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7/23/2019 Language and Human Nature Steven Pinker
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Language and Human Nature
Steven Pinker
Dept. of Psychology
Harvard University
7/23/2019 Language and Human Nature Steven Pinker
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Darwins Intellectual Legacy to the21st Century
Darwin:
In the distant future I see open fields for far
more important researches. Psychology willbe based on a new foundation
7/23/2019 Language and Human Nature Steven Pinker
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Using Evolution to make Sense ofHuman Language
First, basic question: Why did language
evolve in Homo sapiens at all? Second, more complex, question: Why do
people use language in the strange ways
they do?
7/23/2019 Language and Human Nature Steven Pinker
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The Evolution of Language
Basic idea (Pinker & Bloom, 1990):
Language is an adaptation to the cognitiveniche
7/23/2019 Language and Human Nature Steven Pinker
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The Cognitive Niche(John Tooby & Irv Devore)
Organisms evolve at each othersexpense.
Co-evolutionary arms races
Played out in evolutionary time
7/23/2019 Language and Human Nature Steven Pinker
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The cognitive niche:
Humans overtake other organisms fixeddefenses via
cause-effect reasoning tools, traps, poisons, plant preparations, drugs,