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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) languagelog | |
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http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1896 Nicholas Wade is an inveterate gene-for-X enthusiast — he's got 68 stories in the NYT index with "gene" in the headline — and he's had two opportunities to celebrate this idea in the past few days: "Speech Gene Shows Its Bossy Nature", 11/12/2009, and "The Evolution of the God Gene", 11/14/2009. The first of these articles is merely a bit misleading, in the usual way. The second verges on the bizarre.
The "Speech Gene", of course, is FOXP2, and Wade's article covers a paper by Genevieve Konopka et al., "Human-specific transcriptional regulation of CNS development genes by FOXP2", Nature 462: 213-217, 11/12/2009. We've been muttering on this weblog for more than five years about the overselling of FOXP2 as "the Language Gene" or the "the Speech Gene" — for a recent summary of the issues, see "Mice with the 'language gene' stay mum" and "More on FOXP2", 6/5/2009.
The journal Cognition took up the cognitive aspects of the "gene for X" question in an excellent special issue in 2006, ("Genes, Brain and Cognition: A Roadmap for the Cognitive Scientist"). An articles that specifically discusses the FOXP2 evidence, as it existed in 2006, is Simon Fisher ("Tangled webs: Tracing the connections between genes and cognition", Cognition 101(2): 270-297, September 2006):
[T]he deceptive simplicity of finding correlations between genetic and phenotypic variation has led to a common misconception that there exist straightforward linear relationships between specific genes and particular behavioural and/or cognitive outputs. The problem is exacerbated by the adoption of an abstract view of the nature of the gene, without consideration of molecular, developmental or ontogenetic frameworks. […] Genes do not specify behaviours or cognitive processes; they make regulatory factors, signalling molecules, receptors, enzymes, and so on, that interact in highly complex networks, modulated by environmental influences, in order to build and maintain the brain.
(Fisher is the scientist who first identified the role of FOXP2 in speech and language impairment. See also the discussion of FOXP2 in Evan Balaban, "Cognitive Developmental Biology: History, Process, and Fortune's Wheel", in the same issue.)
The Konopka et al. paper is entirely in line with this perspective. Human FOXP2 differs from Chimpanzee FOXP2 in just two amino acids, and so, as Konopka et al. explain,
To test whether the amino acids under positive selection in human FOXP2 have a distinct biological function, which would support the role of these changes in evolution, we expressed either human FOXP2 or the same construct mutated at two sites to yield the chimpanzee amino acid content, FOXP2chimp, in human neuronal cells without endogenous FOXP2. […] To determine if modifying two amino acids leads to changes in gene expression, we conducted whole-genome microarray analysis. We identified 61 genes significantly upregulated and 55 genes downregulated by FOXP2 compared to FOXP2chimp […]
To place these gene expression changes within a more systematic context, we applied weighted gene co-expression network analysis […] to examine co-regulation of gene expression across all genes. We uncovered two modules where the module eigengene […] was driven by differences in FOXP2 and FOXP2chimp, and one module driven by similar gene regulation […] Notably, two of the genes with the most connections, so-called 'hub' genes, in one of the differential networks are DLX5 and SYT4, two genes important for brain development and function.
Here's their figure of "one of the modules containing FOXP2 and FOXP2chimp differentially expressed genes":
So this research supports the idea that the hominin mutation in FOXP2 has a biological effect, and perhaps an important one, apparently involving the interaction of a large number of genes with a large number of developmental and functional roles. It remains to be seen how this relates to human/chimp differences in anatomy, physiology, and behavior; and especially, what it has to do with speech, language, and communication.
Nicholas Wade's first sentence calls FOXP2 "a gene that underlies the faculty of human speech", and his second sentence is
All animals have an FOXP2 gene, but the human version’s product differs at just 2 of its 740 units from that of chimpanzees, suggesting that this tiny evolutionary fix may hold the key to why people can speak and chimps cannot.
Having done his best to steer his readers along exactly the mistaken path that Simon Fisher warned against ("any characterisation of this as a 'gene for grammar' (or even as a 'gene for language') clearly becomes untenable once we are able to view it within a more complete biological framework"), Wade is then forced by the facts into a somewhat different narrative:
[T]hey confirmed suspicions that FOXP2 was a maestro of the genome … Like the conductor of an orchestra, the gene quiets the activity of some and summons a crescendo from others.
In other words, it's been known since its discovery that FOXP2, like the rest of the FOX family, is a transcription factor.
Several of the genes under FOXP2’s thumb show signs of having faced recent evolutionary pressure, meaning they were favored by natural selection. This suggests that the whole network of genes has evolved together in making language and speech a human faculty.
And some of the genes in FOXP2’s network have already been implicated in diseases that include disorders of speech, confirming its importance in these faculties.
But the FOXP2 network is certainly not the only set of genes involved in language.
And, he didn't add, language is not the only thing that the FOXP2 network is involved in.
The "God Gene" is a different story altogether. To start with, it doesn't exist.
It's basically nonsense to call FOXP2 the "language gene" or the "speech gene", but at least FOXP2 exists, and is involved in the development of various anatomical structures that play a role in spoken language (as well in eating, breathing, etc.); and a FOXP2 mutation is known to be associated with developmental disorders that are partly linguistic.
But Wade's "God Gene" is entirely hypothetical. No one has discovered a family of atheists whose lack of interest in spiritual transcendence can be linked to a shared genomic variation. So what's the argument that there's a gene-for-belief-in-a-higher-power? Let's let Wade explain:
IN the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, the archaeologists Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery have gained a remarkable insight into the origin of religion.
During 15 years of excavation they have uncovered not some monumental temple but evidence of a critical transition in religious behavior. The record begins with a simple dancing floor, the arena for the communal religious dances held by hunter-gatherers in about 7,000 B.C. It moves to the ancestor-cult shrines that appeared after the beginning of corn-based agriculture around 1,500 B.C., and ends in A.D. 30 with the sophisticated, astronomically oriented temples of an early archaic state.
This and other research is pointing to a new perspective on religion, one that seeks to explain why religious behavior has occurred in societies at every stage of development and in every region of the world. Religion has the hallmarks of an evolved behavior, meaning that it exists because it was favored by natural selection. It is universal because it was wired into our neural circuitry before the ancestral human population dispersed from its African homeland.
In other words, the "God gene" a completely hypothetical just-so story, with two components. The first is the theory that religion was culturally advantageous in the circumstances of early human evolution:
The ancestral human population of 50,000 years ago, to judge from living hunter-gatherers, would have lived in small, egalitarian groups without chiefs or headmen. Religion served them as an invisible government. It bound people together, committing them to put their community’s needs ahead of their own self-interest. For fear of divine punishment, people followed rules of self-restraint toward members of the community. Religion also emboldened them to give their lives in battle against outsiders. Groups fortified by religious belief would have prevailed over those that lacked it …
There's no evidence for several aspects of this, but it's a plausible argument in favor of … cultural evolution? No, Wade (and some others) want this lesson to have been learned genetically, not culturally:
[G]enes that prompted the mind toward ritual would eventually have become universal.
The beauty part is the universality of this argument. My current favorite application leads us to postulate the Hat Gene. (OK, the Head-Covering Gene — but Wade should really be writing about "the spirituality gene" or "the transcendence gene", since "God" is hardly a cultural universal. So I'm going to stick with my Hat Gene, since it's catchier.)
Think of the manifold advantages of head-coverings to paleolithic hunter-gatherers, and the near-universality of head coverings among human groups at all subsequent stages of development — the Hat Gene hypothesis is a winner all around. Still, I doubt that I could get funding for a Genome-Wide Association study looking for correlations with preferences in haberdashery.
Coincidentally, there's Wade's new book The Faith Instinct, published Nov. 11, 2009. I'm holding out for The Hat Instinct, myself.
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languagelog | |
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http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1895 Ethan Forman broke the Danvers High School meep-ban story in the Salem News on 11/10/2009 (See "Meep: Truth or Onion?"). Over the past few days, the story has been picked up by several wire services and other outlets, none of whom provided any information beyond what was in Forman's original story.
Yesterday, NPR's All Things Considered looked into it, and actually added something to the story by interviewing a student, Mike Spiewak ("Principal Tells Students 'Meep' Is Off-Limits"):
According to Spiewak, the source was neither Beaker nor Road Runner, at least not directly:
RAZ: Well, did you pick it up from Beaker or the Road Runner?
Mr. SPIEWAK: No. Actually, my friend Alex, he picked it up on Xbox LIVE. He was in a party with a couple of kids playing Call of Duty last year. One of the kids that were in the party, you know, he said meep and, you know, Alex picked it up and we started using it.
Kudos to NPR for journalistic initiative.
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) torrio | |
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"Мегафон" продолжает радовать. Ну, то есть, "радовать". Если еще вчера я был в шоке от того, как Мега в одностороннем порядке поменяла условия обслуживания, то сегодня путаюсь как-то включить мозг, и понять, как действовать дальше. Коротко, что произошло: "Мегафон" перевел большинство популярных тарифов в разряд "локальных". Если вы - абонент "Мегафона", то обязательно проверьте, попали ли ваши тарифы и тарифы, на которые подключены ваши близкие в этот черный список. И имейте в виду, что с 9 ноября 2009 года звонки на телефоны соседних областей укрупненного Уральского региона могли подорожать для вас в 35 раз (для кого-то больше, для кого-то - меньше, в целом - до 8.70 рублей за минуту). Изменение коснулось ВСЕХ тарифов без абонентской платы. Коротко, что раздражает больше всего: 1. то, что об изменениях в условиях своего обслуживания я узнал случайно, с форума "Общение Автоклуба" сайте Е1. Я несколько раз зарекался тратить время на этот сайт и этот форум, но теперь понимаю, что как источник информации он незаменим. Увы. 2. "Мегафон" делает отвратительные иудины заявления, утверждая, что действует в интересах абонентов, стараясь предложить им более удобные и выгодные локальные тарифные планы. Это наглая ложь. Оператор просто в одностороннем порядке существенно ухудшил условия обслуживания. Ложь отвратительна. Коротко, что делать: 1. запросить через Сервис-Гид детализацию за прошедшие два месяца. Если есть ранее заказанные детализации - использовать их для увеливения статистической базы. Прикинуть, по мере возможностей, насколько часто вы звоните за пределы своего "региона подключения", вспомнить, насколько часто бываете в соседних областях, и пользуетесь там связью (в т.ч. для звонков домой). 2. с числами в руках прикинуть, какой тариф для вас теперь выгоднее... Вполне вероятно, что подавляющее большинство ваших звонков - локальные, и новая тарифная политика оператора вас не затрагивает. Поздравляю. Будьте осторожны в поездках. Если же общаться с друзьями/коллегами из соседних регионов приходится (нравится) часто, то, в качестве одной из альтернатив, лично я рассматриваю тариф "Простой". Вариант смены оператора, лично для меня, пока не вариант. Дальше посмотрим. Жалко старый номер, жалко "золотой" номер. NB: при переходе на другой тариф не забудьте сразу же отключить мерзкую услугу "замена гудка". *105*4*8#Tags: Россия, друзья, екатеринбург, технологии
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languagelog | |
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http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1893 The Taboo Desk here at Language Log Plaza is piled high with reports about taboo language and offensive language — about the classification of particular expressions as obscene/profane or otherwise offensive, about the open use of such expressions, about ways people avoid them, and so on. Now, on the front page of the New York Times on November 14, a story ("It Turns Out You Can Say That On Television, Over and Over", by Edward Wyatt) about expressions that don't reach the level of obscenity or profanity but are offensive to many people — and have now been appearing with increasing frequency on television (in prime-time network series), where they can serve as approximations to even stronger stuff.
The Times is famously modest in the vocabulary it allows in its pages (though it sometimes slips up), an editorial position that can make some stories hard to report on; see Ben Zimmer's entertaining posting "Times bowdlerizes column on Times bowdlerization", which includes a link to a Slate piece by Jesse Sheidlower on the time SCUMBAG slipped into a Times crossword puzzle.
Wyatt's story mentions the insult douche but skirts douchebag, saying:
Users of the recently popular word "douche" defend its use, noting that it was invoked, usually with the suffix "bag," [not actually a suffix, of course] in the 1990s by the character Andy Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue," an ABC series that frequently pushed the boundaries of network acceptability.
But then in a quote from cursing scholar Timothy Jay, we get the full word: "I would bet most kids today couldn't tell you what a douche bag is."
Besides douche, the article reports on the use of bitch, jackass, and sucks on prime-time network television. Those are things you can print in the Times (though I think the paper is still averse to scumbag).
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) chgk
mig19 | |
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Фестиваль интеллектуальных игр «Холодная голова-2010» 4–6 января 2010 года МГПОО «Орк-клуб» проводит в Уфе молодёжный фестиваль интеллектуальных игр — «Холодная голова», в котором примут участие команды Тюмени, Челябинска, Екатеринбурга, Перми, Самары, Новокузнецка, Казани, Уфы, Москвы и других городов. В программе фестиваля турниры по ЧГК, «Брейн-рингу», «Эрудит-квартету», «Надуваловке», «Интеллектуальному покеру», «Негритянскому ЧГК», мультиигры. Участие в фестивале не подразумевает возрастных ограничений. В прошлом году в нём участвовало более 30 команд, в том числе экс-чемпионы РФ и Европы среди младших школьников, лучшая российская команда Молодёжного Кубка Мира сезона 2008–2009 годов. В 2009 году «Холодная голова» была лицензирована МАК. Как и в прошлый раз, мы планируем сделать фестиваль выводящим на Школьный чемпионат России. Фестиваль традиционно получает широкий общественный резонанс и освещение в СМИ. Председатель оргкомитета фестиваля: Александр Берелехис (Уфа) Заместитель председателя оргкомитета: Михаил Алексеев (Миасс) Председатель жюри фестиваля: Борис Савельев (Челябинск) Контакты оргкомитета: Тел. 8-962-53-36-500, e-mail: bereg@orkclub.ru Александр Берелехис Тел. 8-902-61-33-415, e-mail: mig19@mail.ru Михаил Алексеев Сайт: http://orkclub.ru/projects/4gkprojects/icehead/До встречи в Уфе! Tags: Фестивали
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