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8/4/2019 How Language Transformed Humanity
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EPISTEMOLOGY II
ORAL PRESENTATION BY: ADRIANA ESPERANZA NIO
SANCHEZ
CODE: 1010821017 GROUP: 42
TEACHER: MARY ELLEN NIO
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HOW LANGUAGE
TRANSFORMED HUMANITY
BY MARK PAGEL
BIOLOGIST MARK PAGEL SHARES AN INTRIGUING THEORY
ABOUT WHY HUMANS EVOLVED OUR COMPLEX SYSTEM OF
LANGUAGE. HE SUGGESTS THAT LANGUAGE IS A PIECE OF
"SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY" THAT ALLOWED EARLY HUMAN
TRIBES TO ACCESS A POWERFUL NEW TOOL: COOPERATION.
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WHY WE SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM:
Mark Pagel builds statistical models to examine the evolutionary
processes imprinted in human behavior, from genomics to the
emergence of complex systems -- to culture.
He says: "just as we have highly conserved genes, we have highly
conserved words. language shows a truly remarkable fidelity."
What the new studies accomplish is a far more sophisticated
analysis of the regularity of language change that earlier scholars
noted or theorized,"
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ABOUT THE LECTURERMark Pagel is an evolutionary theorist with interests
in mathematical and statistical modeling of
evolutionary processes. His current interests include
language and cultural evolution.
His co-authored 1991 monograph on comparative
statistical methods in evolutionary biology is
standard reading for the field and he is the author
of several other statistical methods for identifying
and analyzing evolutionary trends and for inferring
phylogenetic trees.
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ABOUT THE LECTURE
He define language as the most powerful, dangerous,
and subversive trait that natural selection has ever
devised because it allows you to implant a thought from
your mind directly into someone else's mind, and they
can attempt to do the same to you, without either of
you having to perform surgery.
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Instead, when you speak, you're
actually using a form of telemetry
not so different from the remote
control device for your television. It'sjust that, whereas that device relies
on pulses of infrared light, your
language relies on pulses, discretepulses, of sound.
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Languages are genes talking,
getting things that they want.
And just imagine the sense of
wonder in a baby when it first
discovers that, merely by
uttering a sound, it can get
objects to move across a room
as if by magic, and maybe
even into its mouth.
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LANGUAGE'S
SUBVERSIVE POWER
Has been recognized throughout the ages
in censorship.
The tower of Babel story in the bible is a
fable and warning about the power of
language.
And this leads to the wonderful irony thatour languages exist to prevent us from
communicating.
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We though chimpanzees were
intelligent. but if they really were
intelligent, why would they use a stick
to extract termites from the ground
rather than a shovel? Because it is what
we do.
Now the reason, because
Chimpanzees don't do that is that theylack what psychologists and
anthropologists call social learning.
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They seem to lack the ability to
learn from others by copying or
imitating or simply watching.
As a result, they can't improve on
others' ideas or learn from others'
mistakes -- benefit from others'
wisdom. And so they just do the
same thing over and over and
over again.
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WHY DO WE HAVE A LANGUAGE?
Language really is the voice of our genes. Now having evolved language
though, we did something peculiar, even bizarre. as we spread out
around the world, we developed thousands of different languages.
Currently, there are about seven or 8,000 different languages spoken on
Earth.
We use our language, not just to cooperate, but to draw rings around ourcooperative groups and to establish identities, and perhaps to protect our
knowledge and wisdom and skills from eavesdropping from outside.
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OTHER LECTURERS RELATEDSteven Pinker: Linguist, questions the very nature of our thoughts -- the
way we use words, how we learn, and how we relate to others. In his best-
selling books, he has brought sophisticated language analysis to bear on
topics of wide general interest.
Steven asserts that not only are human minds predisposed to certain kinds
of learning, such as language, but that from birth our minds -- the patterns
in which our brain cells fire -- predispose us each to think and behavedifferently.
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PATRICIA RYAN: LANGUAGE TEACHER
English is big business and languages are
dying as never before. Is there a connection?
Is this another manifestation of
McDonaldisationthe undesirable face of
globalization? Do we want to lose the variety
of languages and all the rich culture that
comes with them?"
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