a question.
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Perception of new patterns and the formation of generalizations expands the ways in which questions are
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asked. When words are available, questions may be verbalized. The way in which questions are answered
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verbally may be useful, but it often diverts the questioning process, and provides rules and arbitrary
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generalizations that may take the place of the normal analogical processes of intelligence. The vocabulary
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of patterns no longer expands spontaneously, but tends to come to rest in a system of accepted opinions.
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</p>
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<p>
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A few patterns, formulated in language, are substituted for the processes of exploration through
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metaphorical thinking. In the first stages of learning, the process is expansive and metaphorical. If a
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question is closed by an answer in the form of a rule that must be followed, subsequent learning can only be
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analytical and deductive.
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</p>
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<p>
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Learning of this sort is always a system of closed compartments, though one system might occasionally be
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exchanged for another, in a "conversion experience."
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</p>
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<p>
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The exploratory analogical mind is able to form broad generalizations and to make deductions from those, but
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the validity of the generalization is always in a process of being tested. Both the deduction and the
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generalization are constantly open to revision in accordance with the available evidence.
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</p>
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<p>
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If there were infallible authorities who set down general rules, language and knowledge could be idealized
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and made mathematically precise. In their absence, intelligence is necessary, but the authorities who would
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be infallible devise ways to confine and control intelligence, so that, with the mastery of a language, the
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growth of intelligence usually stops.
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</p>
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<p>
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In the 1940s and '50s, W.J.J. Gordon organized a group called Synectics, to investigate the creative
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process, and to devise ways to teach people to solve problems effectively. It involved several methods for
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helping people to think analogically and metaphorically, and to avoid stereotyped interpretations. It was a
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way of teaching people to recover the style of thinking of young children, or of chimps, or other
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intelligent animals.
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</p>
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<p>
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When the acquisition of language is burdened by the acceptance of clich"s, producing the conventionalism
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mentioned by Horner and Whiten, with the substitution of deductive reasoning for metaphorical-analogical
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thinking, the natural pleasures of mental exploration and creation are lost, and a new kind of personality
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and character has come into existence.
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</p>
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<p>
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Bob Altemeyer spent his career studying the authoritarian personality, and has identified its defining
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traits as conventionalism, submission to authority, and aggression, as sanctioned by the authorities. His
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last book, <em>The Authoritarians</em> (2006) is available on the internet.
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</p>
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<p>
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Altemeyer found that people who scored high on his scale of authoritarianism tended to have faulty
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reasoning, with compartmentalized thinking, making it possible to hold contradictory beliefs, and to be
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dogmatic, hypocritical, and hostile.
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</p>
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<p>
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Since he is looking at a spectrum, focusing on differences, I think he is likely to have underestimated the
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degree to which these traits exist in the mainstream, and in groups such as scientists, that have a
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professional commitment to clear reasoning and objectivity. With careful training, and in a culture that
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doesn't value creative metaphorical thinking, authoritarianism might be a preferred trait.
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</p>
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<p>
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Konrad Lorenz (who with Niko Tinbergen got the Nobel Prize in 1973) believed that specific innate structures
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explained animal communication, and that natural selection had created those structures. Chomsky, who said
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that our genes create an innate "Language Acquisition Device," distanced himself slightly from Lorenz's view
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by saying that it wasn't certain that natural selection was responsible for it. However, despite slightly
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different names for the hypothetical innate "devices," their views were extremely similar.
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</p>
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<p>
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Both Lorenz and Chomsky, and their doctrine of innate rule-based consciousness, have been popular and
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influential among university professors. When Lorenz wrote a book on degeneration, which was little more
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than a revised version of the articles he had written for the Nazi party's Office for Race Policy in the
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late 1930s and early 1940s, advocating the extermination of racial "mongrels" such as jews and gypsies, most
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biologists in the US praised it. Lorenz identified National Socialism with evolution as an agent of racial
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purification. His lifelong beliefs and activities--the loyalty to a strong leader, advocating the killing of
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the weak--identified Lorenz as an extreme authoritarian.
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</p>
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<p>
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When a famous professor went on a lecture tour popularizing and affirming the scientific truth and
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importance of those publications, and asserting that all human actions and knowledge, language, work, art,
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and belief, are specified and determined by genes, he and his audience (which, at the University of Oregon,
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included members of the National Academy of Sciences and Jewish professors who had been refugees from
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Nazism, who listened approvingly) were outraged when a student mentioned the Nazi origin and intention of
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the original publications.
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</p>
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<p>
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They said "you can't say that a man's work has anything to do with his life and political beliefs," but in
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fact the lecturer had just finished saying that everything a person does is integral to that person's
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deepest nature, just as Lorenz said that a goose with a pot belly and odd beak, or a person with non-nordic
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physical features and behavior and cultural preferences--should be eliminated for the improvement of the
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species. Not a single professor in the audience questioned the science that had justified Hitler's racial
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policies, and some of them showed great hostility toward the critic.
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</p>
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<p>
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In the 1960s, a professor compared graduate students' scores on the Miller Analogies Test, which is a widely
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used test of analogical thinking ability, to their academic grades. She found that the students who scored
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close to the average on the test had the highest grades and the greatest academic success, and those who
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deviated the most from the average on that test, in either direction, had the worst academic grades. If the
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ability to think analogically is inversely associated with authoritarianism, then her results would indicate
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that graduate schools select for authoritarianism. (If not, then they simply select for mediocrity.)
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</p>
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<p>
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Although Bob Altemeyer's scale mainly identified right-wing, conservative authoritarians, he indicated that
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there could be left-wing authoritarians, too. Noam Chomsky is identified with left-wing political views, but
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his views of genetic determinism and a "nativist" view of language learning, and his anti-empiricist
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identification of himself as a philosophical Rationalist, have a great correspondence to the authoritarian
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character. The "nativist" rule-based nature of "Cognitive Science" is just the modern form of an
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authoritarian tradition that has been influential since Plato's time.
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</p>
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<p>
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The first thing a person is likely to notice when looking at Chomsky's work in linguistics is that he offers
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no evidence to support his extreme assertions. In fact, the main role evidence plays in his basic scheme is
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negative, that is, his doctrine of "Poverty of the Stimulus" asserts that children aren't exposed to enough
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examples of language for them to be able to learn grammar--therefore, grammar must be inborn.
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</p>
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<p>
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I think Chomsky discovered long ago that the people around him were sufficiently authoritarian to accept
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assertions without evidence if they were presented in a form that looked complexly technical. Several people
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have published their correspondence with him, showing him to be authoritarian and arrogant, even rude and
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insulting, if the person questioned his handling of evidence, or the lack of evidence.
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</p>
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<p>
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For example, people have argued with him about the JFK assassination, US policy in the Vietnam war, the
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HIV-AIDS issue, and the 9/11 investigation. In each case, he accepts the official position of the
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government, and insults those who question, for example, the adequacy of the Warren Commission report, or
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who believe that the pharmaceutical industry would manipulate the evidence regarding AIDS, or who doubt the
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conclusions of the 9/11 Commission investigation.
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</p>
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<p>
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He says that investigation of such issues is "diverting people from serious issues," as if those aren't
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serious issues. And "even if it's true" that the government was involved in the 9/11 terrorism, "who cares?
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I mean, it doesn't have any significance. I mean it's a little bit like the huge amount of energy that's put
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out on trying to figure out who killed John F. Kennedy. I mean, who knows, and who cares"plenty of people
|
|
get killed all the time. Why does it matter that one of them happens to be John F. Kennedy?"
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"If there was some reason to believe that there was a high level conspiracy" in the JFK assassination, "it
|
|
might be interesting, but the evidence against that is just overwhelming." "And after that it's just a
|
|
matter of, uh, if it's a jealous husband or the mafia or someone else, what difference does it make?" "It's
|
|
just taking energy away from serious issues onto ones that don't matter. And I think the same is true here,"
|
|
regarding the events of 9/11. These reactions seem especially significant, considering his reputation as
|
|
America's leading dissenter.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
The speed with which Chomskyism spread through universities in the US in the 1960s convinced me that I was
|
|
right in viewing the instruction of the humanities and social sciences as indoctrination, rather than
|
|
objective treatment of knowledge. The reception of the authoritarian ideas of Lorenz and his apologists in
|
|
biology departments offered me a new perspective on the motivations involved in the uniformity of the
|
|
orthodox views of biology and medicine.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
In being introduced into a profession, any lingering tendency toward analogical-metaphoric thinking is
|
|
suppressed. I have known perceptive, imaginative people who, after a year or two in medical school, had
|
|
become rigid rule-followers.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
One of the perennial questions people have asked when they learn of the suppression of a therapy, is "if the
|
|
doctors are doing it to defend the profitable old methods, how can they refuse to use the better method even
|
|
for themselves and their own family?" The answer seems to be that their minds have been radically affected
|
|
by their vocational training.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
For many years, cancer and inflammation have been known to be closely associated, even to be aspects of a
|
|
single process. This was obvious to "analog minded" people, but seemed utterly improbable to the
|
|
essentialist mentality, because of the indoctrination that inflammation is a good thing, that couldn't
|
|
coexist with a bad thing like cancer.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The philosophy of language might seem remote from politics and practical problems, but Kings and advertisers
|
|
have understood that words and ideas are powerfully influential in maintaining relationships of power.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Theories of mind and language that justify arbitrary power, power that can't justify itself in terms of
|
|
evidence, are more dangerous than merely mistaken scientific theories, because any theory that bases its
|
|
arguments on evidence is capable of being disproved.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
In the middle ages, the Divine Right of Kings was derived from certain kinds of theological reasoning. It
|
|
has been replaced by newer ideologies, based on deductions from beliefs about the nature of mind and matter,
|
|
words and genes, "Computational Grammar," or numbers and quantized energy, but behind the ideology is the
|
|
reality of the authoritarian personality.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
I think if we understand more about the nature of language and its acquisition we will have a clearer
|
|
picture of what is happening in our cultures, especially in the culture of science.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p><h3>REFERENCES</h3></p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
New Yorker,<strong> </strong>April 16, 2007<strong>, "The Interpreter: Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended
|
|
our understanding of language?"
|
|
</strong>
|
|
by John Colapinto. "Dan Everett believes that Pirah" undermines Noam Chomsky's idea of a universal grammar."
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Language & Communication Volume 23, Issue 1, January 2003, Pages 1-43. <strong>
|
|
"Remarks on the origins of morphophonemics in American structuralist linguistics,"
|
|
</strong>E. F. K. Koerner. Chomsky has led the public to believe that he originated things which he borrowed
|
|
from earlier linguists.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Science. 2008 Feb 1;319(5863):569; author reply 569. <strong>Comparing social skills of children and
|
|
apes.</strong> De Waal FB, Boesch C, Horner V, Whiten A. Letter
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Curr Biol. 2007 Jun 19;17(12):1038-43. Epub 2007 Jun 7.<strong>
|
|
Transmission of multiple traditions within and between chimpanzee groups.</strong> Whiten A, Spiteri A,
|
|
Horner V, Bonnie KE, Lambeth SP, Schapiro SJ, de Waal FB. Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution
|
|
and Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9JP,
|
|
United Kingdom. <a href="mailto:A.whiten@st-andrews.ac.uk" target="_blank">A.whiten@st-andrews.ac.uk</a>
|
|
Field reports provide increasing evidence for local behavioral traditions among fish, birds, and mammals.
|
|
These findings are significant for evolutionary biology because social learning affords faster adaptation
|
|
than genetic change and has generated new (cultural) forms of evolution. Orangutan and chimpanzee field
|
|
studies suggest that like humans, these apes are distinctive among animals in each exhibiting over 30 local
|
|
traditions. However, direct evidence is lacking in apes and, with the exception of vocal dialects, in
|
|
animals generally for the intergroup transmission that would allow innovations to spread widely and become
|
|
evolutionarily significant phenomena. Here, we provide robust experimental evidence that alternative
|
|
foraging techniques seeded in different groups of chimpanzees spread differentially not only within groups
|
|
but serially across two further groups with substantial fidelity. Combining these results with those from
|
|
recent social-diffusion studies in two larger groups offers the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman
|
|
species can sustain unique local cultures, each constituted by multiple traditions. The convergence of these
|
|
results with those from the wild implies a richness in chimpanzees' capacity for culture, a richness that
|
|
parsimony suggests was shared with our common ancestor.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
J Comp Psychol. 2007 Feb;121(1):12-21. <strong>Learning from others' mistakes? limits on understanding a
|
|
trap-tube task by young chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens).
|
|
</strong>Horner V, Whiten A. Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology,
|
|
University of St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, UK. <a href="mailto:Vhorner@rmy.emory.edu" target="_blank"
|
|
>Vhorner@rmy.emory.edu</a> A trap-tube task was used to determine whether chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and
|
|
children (Homo sapiens) who observed a model's errors and successes could master the task in fewer trials
|
|
than those who saw only successes. Two- to 7-year-old chimpanzees and 3- to 4-year-old children did not
|
|
benefit from observing errors and found the task difficult. Two of the 6 chimpanzees developed a successful
|
|
anticipatory strategy but showed no evidence of representing the core causal relations involved in trapping.
|
|
Three- to 4-year-old children showed a similar limitation and tended to copy the actions of the
|
|
demonstrator, irrespective of their causal relevance. Five- to 6-year-old children were able to master the
|
|
task but did not appear to be influenced by social learning or benefit from observing errors.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Proc Biol Sci. 2007 Feb 7;274(1608):367-72. <strong>Spread of arbitrary conventions among chimpanzees: a
|
|
controlled experiment.</strong> Bonnie KE, Horner V, Whiten A, de Waal FB. Living Links, Yerkes National
|
|
Primate Research Center, Atlanta, GA 30329, USA. <a href="mailto:Kebonni@emory.edu" target="_blank"
|
|
>Kebonni@emory.edu</a> Wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have a rich cultural repertoire--traditions common
|
|
in some communities are not present in others. The majority of reports describe functional, material
|
|
traditions, such as tool use. Arbitrary conventions have received far less attention. In the same way that
|
|
observations of material culture in wild apes led to experiments to confirm social transmission and identify
|
|
underlying learning mechanisms, experiments investigating how arbitrary habits or conventions arise and
|
|
spread within a group are also required. The few relevant experimental studies reported thus far have relied
|
|
on cross-species (i.e. human-ape) interaction offering limited ecological validity, and no study has
|
|
successfully generated a tradition not involving tool use in an established group. We seeded one of two
|
|
rewarded alternative endpoints to a complex sequence of behaviour in each of two chimpanzee groups. Each
|
|
sequence spread in the group in which it was seeded, with many individuals unambiguously adopting the
|
|
sequence demonstrated by a group member. In one group, the alternative sequence was discovered by a low
|
|
ranking female, but was not learned by others. Since the action-sequences lacked meaning before the
|
|
experiment and had no logical connection with reward, chimpanzees must have extracted both the form and
|
|
benefits of these sequences through observation of others.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Sep 12;103(37):13878-83. <strong>Faithful replication of foraging techniques
|
|
along cultural transmission chains by chimpanzees and children.</strong> Horner V, Whiten A, Flynn E, de
|
|
Waal FB. Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology, University of St.
|
|
Andrews, Fife KY16 9JP, United Kingdom. Observational studies of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have
|
|
revealed population-specific differences in behavior, thought to represent cultural variation. Field studies
|
|
have also reported behaviors indicative of cultural learning, such as close observation of adult skills by
|
|
infants, and the use of similar foraging techniques within a population over many generations. Although
|
|
experimental studies have shown that chimpanzees are able to learn complex behaviors by observation, it is
|
|
unclear how closely these studies simulate the learning environment found in the wild. In the present study
|
|
we have used a diffusion chain paradigm, whereby a behavior is passed from one individual to the next in a
|
|
linear sequence in an attempt to simulate intergenerational transmission of a foraging skill. Using a
|
|
powerful three-group, two-action methodology, we found that alternative methods used to obtain food from a
|
|
foraging device ("lift door" versus "slide door") were accurately transmitted along two chains of six and
|
|
five chimpanzees, respectively, such that the last chimpanzee in the chain used the same method as the
|
|
original trained model. The fidelity of transmission within each chain is remarkable given that several
|
|
individuals in the no-model control group were able to discover either method by individual exploration. A
|
|
comparative study with human children revealed similar results. This study is the first to experimentally
|
|
demonstrate the linear transmission of alternative foraging techniques by non-human primates. Our results
|
|
show that chimpanzees have a capacity to sustain local traditions across multiple simulated generations.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Nature. 2005 Sep 29;437(7059):737-40. <strong>Conformity to cultural norms of tool use in
|
|
chimpanzees.</strong> Whiten A, Horner V, de Waal FB. Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive
|
|
Evolution, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9JP, UK. <a
|
|
href="mailto:A.whiten@st-and.ac.uk"
|
|
target="_blank"
|
|
>A.whiten@st-and.ac.uk</a> Rich circumstantial evidence suggests that the extensive behavioural diversity
|
|
recorded in wild great apes reflects a complexity of cultural variation unmatched by species other than our
|
|
own. However, the capacity for cultural transmission assumed by this interpretation has remained difficult
|
|
to test rigorously in the field, where the scope for controlled experimentation is limited. Here we show
|
|
that experimentally introduced technologies will spread within different ape communities. Unobserved by
|
|
group mates, we first trained a high-ranking female from each of two groups of captive chimpanzees to adopt
|
|
one of two different tool-use techniques for obtaining food from the same 'Pan-pipe' apparatus, then
|
|
re-introduced each female to her respective group. All but two of 32 chimpanzees mastered the new technique
|
|
under the influence of their local expert, whereas none did so in a third population lacking an expert. Most
|
|
chimpanzees adopted the method seeded in their group, and these traditions continued to diverge over time. A
|
|
subset of chimpanzees that discovered the alternative method nevertheless went on to match the predominant
|
|
approach of their companions, showing a conformity bias that is regarded as a hallmark of human culture.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
Anim Cogn. 2005 Jul;8(3):164-81. <strong>Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees
|
|
(Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens).</strong>
|
|
Horner V, Whiten A. Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology, University of
|
|
St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9JU, UK. <a href="mailto:Vkh1@st-andrews.ac.uk" target="_blank"
|
|
>Vkh1@st-andrews.ac.uk</a> This study explored whether the tendency of chimpanzees and children to use
|
|
emulation or imitation to solve a tool-using task was a response to the availability of causal information.
|
|
Young wild-born chimpanzees from an African sanctuary and 3- to 4-year-old children observed a human
|
|
demonstrator use a tool to retrieve a reward from a puzzle-box. The demonstration involved both causally
|
|
relevant and irrelevant actions, and the box was presented in each of two conditions: opaque and clear. In
|
|
the opaque condition, causal information about the effect of the tool inside the box was not available, and
|
|
hence it was impossible to differentiate between the relevant and irrelevant parts of the demonstration.
|
|
However, in the clear condition causal information was available, and subjects could potentially determine
|
|
which actions were necessary. When chimpanzees were presented with the opaque box, they reproduced both the
|
|
relevant and irrelevant actions, thus imitating the overall structure of the task. When the box was
|
|
presented in the clear condition they instead ignored the irrelevant actions in favour of a more efficient,
|
|
emulative technique. These results suggest that emulation is the favoured strategy of chimpanzees when
|
|
sufficient causal information is available. However, if such information is not available, chimpanzees are
|
|
prone to employ a <strong>more comprehensive copy of an observed action. In contrast to the chimpanzees,
|
|
children employed imitation</strong> to solve the task in both conditions, at the expense of efficiency.
|
|
We suggest that the difference in performance of chimpanzees and children may be due to<strong>
|
|
a greater susceptibility of children to cultural conventions,</strong> perhaps combined with a
|
|
differential focus on the results, actions and goals of the demonstrator.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Learn Behav. 2004 Feb;32(1):36-52. <strong>How do apes ape?</strong> Whiten A, Horner V, Litchfield CA,
|
|
Marshall-Pescini S. Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, Scottish Primate Research Group,
|
|
School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. <a
|
|
href="mailto:A.whiten@st-and.ac.uk"
|
|
target="_blank"
|
|
>A.whiten@st-and.ac.uk</a>
|
|
|
|
In the wake of telling critiques of the foundations on which earlier conclusions were based, the last 15
|
|
years have witnessed a renaissance in the study of social learning in apes. As a result, we are able to
|
|
review 31 experimental studies from this period in which social learning in chimpanzees, gorillas, and
|
|
orangutans has been investigated. The principal question framed at the beginning of this era, Do apes ape?
|
|
has been answered in the affirmative, at least in certain conditions. The more interesting question now is,
|
|
thus, How do apes ape? Answering this question has engendered richer taxonomies of the range of
|
|
social-learning processes at work and new methodologies to uncover them. Together, these studies suggest
|
|
that apes ape by employing a portfolio of alternative social-learning processes in <strong>flexibly adaptive
|
|
ways,</strong> in conjunction with nonsocial learning. We conclude by sketching the kind of decision
|
|
tree that appears to underlie the deployment of these alternatives.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<a href="http://www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/vocabula.html" target="_blank"><strong><u
|
|
>http://www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/vocabula.html</u></strong></a>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
© Ray Peat Ph.D. 2009. All Rights Reserved. www.RayPeat.com
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