Re: Human language acquisition

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Michael Olea 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> in article [EMAIL PROTECTED], David Longley at
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 12/1/03 11:37 AM:
> > Hold on.
> >
> > I've read and re-read your objections (and I know the Chomsky line), but
> > I don't see what you are objecting to. First of all, there are others
> > who have taken a very firm Skinnerian line *and* directly responded to
> > Chomsky's odd attacks on empiricism (and I'm not referring to K.M).
> >
> > I'm not referring to any of your specific points in particular, but
> > given that language is our most sophisticated individual behaviour, why
> > do you find the absence of a complete and detailed theory to be
> > something which in any way vitiates Skinner's thesis that it is an
> > operantly shaped set of behaviours? And more importantly, why do you
> > find the cognitivist "alternative" in any way helpful or persuasive?
> > Surely one could turn the same counter-argument on Chomsky viz the
> > failure of machine translation etc?
> >
> > The overall evidence (and I'm not going to repeat why *I* think there is
> > good reason to accept the Radical Behaviorist approach, I've done that
> > elsewhere at length and in detail) in favour of the approach would seem
> > to be to be rational grounds enough. There is more to this than
> > *psychology*.
> > All that cognitivism has done over the past 40 years or so is distract a
> > generation or two of psychologists in my view.
>
>
>
> > In the end, there are many alternative conceptual schemes which might be
> > selected, however, which ones are picked for which domains and how well
> > they survive will be a function of how good their explanatory/predictive
> > utility is, how simple they are, how they fit in with the rest of
> > science without causing unnecessary disruption elsewhere.
>
> -- David Longley (Re Differential Cognition).
>
> o The structure and physiology of the human brain set limits on what and how
> humans can learn.
>
> o The structure and physiology of the human brain are subject to both
> genetic and environmental influences.
>
> o Genomes are subject to the influence of natural selection.
>
> The question is not *whether* natural selection is responsible for the
> ability of humans to learn and use language, but rather *how*.  Is human
> "verbal behavior" a reflection of some general purpose problem-solving
> ability of the brain, or is it mediated via language-specific neuronal
> circuitry? How much is innate, how much is learnt? The hypothesis that there
> are specific neuronal circuits mediating human linguistic abilities makes
> testable predictions: it should be possible to observe genetic defects of
> linguistic ability; it should be possible to observe language-specific
> impairment as the result of disease of, or injury to, the brain.

I'm not clear what point you are making in your post as I'm certain that 
neither I, nor Glen, nor Skinner nor Quine have any quarrel with the 
thesis that genetics and Natural Selection play a critical role in 
determining our abilities, and that these are functionally related to 
our anatomy/physiology and the environment. This is all in the domain of 
physical (or if one prefers biological) empiricist science. I don't find 
your second sentence onwards helpful, but quibbling there would just be 
a distraction from the main point I made.

How does what you posted specifically relate to what I said?
--
David Longley