Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

["matjen6295" <matjen6295 AT spearnet.net>]

How do I get off this Listserv?
----- Original Message -----
From: <marcus AT loyno.edu>
To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
<percy-l AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 2:04 PM
Subject: [percy-l] Re: Percy's take on FOXP2 language gene?


> Ken--
>
> I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say "Helen Keller produced
speech
> before the event Walker liked to
> consider. She was an effective robot, in other words. She changed after
she
> acquired language, becoming fully a person."
>
> Do you refer to the 3-4 years of development HK went through--presumably
> normally--before she was afflicted by rheumatic fever?  Can we assume that
> she acquired a lot of language before losing hearing and sight, that she
> might have even become "fully a person" and that she re-acquired this at
> the well house.  "Effective robot" is a metaphor that doesn't really fit.
> If you look at her account, she writes that the well house moment was a
> sort of recovery of something she had had and lost.  (I haven't look at
> this passage in decades, but remember it well and remember arguing with WP
> about it.)
>
>
> On FOXP2--and I, too, hestiate to try to speak for WP--he accepted
> evolution but insisted that a true anthropology had to notice that humans
> talk and other critters don't, that there is a qualitative "disconnect"
> that must be acknowledged by the human sciences. Doesn't FOXP2 point us in
> that direction?
>
> Marcus Smith
>
> >I don't pretend to speak as a representative of Walker. Not a spot that
> >is proper or comfortable.
> >
> >However, if someone has a question about the research on FOXP2, I will
> >be happy to shoot off my own mouth.
> >
> >My initial response to this article is that FOXP2 and its mechanisms
> >while interesting, are no more interesting than genes that make possible
> >other body parts or functions involved in speech.
> >
> >We can already produce mechanical speech with devices (robots, tape
> >recorders, synthetic speech chips) but none of those entities have a
> >language. Helen Keller produced speech before the event Walker liked to
> >consider. She was an effective robot, in other words. She changed after
> >she acquired language, becoming fully a person.
> >
> >But I could be wrong...
> >
> >marcus AT loyno.edu wrote:
> >>
> >> I am pretty certain that Percy would have been fascinated by the
> research
> >> at Stanford, Oxford and elsewhere that may point to a relatively recent
> >> genetic base for human language/symbolic capacity.
> >>
> >> Does anyone--Ken Ketner?--have any ideas how Percy might have responded
> to
> >> this article by Nicholas Wade?
> >>
> >> ***************************************
> >> The New York Times
> >>
> >> August 15, 2002, Thursday, Late Edition - Final
> >>
> >> SECTION: Section A; Page 18; Column 5; National Desk
> >>
> >> LENGTH: 703 words
> >>
> >> HEADLINE: Language Gene Is Traced To Emergence of Humans
> >>
> >> BYLINE:  By NICHOLAS WADE
> >>
> >> BODY:
> >> A study of the genomes of people and chimpanzees has yielded a deep
> insight
> >> into the origin of language, one of the most distinctive human
> attributes
> >> and a critical step in human evolution.
> >>
> >> The analysis indicates that language, on the evolutionary time scale,
is
> a
> >> very recent development, having evolved only in the last 100,000 years
> or
> >> so. The finding supports a novel theory advanced by Dr. Richard Klein,
> an
> >> archaeologist at Stanford University, who argues that the emergence of
> >> behaviorally modern humans about 50,000 years ago was set off by a
major
> >> genetic change, most probably the acquisition of language.
> >>
> >> The new study, by Dr. Svante Paabo and colleagues at the Max Planck
> >> Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, is based
on
> >> last year's discovery of the first human gene involved specifically in
> >> language.
> >>
> >> The gene came to light through studies of a large London family, well
> known
> >> to linguists, 14 of whose 29 members are incapable of articulate speech
> but
> >> are otherwise mostly normal. A team of molecular biologists led by Dr.
> >> Anthony P. Monaco of the University of Oxford last year identified the
> gene
> >> that was causing the family's problems. Known as FOXP2, the gene is
> known
> >> to switch on other genes during the development of the brain, but its
> >> presumed role in setting up the neural circuitry of language is not
> >> understood.
> >>
> >> Dr. Paabo's team has studied the evolutionary history of the FOXP2 gene
> by
> >> decoding the sequence of DNA letters in the versions of the gene
> possessed
> >> by mice, chimpanzees and other primates, and people.
> >>
> >> In a report being published online today by the journal Nature, Dr.
> Paabo
> >> says the FOXP2 gene has remained largely unaltered during the evolution
> of
> >> mammals, but suddenly changed in humans after the hominid line had
split
> >> off from the chimpanzee line of descent.
> >>
> >> The changes in the human gene affect the structure of the protein it
> >> specifies at two sites, Dr. Paabo's team reports. One of them slightly
> >> alters the protein's shape; the other gives it a new role in the
> signaling
> >> circuitry of human cells.
> >>
> >> The changes indicate that the gene has been under strong evolutionary
> >> pressure in humans. Also, the human form of the gene, with its two
> changes,
> >> seems to have become universal in the human population, suggesting that
> it
> >> conferred some overwhelming benefit.
> >>
> >> Dr. Paabo contends that humans must already have possessed some
> rudimentary
> >> form of language before the FOXP2 gene gained its two mutations. By
> >> conferring the ability for rapid articulation, the improved gene may
> have
> >> swept through the population, providing the finishing touch to the
> >> acquisition of language.
> >>
> >> "Maybe this gene provided the last perfection of language, making it
> >> totally modern," Dr. Paabo said.
> >>
> >> The affected members of the London family in which the defective
version
> of
> >> FOXP2 was discovered do possess a form of language. Their principal
> defect
> >> seems to lie in a lack of fine control over the muscles of the throat
> and
> >> mouth, needed for rapid speech. But in tests they find written answers
> as
> >> hard as verbal ones, suggesting that the defective gene causes
> conceptual
> >> problems as well as ones of muscular control.
> >>
> >> The human genome is constantly accumulating DNA changes through random
> >> mutation, though they seldom affect the actual structure of genes. When
> a
> >> new gene sweeps through the population, the genome's background
> diversity
> >> at that point is much reduced for a time, since everyone possesses the
> same
> >> stretch of DNA that came with the new gene. By measuring this reduced
> >> diversity and other features of a must-have gene, Dr. Paabo has
> estimated
> >> the age of the human version of FOXP2 as being less than 120,000 years.
> >>
> >> Dr. Paabo says this date fits with the theory advanced by Dr. Klein to
> >> account for the sudden appearance of novel behaviors 50,000 years ago,
> >> including art, ornamentation and long distance trade. Human remains
from
> >> this period are physically indistinguishable from those of 100,000
years
> >> ago, leading Dr. Klein to propose that some genetically based cognitive
> >> change must have prompted the new behaviors. The only change of
> sufficient
> >> magnitude, in his view, is acquisition of language.
> >>
> >> --
> >> An archive of all list discussion is available at
> <http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail>.
> >> Visit the Walker Percy Project at <http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy>.
> >
> >--
> >Kenneth L Ketner
> >Paul Whitfield Horn Professor
> >Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism
> >Texas Tech University
> >Lubbock, TX 79409-0002
> >806 742 3128
> > Office email: b9oky AT ttacs.ttu.edu
> > Home email: ketner AT arisbeassociates.com
> > Office website: http://www.pragmaticism.net
> > Personal website: http://www.wyttynys.net
> >
> >--
> >An archive of all list discussion is available at
> <http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail>.
> >Visit the Walker Percy Project at <http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy>.
> >
>
> --
> An archive of all list discussion is available at
<http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail>.
> Visit the Walker Percy Project at <http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy>.
>
>