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Tom Wolfe Challenges Chomsky's Theory--Scientific American Does It Better

In his new book, a founding father of New Journalism skewers the father of modern linguistics, then proffers his own pseudo-language theory. Save your money—we set things straight in our just-published article on linguistics

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


In his ninth decade Tom Wolfe is still twisting the noses of the high and mighty—this time Noam Chomsky and Charles Darwin. Playing with language has always been one of Wolfe’s pastimes. But now the social critic and novelist is doing Chomsky one better by inventing his own theory as to why humans have the gift of the gab. Wolfe’s answer: Forget evolution and don’t even think about “language organs,” as postulated by Chomsky.

Humans, Wolfe concludes, invented language as a cultural artifact—in the same way a tango or an iPhone came from our own labors. This culmination to The Kingdom of Speech comes after Wolfe has already untethered language from any evolutionary antecedents. “Speech, language, was something that existed quite apart from evolution. It had nothing to do with it.”

Wolfe contends that language creates an unbridgeable gap between us and other creatures. Speech as the ultimate artifact gave us the cognitive muscle to devise mathematics, farming and other endeavors, , along with a capacity for thought lacking in our primate cousins. “Even the smartest apes don’t have thoughts so much as conditioned responses to certain primal pressures...”


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Primatologists would undoubtedly beg to differ with that assertion, but no matter. A funny coincidence occurred just about the time Wolfe’s book was released a couple of weeks ago. The journal Science published a study that showed dogs’ brains are capable of responding to the meaning of words and how they are used—evidence that another species evolved the capacity to process sounds in the brain and derive substance from them. Or maybe this trait in dogs is merely a canine cultural artifact, if one follows along with Mr. Canis lupus.

The notion that Chomsky’s theory of linguistics may be on shaky ground predates any of Wolfe’s contributions on this topic. In fact, Scientific American has a recently posted article, which will also appear in the November print issue, that casts out various pillars of the Chomskyan intellectual edifice (with no aspirations to dis Darwinian evolution).

Have a look. No paywall in sight until mid-October.

Gary Stix, Scientific American's neuroscience and psychology editor, commissions, edits and reports on emerging advances and technologies that have propelled brain science to the forefront of the biological sciences. Developments chronicled in dozens of cover stories, feature articles and news stories, document groundbreaking neuroimaging techniques that reveal what happens in the brain while you are immersed in thought; the arrival of brain implants that alleviate mood disorders like depression; lab-made brains; psychological resilience; meditation; the intricacies of sleep; the new era for psychedelic drugs and artificial intelligence and growing insights leading to an understanding of our conscious selves. Before taking over the neuroscience beat, Stix, as Scientific American's special projects editor, oversaw the magazine's annual single-topic special issues, conceiving of and producing issues on Einstein, Darwin, climate change, nanotechnology and the nature of time. The issue he edited on time won a National Magazine Award. Besides mind and brain coverage, Stix has edited or written cover stories on Wall Street quants, building the world's tallest building, Olympic training methods, molecular electronics, what makes us human and the things you should and should not eat. Stix started a monthly column, Working Knowledge, that gave the reader a peek at the design and function of common technologies, from polygraph machines to Velcro. It eventually became the magazine's Graphic Science column. He also initiated a column on patents and intellectual property and another on the genesis of the ingenious ideas underlying new technologies in fields like electronics and biotechnology. Stix is the author with his wife, Miriam Lacob, of a technology primer called Who Gives a Gigabyte: A Survival Guide to the Technologically Perplexed (John Wiley & Sons, 1999).

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