Descent of Man, Ascent of Apes?
Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade. Penguin 2006.
It has been many decades since I tried to read Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man. Like many other writers on human evolution, Darwin seems addicted to just-so stories, and, although he was a patient and careful naturalist and an often brilliant commentator on what we would today call eco-systems, his basic account--apart from his theory of natural selection (and that is admittedly a big "apart from")--is no more advanced or more probable than what we find in Lucretius, who borrowed it from Epicurus, who took much of it from the Fifth Century philosopher-poet Empedocles. Basically, men once lived like beasts, fighting and stealing, feeding, fornicating, and killing until, driven by necessity, they made non-aggression pacts with each other. Necessity also inspired language and culture--an early version of B.F. Skinner's equally unsubstantiated theory of human development.
For Epicurus and his disciples, it did not matter too much whether or not a scientific account of thunder or language was true, because the real point was to discredit non-materialist explanations and thus religion. It is no accident that when Western science began to take off, Epicurean theories came back into vogue, stimulated in part by the discovery of a ms. of Lucretius. Nicholas Wade's foray into science-journalism is only the most recent popular account in a long line of Darwinian just-so storytellers that includes Thomas Henry Huxley, Julian Huxley, and Richard Dawkins. Wade is not a science but a science reporter. Nonetheless, his book has been blurbed by James D. Watson and E.O. Wilson. One may well regard Watson as something of a hustler and Wilson as philosophically naif, but both are important scientists who have made valuable contributions to our understanding of life on earth, whether of termites or the mythical Tasaday.
I have chosen to discuss this book two reasons: first, because it provides a lucid and readable survey of recent developments in genetics and archeology that help us gain a more detailed picture of the gap between baboons and Babylonians; second, because Wade illustrates the failure of scientists to think coherently and avoid drawing unjustified conclusions from partial evidence. Intellectually, he and the scientists from whom he draws his material are a giant step backward from Epicurus, who knew, consciously, when he was making up a scientific myth and for what reason.
I am only going to go into a few interesting details but am happy to discuss anything in the book that strikes the fancy of a reader. I do want to avoid some of the pitfalls of earlier discussions. I am, therefore, stipulating from the beginning that this is to be a rational, not a theological discussion. First, there are to be no givens, whether materialist or Christian, though naturally we are all free to express what we believe. What I wish to avoid are arguments over whether or not the Bible or the Pope contradicts evolutionary theory; second, we are going to apply Cato's formula, rem tene or "stick to the point." I do not at all object to diversions that are relevant or even tangential, but responses that are personal, irrelevant, personal, or long and rambling will be removed. Please do not take a removal personally and please do not write in to apologize.
Chapter I: Genetics & Genesis
Wade states his general theme: to study human history from roughly 3000 BC, when written records first appear, back to roughly 50,000 years ago when a recognizably human species first appears. "If this is the point at which the modern human story begins, then written records exist for ust the last 10% of it; 90% of human history seems irretrievably lost." It is a minor point but indicative. History does not mean whatever has happened to human beings but a rational inquiry, set down in writing, into human events. This is an important distinction because Wade is not aware that his material is not history and that his speculations do not have the status of historical inquiry.
In general, I am going to skip over his little stories, so dear to the hearts of cheap journalists today, but his story of the louse is, again, indicative. The interesting point is the notion that the evolution of headlice into body lice probably coincides with the invention of clothing. (When we were hairy apes, lice could roam the entire body but as we lost hair they were confined only to our tufts.) He drags in Genesis, only to make a silly joke, but the conjectural dating for the invention of clothing--about 70,000 BC is potentially useful if true. However, by his own principles, body lice might have evolved by accident and hung around, barely surviving, for some time until the invention of clothing gave them a selective advantage. I think the research is interesting and valuable, but, at least as he presents it, far from conclusive.
The first stage in the human journey is our differentiation from chimpanzees or chimp-like ancestors. We share 99% of our DNA with chimps, which should make us realize what a difference is made by that 1%. Since much of this chapter simply summarizes the contents of succeeding chapters--indeed, this book might have been half as long if it were not written for cretins--I shall not go into detail. The basic myth he tells is of ape-like creatures that took advantage of mutations that enabled them to communicate and avoid conflict. Though anatomically human creatures existed 100,000 years ago, language of some kind--and typically human behavior--would have evolved about 50,000 years ago. Evolution did not stop, but human groups, even after the exodus from Africa, evolved along different lines, physically and mentally.
He concedes that the compilers of Genesis did their best to explain human origins, we now know so much more and can give a much better explanation. Can we really? I postpone that discussion to the end except to say that Wade does not appear to understand Genesis at all, except in a Fundamentalist sense. Historic Christianity, however, is not fundamentalist and has always interpreted the Old Testament through the lens of the New and through the tradition. If we wish to take the OT seriously as a work of science and history, then the value of pi is 3 and the earth is flat and it is OK to slaughter innocent people just because they are occupying territory you think God has given you. What Genesis does teach us is man's dependency on a God who created the universe and made man as a creature he loves. Man was seduced by his arrogance, his desire to know good and evil and make himself a god. So long as man walks in the footsteps of Adam, he will make himself miserable. It seems to me Genesis, for all its scientific inadequacy, gets many important things more right than Darwin and his disciples have understood.
In the end, it hardly matters whether behaviorally modern man, a descendant of chimp-like ancestors, emerged 50,000 or 20,000 years ago. As seekers of truth we naturally would like to know, but we should never confuse this information or speculation with wisdom that is grounded in human experience.
Chapter II: Metamorphosis
In Wade's new version of genesis, 150 modern humans left Africa about 50,000 years ago, repeating an earlier human exodus of 1.8 million years ago. The earlier emigrants turned into the distinct species Homo erectus in Asia and Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and from time to time the Middle East. This entire human line descends from chimplike ancestors that evolved about 5 million years ago.
Wade emphasizes the impact of ecological stress on hominid evolution. A harsh global cooling and drying shrunk the arboreal apes' woodland habitat, and, while conservative apes stayed in the trees and changed rather little, some specimens began spending more time on the ground and making use of genetic variation that adapted them to new conditions. One of the changes is bipedalism,which leaves the hands freer for food-getting and aggression.
The first walking apes were the australopithecines of about 4.4 million years ago. Their brains were only slightly larger than the apes whom they resembled.
Another cooling period, 3-2 million years back, shrunk the vegetable supply and encouraged meat-eating. The species that emerged, Homo habilis, benefited from the new diet and experienced an increase in brain size--up to twice that of the chimpanzees. Hh also develops use of primitive tools.
With the emergence of Hh's descendant Homo ergaster (the workman) about 1.7 million years ago, the human form showed the effects of dietary change. He lost his Wisconsin-sized belly, needed to hold leaves, and his chest went from the shape of a cone to that of a barrel. With ergaster, sexual dimorphism decreased, in the sense that the size-difference between males and females was reduced, which may reflect the development of male-female bonding (how he does not say) as opposed to the separate male and female hierarchies of modern chimps. (By the way, he rarely makes it clear that the male hierarchy rules.) H.e. females also have a smaller birth canal. This coupled with larger brain size meant that H.e. infants and their descendants are born premature and require more attention than ape babies.
Ergaster also develops a humanoid nose and may lose his fur, at least according to Richard Klein, one of Wade's favorite authorities. This development is variously explained as the result of the need to sweat in a hot climate (Klein) or of sex appeal (Darwin).
Loss of hair is related to the dark skin of Africa. Chimps today have pink skin, but they are protected by hair. The gene controlling skin color is more uniform in Africa, presumably, because lighter skin would have made the possessor more vulnerable to sun damage. Outside of Africa, dark skin was more a liability because it would have blocked vitamin D absorption, caused rickets, and made individuals less fit to thrive and reproduce. That presumably is why Africans in the US were unable to reproduce....
Ergaster or his descendants broke out of their African prison less than 2 million years ago and the result was Homo erectus and the Neanderthals. Back in Africa, ergaster went on changing and growing a bigger brain but scarcely changed their way of life. By 100,000 years ago they looked like modern humans but acted much as they always had. Human behavior would not develop for another 55,000 years.
What happened. Archaeologists emphasize cultural development, while anthropologists are more hip to genes and favor genetic interpretation. Wade naturally favors genes, though he admits the paucity of evidence. Klein pins the cultural revolution that began some 50,000 years ago, roughly when the colonists left Africa, on a genetic change that permitted the development of language.
I'll spare you the details of the quarrel over whether there is evidence of modern behavior--group cooperation, fishing, etc,--before the second exodus. As I understand it, part of the proof of the change is that the 150 must have been able to communicate in order to coordinate the departure. This seems highly speculative and not at all solidly based, especially considering the lack of evidence and the accidental nature of many paleoanthropoligical discoveries.
Wade following Klein has filled in many details, but the overall story is not too different from what it was 20-30 years ago when I was preparing to write The Politics of Human Nature. What I could not figure out then and cannot figure out now is who is who, that is, who are apes and who are humans. Australopithecenes are clearly apes and so, I believe, is Hh. But He or HN may not be less human than some of my neighbors. What is their presumed IQ--about 65-75?
Then there is the problem of descent vs. parallel development. It is not at all clear to me that we know enough to say that we are descended from australophithecines. There are so few specimens and they in such fragmentary condition. I look forward to your comments.
Chapter III: “First Words”
What is the cause of language? To be more precise and Aristotelian, what are the causes? That is, what are its material requirements, what form(s) does it take, who or what is the driving force, and what purpose or functions does it serve? These are ancient questions, taken up by Platonists, Stoics, and Epicureans. Epicureans naturally saw language as a response to or expression of necessity, while Plato tried to link words with reality, much as he regarded the arts as mimetic representations of a more real reality beyond the senses.
In modern times, philosophers have been joined by linguists and anthropologists, each with a particular theory unrelated to every other theory. The chaos and absurdity (matched only by the chaos and absurdity of professional metricians) reached a point that linguists agreed to ban discussions of the origins question from many conferences and journals. Wade knows none of this it seems, and repeats the absurd charge that Noam Chomsky is somehow responsible for the taboo.
Wade’s approach, in a nutshell, is to assume that there must be a straightforward Neo-Darwinist explanation for the origin of language. In other words, a genetic variant can be discovered which multiplied under advantageous circumstances. He does not make the mistake of treating human language as simply a more sophisticated form of monkey cries and gestures. Language is “a vibrant, fully developed facility in people, but is not possessed, even in rudimentary form, by another species.” This is virtually the only statement in the chapter that can be accepted without serious qualifications, though, please note that Wade does not know enough of his own language to know that a comma is used to separate two clauses but not a verbal phrase lacking a subject (as in, “but is not possessed.”) It is a small point but indicative.
The language mechanism, it has long been known, is sensitive to a person’s age, that is, if it is not kicked in at an early age, it will never properly develop. But even the primitive language of the deprived is a great advance over non-human forms of communication. As an example he cites “Shh!” which is interesting because it “requires a listener.” Apparently Wade thinks that “Shh” can be proved to be a primitive expression, an idea for which there is absolutely no evidence. “Shh” though a monosyllable sibilant is a command that quite possibly could only develop in languages where there is already a syntax for giving commands.
He also assumes that the way sign-languages spring up among deaf people can tell us something about the origin of language. But maybe, maybe not is the only answer a prudent man can give. Perhaps we are dealing with a Kluge Hans syndrome, that is, the deaf children grow up responding to people who communicate through language, and their response is to develop a parallel set of signs. I am oversimplifying terribly, but no more than Wade.
Wade cites a theorist who thinks that language evolved from gestures more than grunts and cries and another who relates it to grooming, in which case language begins as a bonding mechanism rather than as a communication tool. According to another, language is a peacock’s tail, that is, a hypertrophic development of a feature that is originally related to mating. But, as Wade notes, English has about 60,000 words in use. This seems more than a hypertrophic extension of “Nice pair!”. Then there is the equally trivial theory that as humans moved into information-rich ecological niches, they were forced to develop a means of communication.
Wade is more impressed with the idea that more sophisticated and diversified tools required words to describe them, citing a theorist who says “It’s as though Upper Paleolithic flint workers were saying , ‘This is an end-scraper: I use it as an end-scraper, I call it an end-scraper and it must therefore look line an end-scraper.” (Another theorist who hasn’t learned comma rules.) The operative words are “It’s as though,” words which should have been used to introduce the entire chapter.
The flint worker hypothesis allows Wade to assume that, once again, the key date is about 50,000, the eve of the human exodus from Africa. All that is needed is a gene involved with language that might have developed within a 10-20,000 years of the exodus, and, presto.
The gene is FOXP2, which, if is broken, produces people who have trouble with language. The genetic research is valuable to a point: FOXP2 is associated with fetal brain development in just those parts of the brain associated with language, and it probably developed its human form within the past 200,000 years (close enough). But who knows how many genes are required for successful language development, and, even if all were identified and studied, we would only know something about the material basis of language, much as studies of tongue and jaw help us to understand how people speak.
Is this the silliest chapter in the book or is it simply that I have thought enough about the subject to realize that he knows absolutely nothing of any use? Naturally he rejects teleology, but why is it inconceivable that the use of language by historical man (the past 5000 years) is reflects the origin and original function or purpose of language? In speaking of sign language, he neglected to mention something that is widely known about people born deaf: They tend not to develop a normal human affect toward other people. They are often observed to be cold, indifferent to human suffering, even cruel, whether or not they learn sign language. (I wonder if this explains part of the ridiculous behavior of Galaudet University students.) In that sense, sign-language then would be an entirely false scent to chase after—merely an inadequate substitute for a skill that is essential to our humanness.
Part of Wade’s problem is that he is a science journalist and has no way of weighing evidence and testimony. He’s been told that Chomsky is the greatest linguist of modern times, so he does his best to follow Chomsky. But Chomsky is simply a theorist, a very successful one if we measure him by where his disciples are placed, but his work is almost entirely theoretical. I do not know what languages Chomsky knows, but from his writings I should say he is not competent even in English. I once heard one of his more important disciples declare there was no difference between saying, “I like him playing the violin, and “I like his playing the violin,” citing this as an example of what he chose to call the sloppiness of language, that is, having multiple forms of expression available. When someone tried to straighten him out, the Chomskyist (a Yale prof.) smiled and responded, “We must be speaking different dialects.” I see absolutely no evidence that Chomsky or his followers have any understanding of real languages as opposed to the theories of generative and transformational grammar that they have used to ruin the teaching of English.
This will interest no one but I have observed a parallel to Chomskyite methods and their futility: the metrical theories applied to so-called Aeolic meters in Greek lyric poetry (e.g., Pindar, Bacchylides, Aeschylus). From a presumed core of –uu- to which various elements can be added, the theorists construct, through sequencing or through infixing [ as in –uu{-uu-} -] all the forms of Aeolic lyric verse. Just one thing: There is absolutely no evidence that Greek poet-musicians thought in this way or constructed verses in this fashion and no evidence of any poetic or musical rhythm of this type ever existing.
In sum, though he has provided some interesting tidbits, Wade is too ignorant of language even to begin to speculate on the origin of language, but confident in the Neo-Darwinist method, he trots out a series of unrelated absurdities and builds them into what he regards as a probable scenario. Later on, he will go even further down this road, discussing the development of historical language with even more recklessness. As one of the wisest poets of our language once said, “Though I’m anything but clever, I could talk like that forever.”
Two requests: First, let us take up this chapter before talking about anything else, and second, please do not ask me for my theory of the origin of language.
Entries(RSS)
TJF,
Please take my comment on your and Michael's discussion of Iamblichus and the like as a moron wise-guy's expression of awe, not impatience.
"It’s hubris I can’t stomach."
I was attempting to highlight the hubris of those for whom Evolution has become an all-encompassing, all-explaining deity.
To my understanding, "neo-Darwinism" refers to the idea that the high priesthood of Evolution can give us the answers to every last facet of human existence -- evolutionary psychology being the pre-eminent example.
Religion, art, poetry, every aspect of human experience can be explained away in terms of the amoral, spiritually-void struggle for survival on the part of selfish genes.
The term "evolution" as it is bandied about today is used to identify not the mechanism of natural selection but rather a philosophical worldview.
Namely the materialism of Richard Dawkins and his fellow-travellers -- with whom I am quite familiar, thanks.
The biological-materialist worldview of Man as being no more than the sum of his parts is now conflated with recognizing the mechanism of natural selection, and the neo-Darwinian philosophical argument goes something like this:
*Why, parental 'love' is nothing more than an evolved biochemical mechanism, full of sound and fury -- ultimately signifying nothing more than bestial appetites that are in turn founded upon nothing.
Want proof?
Why, just look at gypsy moths and how they change color over generations.
Plus, y'know, there's the fossil record.
Last but not least -- why, we have jumbo jets and cell phones.
QED.*
I too agree that it is important for people to not get locked into reading books by groupthink authors who uniformly tout the same single ideogical framework... yea, verily, diversity is important.
As to pop science which steps outside neo-Darwinian mindset, I would recommend Werner Loewenstein's "The Touchstone of Life: Molecular Information, Cell Communication, and the Foundations of Life" or "The Fifth Miracle" by Paul Davies.
Loewenstein is a former Columbia University professor and currently works for the Marine Biological Laboratory of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Davies is a British physicist who currently works for Arizona State.
To my knowledge Loewenstein is not a Christian, and is not a "creationist" nor an "intelligent designer" -- unless one defines a "creationist" as someone who believes the cosmos has a Creator and an "intelligent designer" as someone who thinks there is an underlying order and reason to existence.
If one defines "science-bashing obfuscation" as failing to subscribe to the neo-Darwinian conception of life as being definable in terms of little biological-atoms (genes, memes, etc.) bouncing around in an absurd existential soup, then Professor Loewenstein is indeed a science-bashing obfuscator.
My impression of Davies is that he is agnostic, or perhaps a noncomittal theist; as such he criticizes the cozy certainty with which a great many assume that the Alpha and Omega of the universe has been neatly tied up in a bow by philosophical materialism.
Davies actively questions whether or not evolution as it is currently understood gives a clear or coherent picture of life. He utterly rejects materialism, as do most of the scientists with whom I have had the privelege of meeting.
During an astronomy course I took in graduate school a couple years ago, one of the students attacked Copernicus, since Copernicus frequently refers to theological concepts and to God in his writings.
"That's religion, not *science*," quoth the righteous student. (Not himself a scientist of course, but a loyal and true science-worshipper.)
The instructor -- an astrophysicist and former NASA researcher -- asked in reply, "How is the belief that the universe conforms to the reasonability of mathematical harmony not also a form of religious faith?"
As for Dawkins and his memes ... I don't particularly mind that Richard Dawkins is of the opinion that all ideas and values are merely the absurd byproducts of meaningless chance which allowed the strong to triumph over the less materially-fit.
The only problem that comes in is when Dawkins uses a
scientific-sounding word for paraphrasing an old, old, old argument, and then solemnly claims to have *invented* this stance.
Now, it is true that some classicists get obnoxious and use high-falutin' Greco-Roman pseudointellectualspeke to cover up their essential stupidity and inability to think-- Victor Davis Hanson would be a prime case in point.
But the same goes for sciencespeke.
The only purpose of the syllable "meme" is that it identifies the one who utters it as a member of that exclusive fraternity of properly-modern elites who are much too clever to take religion seriously, much too progressive to accord any respect to silly-shallow works such as Augustine's meditations, and much too enlightened to believe that traditional concepts such as chastity or honor or justice actually represent anything true or absolute or eternal.
Dawkins' philosophy can be expressed mathematically: Metaphysical Cynicism = Being Smart; Faith = Stupid.
What irritates me about Dawkins, is his pretense at being innovative: If Plato's Thrasymachus were alive today he could get himself a savvy lawyer and sue the pants off of the Good Cambridge Professor, for plagiarism.
It's as if I were to point at an egg and dub it a "monoroundoid" or something, and then develop a slavishly adoring fan-base who are illiterate enough to think I have performed a feat of sagely-scientific insight.
To Frank Mathias: as a matter of fact all Darwinisms violate the second law of thermodynamics. But then that takes us away from Wade and into a discussion of what hard science (ie physics and chemistry, etc. ) really is.
But one case in point. Newton proposed originally that physical laws are constant throughout the universe and time. It has generally been accepted by all scientists until recently as some astrophysicists look for ways to make their pet theories of the "evolution" of the universe give us the universe we have now. Over the last several hundred years, physicists have measure the universal constant of gravitation thousands of times and in hundreds of ways. The value is G = 6.67428 +/- .00067 x 10(-11) m(3) kg (-1) s (-2). What do we get from Wade? See page 5 of his book. Based on rates of mutation of genes (which throughout his book change from one gene to another and some of which don't mutate al all), one guy calculated that the branch point in the evolution of body lice occurred 72,000 years ago give or take several thousand years (not 2000 or 6300 etc., but several thousand). But according to the footnote, which you have to go to the back of the book to read, other researchers (how many?, which ones?) dispute a technical point (which one?, and is there any other kind in a technical discussion than technical ones?) which could be sustained and which would put the branch point back 500,000 years. But that doesn't fit his language theory nor his out of Affica theory, so the actual text doesn't even mention the problem. This isn't science, this is gossip, or is it just natural selection!
I'm far less inclined than Dr. Fleming to cede any credibility to the religious atheists and their apologetics. The point is well taken from many of the posters here that the Dogma should not be rejected merely because we find dishonesty among its advocates and in its doctrines, and because we know on other grounds that its aims are evil. For the sake of the remnant, however (who are our only concern now), we should continue to educate about the critical differences between science and philosophy, and how to recognize when scientists have begun to philosophize.
The critical difference between theist scientists and the religious atheists in evolutionary biology is that the former do science for all the normal reasons, but latter have an additional reason, namely, to ground their faith. Christians don't need science to ground their faith, nor can anything said in it ever contradict their faith. But things said that are not science in the strict sense certainly can, such as the metaphysical speculations of anti-Christ scientists.
We cannot expect that in a dying civilization we are going to find ANY institutions uncorrupted by the death dealing ideologies in respect of which it is dying. We should not be surprised or shaken by the fact that so many apparently intelligent people are working so very hard to justify the unjustifiable. If it serves the purposes of the dominant culture to deny any distinction between philosophy and science, and it does, then we should expect more of it.
In spite of the recent rise of the philosophical discipline of philosophy of science, more people than ever are ignorant of the nature of science and the conditions of its truth claims, especially scientists themselves. The common attitude, no doubt shared by the humble Mr. Mathias, is that if a scientist says it, and it concerns science, then it simply is science as such, and it shares in all the glories and privileges thereof. Furthermore, if there is a mainstream consensus on the matter (because the history of consensus science is so impressive), then to question it is tantamount to heresy, especially if concerns the sacred cows of religious atheists (witness the climate alarmism farce).
Therefore, from the start we are cranks in the eyes of the mainstream. Mr. Mathias is an instructive example of this: he doesn't need to address any of the substantive points made by anyone; he needs only sneer, condescend, and name call, make grand sweeping dismissals of everyone and their various characters, and then sit back smugly confident of his position in the mainstream. We really should not expect anything more than this. (The hope dies hard though, I know.)
For those who understand nothing of philosophy, foundational philosophical criticisms appear grand and sweeping, but this is precisely because they are foundational. Philosophy studies the foundations of thought, being, value, and action. For those who don't understand or deny that all sciences are grounded philosophically in fundamental metaphysical assumptions, this is bound to be confusing. But the edifice of knowledge does not start with science, or end with science, but instead it begins and ends in philosophy. Whenever we see the scientist with a new discovery rush out into the cameras and lights to tell us all What It Means, all should understand that he has begun to philosophize. And inevitably, except on rare occasions, he does so poorly. The conceit, of course, is that philosophy is nothing, and can be equally well done by anyone, but especially by the philosophical scientist. The usual results of this are all the evidence one needs to the contrary.
...The predisposition and proclivity to Religion, Spirituality, etc. Is I believe, something genetic. Despite my long held conviction of Theology being the asking of questions that no one is listening to. Were the United States not founded upon---amongst other things---Religiosity: The best efforts of the Frankfurt Group et al would have easily succeeded; and initiated a far worse State of Affairs above, and of course below the Division of Labor...In this sense, Christianity, its History of Old World factionalism, malfeasance and oppression notwithstanding, has been, and must remain, an absolute imperative...Inviolable, and constant. As such it is effortlessly tolerated by many of those who cannot understand any logical basis to such "Blind Faith" whatsoever.
To be blunt: No State Authority ever threatened me with Prosecution if I failed to attend Church Services. While the tenets of Political Correctness, or moreover Political Oppression? I'm sure you will agree threaten to be a much different matter entirely. Thus if Religion is good for other people? In that regard it is good for me too. So, please, pray your asses off!
Actually I suppose a better analogy to the "meme" would be "neoconservativism" -- the global-democratic-revolution extolled by Trotskyites dusted off and re-phrased and then presented to the weak-minded as something new and original.
"The common attitude, no doubt shared by the humble Mr. Mathias, is that if a scientist says it, and it concerns science, then it simply is science as such, and it shares in all the glories and privileges thereof."
Bingo.
Hence *The Selfish Gene* and the mindset it represents are taken as "objective" scientific writing rather than as philosophical speculation.
...How about something more Classic GS?...Like neo-Marxist Billionaires in Trojan Horse?
1 Correction: Dawkins is at Oxford, not Cambridge.
GS said,
“neoconservativism” — the global-democratic-revolution extolled by Trotskyites dusted off and re-phrased and then presented to the weak-minded as something new and original.
You bring tears to my eyes, sir. Mind if I quote that?
I agree that a lengthy discussion of the influence of Iamblichus would probably serve little purpose here, and will further allow that if in saying "no inferences but references" you mean you'll be satisfied only by finding a direct quotation of Iamblichus in Dryden, then I'm not going to be able to give you one. However, it is possible to find several straighforward allusions to Iamblichus's "Life of Pythagoras" in Dryden's lyrics for "Alexander's Feast," originally written for Jeremiah Clarke to set (the setting is lost) and later set by Handel.
Cf Dryden:
Timotheus plac'd on high,
Amid the tuneful Quire,
With flying Fingers touch'd the Lyre:
The trembling Notes ascend the Sky,
and heav'nly Joys inspire.
with Iamblichus ("Life of Pythagoras," I, xxv):
"For he placed in the middle a certain person who played on the lyre, and seated in a circle round him those who were able to sing. And thus, when the person in the center struck the lyre, those that surrounded him sung certain paeans, through which they were seen to be delighted, and to become elegant and orderly in their manners."
Alexander is charmed by the bard Timotheus's music and in turn is exalted to Jovian heights, intoxicated by a Bacchic theme, rendered melancholy by "...a mournful Muse/Soft Pity to infuse" for the defeated Darius, then amorous towards the courtesan Thais. Finally:
"Revenge, Revenge, Timotheus cries,
See the Furies arise,
See the Snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in their Hair,
And the Sparkles that flash from their Eyes!
Behold the ghastly Band,
Each a Torch in his Hand!
Those are the Grecian Gholsts, that in Battle were salin,
And unbury'd remain
Inglorious on the Palin.
Give the Vengeance due
To the valiant Crew:
Behold how they toss their Torches on hughm,
How they point to the Persian Abodes,
And glitt'ring Temples of their Hostile Gods!
The Princes applaud with a furious Joy;
And the King seize'd a Flambeau, with Zeal to destroy,
Thais led the way,
To light him to his Prey;
And like Helen, fir'd another Troy."
Alexander's burning of Persepolis, which has always been a mystery to historians, is thus attributed by Dryden to music. The theme of arson inspired by a song at a feast by night is a direct allusion to Iamblichus, who tells us:
"Among the deeds of Pythagoras likewise, it is said, that once through a spondaic song of a piper, he extinguished the rage of a Tauromenian lad, who had been feasting by night, and intended to burn the vestibule of his mistress... the lad was inflamed and excited to this rash attempt by a Phyrgian song..."
I haven't looked at Handel's score to see if the bass air "Revenge, Revenge.." has Phyrgian modal elements, but it would not surprise me if it did. Maybe the above is not enough of a "reference" to satisfy you, but it seems reasonably direct to me.
You are probably aware that Handel's "Harmonious Blacksmith" alludes to the legend of Pythagoras's discovery of the relationship of pitch to weight (Iamblichus, op. cit., I, xxvi). The composer undoubtedly knew the story, if not from the original source, from its illustration on the frontispiece of Athanasius Kircher's "Musurgia universalis," which was a very popular music theory treatise at the time. Heinrich von Biber, for example, quotes birdsongs from this work in his "Sonata representativa"; and it is the source of the earliest melodies for the tarantella (another instance of Iamblicho-Pythagorean "music as medicine"). Kircher, though a Jesuit, was a thoroughoing Hermetist and Neoplatonist.
Certainly the influence of Iamblichus on Dryden in "Alexander's Feast" and generally on baroque music theory is far greater and more direct than any influence of the Corpus Hermeticum on Boyle.
Boyle's chymistry seems to me far more inspired by his opposition to Epicurean atomism, and its English adherents such as Henry More. This should be quite evident in reading Boyle's "Origins of Forms and Qualities." He used the term "hermetic" simply as a synonym for standard chemical praxis, much as we still do in speaking of "hermetically sealed" containers.
Boyle adhered to the chemical theory of his time when it seemed to him to explain the phenomena he observed, such as the "incalescence of quicksilver with gold" (in modern terms, an exothermic intermetallic reaction upon the alloying with gold of mercury previously doped with antimony and copper). This also fascinated Newton and Locke.
Incalescences are still not well understood (they occur for example between palladium and aluminum; gold and aluminum; and between nickel and aluminum); Boyle, Locke, and Newton are not the last people to have been fooled into the belief that something on the verge of transmutation was involved. Noble metals frequently exhibit incalescent behavior. The recent so-called "cold fusion" experiment involved an incalescent reaction between palladium and deuterium; the infamous "red mercury" said to have been used by the former Soviet Union in nuclear weapons may have been mercuric antimonyl heptoxide, known to Boyle, Homberg, et al., as a red powder prepared by "cohobation of the Sophick mercury."
In the quotation from Dryden beginning "Revenge, Revenge" lines 8 - 13 should read:
"Those are the Grecian Ghosts, that in Battle were slain,
And unbury'd remain,
Inglorious on the Plain.
Give the Vengeance due
To the valiant Crew:
Behold how they toss their Torches on high,"
It would have been better for me to have proofread before posting, possessing such clumsy fingers as I do.
For a brief moment, I thought you might have had something, but I think, again, you are confusing if not deliberately obfuscating the issue. Iamblichus qua hermetic philosopher is quite different from Iamblichus qua source for Pythagoras' life. Yes, there is a long literature on Pythagoras and his discoveries and some of the best myths are preserved by Iamblichus, though in the case of Dryden he is more likely to have borrowed them second-hand, as he borrowed, for example, so much from Casaubon in writing on the history of satire. Yes, indeed, if you want to show that Dryden was actually influenced by the philosophy of Iamblichus, you are going to have to find real references to the philosophy of Iamblichus.
But even if the influence is direct, it proves absolutely nothing. I cannot imagine why in a discussion of Darwinism, so much is being made of Boyle, and I cannot see why in a tangential discussion of the impact of neo-paganism on 17th century thought, an even more irrelevant topic--a poet or musician's knowledge of Iamblichus' writings on the Pythagoreans should be dragged in. We might just as well talk about Nicomachus, whose neo-Pythagorean writings on math and harmonics exercised enormous influence. That hardly makes everyone who quotes Nicomachus or refers to Pythagoras a neo-pagan or even a neo-Platonist.
What is the point to your comments? To say that neo-pagan black magic does not exist or is really a good thing? If your point is rather to say that not everyone who cites an Hermetic/neo-pagan source is necessarily an hermetic neo-pagan, I've already said that, more than once. But if you cannot distinguish between references to a musical tradition and a long-standing and organized religious cult, then I have nothing more to say, though I can recommend some things to read. This closes this part of the discussion, though as I have said before, I am happy to take it up in private or in a public forum when that is the topic. It has nothing to do with Dryden and Handel, something to do with Boyle and Newton but a great deal more with Renaissance neo-Platonism and its Nachleben.
...Erudition, and the Status of an Esoteric only goes so far in the Real World presently, if not decreasingly less. It has been my experience that Intellectuals share a common flaw; they are generally ineffective in any pursuit outside a particular, secure milieu, and one usually sponsored and dominated by some Goddamned wealthy dilettante of a Matron at that...Do not undertake the select attitudes of exclusivity Gentlemen. Because it is precisely that which will in the end will render you dangerously extinct...Rather like the present status of The Church in Europe.
Dr. Fleming:
The biggest critics of the reductionism of neo-Darwinists have been the biological structuralists, perhaps the most well-known being Gerry Webster and Brian Goodwin. Goodwin's book How the Leopard Changed Its Spots is the most readily available one; Form and Transformation, written by both of them, covers the same material but in greater detail. Giuseppe Sermonti gives a critique of reductionism in Why is a Fly Not a Horse?; the book is published by the Center for Science & Culture, i.e. the Discovery Institute, so no doubt in the minds of many it is tainted as a result.
Biological structuralism is an improvement over neo-Darwinism, but from the perspective of an Aristotelian, I find that it still falls short. While they have focused their attention on development, thus far they have not provided an example of a major new structure that has a new function developing from pre-existing living matter.
I also find the reading list at the Institute for the Study of Nature to be rather helpful in addressing reductionism within biology and other issues.
oops--close italics
my apologies to the webmaster -- my attempt to close italics didn't work
My point, at my first entrance into this discussion, was to defend Boyle against your charge that he was a neo-pagan. He was a Christian gentleman who died a faithful member of the church of England, whose funeral sermon was preached by that Anglican paragon, Bishop Burnet, and who endowed a series of lectures intended to defend the Christian religion against "notorious infidels," namely atheists, deists, pagans, Jews and Muslims.
Your case against Boyle is far weaker than mine on the doctrine of musical effects, which was not a mere literary or artistic convention. Dryden's subtitle was "The Power of Music," a power in which he and Handel appeared to believe firmly - as did their probable direct source of the Iamblichus material, Athanasius Kircher. What would you call Kircher's argument that dancing the tarantella to the appropriate melody is efficacious against the venom of its corresponding species of spider? It is assuredly magic, whether black, white, or polka dotted I know not.
If your argument is that natural science has historical roots in magic, Lynn Thorndike wrote 8 thick volumes to prove that point and nothing really need be added to them. Boyle and Newton were hardly as credulous as most of the people Thorndike describes.
Newton was definitely heterodox, his beliefs probably lying somewhere on the trajectory between the deism of Lord Herbert of Cherbury and that of Locke. His calculation of the date of the apocalypse in 1868, which you mentioned, was no odder than the Anglican bishop Ussher's determination that the world had been created in 4004 B.C. This kind of speculation was a hobby-horse of the period, just as was alchemical chrysopoeia. It should not be taken too seriously.
Darwinism has less similarity to any of these beliefs than it does with ideas like Hegel's theory of history, which has wrought far more serious mischief in the past century than any of the chimeræ of occultists, ancient or modern, ever did.
I read Thorndike or at least much of him in graduate school, when I was studying Renaissance Latin, and there is a great deal more that needs to be said on neo-paganism, though not here. I have only a tangential interest in the magical/alchemical origins of modern science insofar as it is related to the wider question of the neo-pagan movement in ancient and modern times.
As for defending Boyle from my attacks, you are, once again, not paying attention to what was said, only as an aside in an answer to a response:
"the Royal Society deserves extended treatment since some of the most empiricist members, e.g., Boyle and Newton, were also religious zanies and alchemists."
This is, admittedly, sloppy and vague. Newton was a religious zany and an alchemist, Boyle--in whom I take little interest except as a minor player in something I am beginning to study--an alchemist. I said over and over that a decent and useful person may take an interest in unwholesome studies without being himself corrupted. As for Boyle's faith, I simply do not know enough to say. He came from a fine family--one that connects him to Dryden, by the way, who was a friend of his brother. But in a world in which everyone was a Christian or thought he was or claimed to be, outward conformity means little. Ficino and Pico are always said to be pious Catholics, even by scholars who have studied their works. Reading Ficino's letters make this claim absurd. Every heretic in England defended true religion against paganism and apostacy, and as for Bishop Burnet, you are welcome to his testimony. I once wasted time reading his history and learned from that not to trust him on anything. But I know of nothing whatsoever against Boyle's character or faith, except his interest in a dark science.
As for Kircher, I must also profess ignorance. He was a great man in his day, one of those cunning Jesuits interested in the East, but also a scientist. He certainly took the Hermetic nonsense seriously, though Casaubon had already debunked it. I have always assumed, without any study, that he is a typical adept masequerading as a Catholic, though the reality may be more complicated. I simply do not know if Dryden had read Kircher, much less been influenced by him. May I assume that if you had a reference, it would have been trotted out? One learns, over the years, that resemblance does not necessarily mean imitation. Dwight McDonald, in his wonderful book of parodies, includes, as a parody of Joyce, Dutch Schultz's deathbed ravings.
In conclusion, I still do not see your point, if you have one. I said, obiter dictum, that prominent members of the Royal Society were religious zanies and alchemists. I might better have cited the Elias Ashmole but few people outside of Oxford seems to know who he is. I said repeatedly I have no animus against Boyle or Newton, for that matter, a really unpleasant person as well as a zany. I am really interested in neither except as they exemplify certain tendencies of the age. I am not an historian of science, even in an amateur sense.
However, it is a serious question, in studying 17th century philosophy, including natural philosophy, to what extent Hermetic influence may also represent, in a given writer, neo-pagan influence. Among the Italians it seems clear. In Bacon it also seems clear. Descartes seems to have believed the Rosicrucian nonsense for a time, but I am inclined to interprret that as a symptom of his anti-Christianity.
In Newton's case his religious obsession seems to rule out neo-paganism, but scientists and philosophers who cite Hermes and Iamblichus and Agrippa, and read Bruno and Paracelsus, are placing themselves within a tradition and it is entirely fair to study to what extent they are really inside the tradition rather than outsiders who might make a reference or two.
By contrast, in the case of poets, it is only fair to speculate either when they are known, like Raleigh, to have practiced alchemy, or like Sidney, to have been in the circle of John Dee (whom he cleverly addresses in Latin as deus, god!) or even Marlowe who writes a play on an alchemist and has suspicious connections. In the case of Dryden, you bring up nothing but unsuspicious echoes of a tradition that goes back to Plato and was widely if not universally accepted in the Renaissance. If you cannot distinguish Dryden's echoes from a serious interest in alchemy, then you could not distinguish Eliot's quotations from Sanskrit texts from those of Mme Blavatsky.
As a working scholar on ancient music and meter, I do not have to be lectured on the Pythagorean tradition either in the ancient or modern tradition. One thing, relevant to this discussion, we have learned--I believe F. Leo was the first to do the spadework--is that there are separate traditions in ancient music/rhythmic writing, but more than one tradition may turn up in an eclectic writer like Aristides Quintillianus. Similar language, terminology, and turns of expression may intrude themselves into a text without placing the author, necessarily, within a particular tradition. One has to weigh and balance the evidence. I cheerfully concede the probability that Boyle was a Christian gentleman--he was certainly a gentleman--despite an unwholesome interest typical of Renaissance philosophy, though by no means universal. If I had time, I would certainly be justified in going through Boyle, examining what he knew and believed.
Neo-paganism, a movement that has everywhere triumphed in the West, is certainly worth taking seriously. The only reasons for not taking neo-paganism seriously is either adherence (or indifference) to its principles or ignorance of the tradition.
I have allowed this interesting though irrelevant digression to disrupt the discussion for two long. I invite Michael to send a message to the webmaster, who will forward it to me. Future writebacks on this topic, however, will be removed without comment, though I also invite him to suggest a book, old or new, with which to develop the argument. We might try something of Frances Yates, though she is as much an apologist as an explicator of the Hermetics.
Leaving all reference to Scripture aside, if Aristotle, the pagan, is correct, namely that substance admits of no degree, then the species homo sapiens sapiens (ie us) does (did) not develop faculties gradually. His nature and faculties were completely determined at his first formation. His speech, sociability, intellect etc. are whatever they will be and have been for all time.
Also, as for genes, what exactly does it mean that we share 99% of a chimps genes? (rhetorical I know). After all there is a lot of similarity: organ systems, hair, skin, metabolism etc. Wade didn't mention it but we also share, I believe, 65 % of the genes of blue green algae. That's only 34% difference from a chimp. What does that prove other than living beings on the planet earth have a lot in common. Also, my recollection is that crayfish have 3 times as many chromosomes as we do and they taste good. Wade's kind of trivia could go on almost forever and never prove anything.
"Leaving all reference to Scripture aside, if Aristotle, the pagan, is correct, namely that substance admits of no degree, then the species homo sapiens sapiens (ie us) does (did) not develop faculties gradually."
The evolutionists do not accept Aristotle's substance ontology, nor do most moderns. Not that most of them have the first bloody clue what ontology is, beyond the dictionary definition. I suspect there is no refuge here, however, for A would probably not insist that substances remain the same across hundreds of millions of years. At any one time substances must be distinct and speciation does not occur, but evolution is not ruled out over the long term by hylomorphism.
One thing that is going to give the naturalist project fits in the years to come is the problem of 'mind.' Even though most cognitive scientists deny that mind is anything over and above brain states, they still have the difficulty of explaining why it is that only one species is self-aware. If one is a materialist (physicalism and naturalism are the new-fangled philosophical versions), one must believe that consciousness spontaneously occurs at the attainment of a certain level of neural complexity. But many animals have brains larger and just as complex as humans. Why have these other animals not become self-aware? Thus far they have been able to duck the question by hiding behind the relative state of infancy of cognitve science, and claim that one day the answers will come. And that is probably where the situation will rest until the fall of the West, after which no one will care any longer.
There is a well known British philosopher of science by the name of Paul Humphreys who has carried his physicalism to its logical extreme. He tours the world lecturing that one day very soon, science will begin doing itself for its own reasons. Science will produce hypotheses too complex for us to understand. He has charts and graphs that show that around the date 2025 this will occur, and this will be the opening of the age of "post-humanity." Don't laugh; this man is well-respected and taken seriously wherever he goes. But this is the kind of stupidity one is driven to by materialism. All of the "AI" folks believe essentially the same thing (except perhaps the date!), namely, that very soon our machines will achieve the state of complexity necessary to achieve self-awareness and consciousness.
Cease to believe in God, and you will believe anything.
I have posted a piece on chapter III but for your convenience or inconvenience, I am including it here:
Before the Dawn, Chapter III: “First Words”
What is the cause of language? To be more precise and Aristotelian, what are the causes? That is, what are its material requirements, what form(s) does it take, what purpose or functions does it serve? These are ancient questions, taken up by Platonists, Stoics, and Epicureans. Epicureans naturally saw language as a response to or expression of necessity, while Plato tried to link words with reality, much as he regarded the arts as mimetic representations of a more real reality beyond the senses.
In modern times, philosophers have been joined by linguists and anthropologists, each with a particular theory unrelated to every other theory. The chaos and absurdity (matched only by the chaos and absurdity of professional metricians) reached a point that linguists agreed to ban discussions of the origins question from many conferences and journals. Wade knows none of this it seems, and repeats the absurd charge that Noam Chomsky is somehow responsible for the taboo.
Wade’s approach, in a nutshell, is to assume that there must be a straightforward Neo-Darwinist explanation for the origin of language. In other words, a genetic variant can be discovered which multiplied under advantageous circumstances. He does not make the mistake of treating human language as simply a more sophisticated form of monkey cries and gestures. Language is “a vibrant, fully developed facility in people, but is not possessed, even in rudimentary form, by another species.” This is virtually the only statement in the chapter that can be accepted without serious qualifications, though, please note that Wade does not know enough of his own language to know that a comma is used to separate two clauses but not a verbal phrase lacking a subject (as in, “but is not possessed.”) It is a small point but indicative.
The language mechanism, it has long been known, is sensitive to a person’s age, that is, if it is not kicked in at an early age, it will never properly develop. But even the primitive language of the deprived is a great advance over non-human forms of communication. As an example he cites “Shh!” which is interesting because it “requires a listener.” Apparently Wade thinks that “Shh” can be proved to be a primitive expression, an idea for which there is absolutely no evidence. “Shh” though a monosyllable sibilant is a command that quite possibly could only develop in languages where there is already a syntax for giving commands.
He also assumes that the way sign-languages spring up among deaf people can tell us something about the origin of language. But maybe, maybe not is the only answer a prudent man can give. Perhaps we are dealing with a Kluge Hans syndrome, that is, the deaf children grow up responding to people who communicate through language, and their response is to develop a parallel set of signs. I am oversimplifying terribly, but no more than Wade.
Wade cites a theorist who thinks that language evolved from gestures more than grunts and cries and another who relates it to grooming, in which case language begins as a bonding mechanism rather than as a communication tool. According to another, language is a peacock’s tail, that is, a hypertrophic development of a feature that is originally related to mating. But, as Wade notes, English has about 60,000 words in use. This seems more than a hypertrophic extension of “Nice pair!”. Then there is the equally trivial theory that as humans moved into information-rich ecological niches, they were forced to develop a means of communication.
Wade is more impressed with the idea that more sophisticated and diversified tools required words to describe them, citing a theorist who says “It’s as though Upper Paleolithic flint workers were saying , ‘This is an end-scraper: I use it as an end-scraper, I call it an end-scraper and it must therefore look line an end-scraper.” (Another theorist who hasn’t learned comma rules.) The operative words are “It’s as though,” words which should have been used to introduce the entire chapter.
The flint worker hypothesis allows Wade to assume that, once again, the key date is about 50,000, the eve of the human exodus from Africa. All that is needed is a gene involved with language that might have developed within a 10-20,000 years of the exodus, and, presto.
The gene is FOXP2, which, if is broken, produces people who have trouble with language. The genetic research is valuable to a point: FOXP2 is associated with fetal brain development in just those parts of the brain associated with language, and it probably developed its human form within the past 200,000 years (close enough). But who knows how many genes are required for successful language development, and, even if all were identified and studied, we would only know something about the material basis of language, much as studies of tongue and jaw help us to understand how people speak.
Is this the silliest chapter in the book or is it simply that I have thought enough about the subject to realize that he knows absolutely nothing of any use? Naturally he rejects teleology, but why is it inconceivable that the use of language by historical man (the past 5000 years) is reflects the origin and original function or purpose of language? In speaking of sign language, he neglected to mention something that is widely known about people born deaf: They tend not to develop a normal human affect toward other people. They are often observed to be cold, indifferent to human suffering, even cruel, whether or not they learn sign language. (I wonder if this explains part of the ridiculous behavior of Galaudet University students.) In that sense, sign-language then would be an entirely false scent to chase after—merely an inadequate substitute for a skill that is essential to our humanness.
Part of Wade’s problem is that he is a science journalist and has no way of weighing evidence and testimony. He’s been told that Chomsky is the greatest linguist of modern times, so he does his best to follow Chomsky. But Chomsky is simply a theorist, a very successful one if we measure him by where his disciples are placed, but his work is almost entirely theoretical. I do not know what languages Chomsky knows, but from his writings I should say he is not competent even in English. I once heard one of his more important disciples declare there was no difference between saying, “I like him playing the violin, and “I like his playing the violin,” citing this as an example of what he chose to call the sloppiness of language, that is, having multiple forms of expression available. When someone tried to straighten him out, the Chomskyist (a Yale prof.) smiled and responded, “We must be speaking different dialects.” I see absolutely no evidence that Chomsky or his followers have any understanding of real languages as opposed to the theories of generative and transformational grammar that they have used to ruin the teaching of English.
This will interest no one but I have observed a parallel to Chomskyite methods and their futility: the metrical theories applied to so-called Aeolic meters in Greek lyric poetry (e.g., Pindar, Bacchylides, Aeschylus). From a presumed core of –uu- to which various elements can be added, the theorists construct, through sequencing or through infixing [ as in –uu{-uu-} -] all the forms of Aeolic lyric verse. Just one thing: There is absolutely no evidence that Greek poet-musicians thought in this way or constructed verses in this fashion and no evidence of any poetic or musical rhythm of this type ever existing.
In sum, though he has provided some interesting tidbits, Wade is too ignorant of language even to begin to speculate on the origin of language, but confident in the Neo-Darwinist method, he trots out a series of unrelated absurdities and builds them into what he regards as a probable scenario. Later on, he will go even further down this road, discussing the development of historical language with even more recklessness. As one of the wisest poets of our language once said, “Though I’m anything but clever, I could talk like that forever.”
Two requests: First, let us take up this chapter before talking about anything else, and second, please do not ask me for my theory of the origin of language.
Syntactic Structures andAspects of the Theory of Syntax I’ve read, albeit many years ago. They’re not the New Organon, yet at the time they seemed reasonable and persuasive treatises on the theoretical foundations of language. What the arguments against this foundation might be I would gladly hear. If someone has a half-day free, then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky and its links are worth a glance. Chomsky is in the Cartesian-Frege tradition of philosophy as opposed the two other main currents, British and B. F. Skinnerian Empiricism and Kantian-German-Husserlian Idealism. Thus his emphasis is on conceptualist and cognitive modes of rationality, on the logical structure and logical process of thought – context-free, with a mathematical paradigm. There are other modes, more context-sensitive.
I meant to say "modern traditions of philosophy"
I do not say that as a philospher of language that Chomsky is without all merit, only that, first, a speculative philosophical system cannot properly be made the foundation of another seemiingly scientific theory and, second, that as a philologist who deals with the reality of languages that actually exist I am entirely unimpressed with most linguistic speculation about the nature of language. I studied comparative philology with George Sherman Lane, who, as a real scholar forced to teach in the linguistics department at Chapel Hill, had--quite properly--open contempt for "the boys at MIT. I also noticed in that class and another attended by linguists (Sanskrit) that the linguistics students were very good at speculation but did not appear to have learned any known language. In Sanskrit they were eager to discuss theories of phonological change, but they could not learn so simple a matter as the declension of a noun.
In Chomsky's quarrel with Skinner, I naturally supported Chomsky, more or less--nothing could be more stupid than Skinner on the subject of language and mind--but I am more inclined to say a plague on both their houses and to resent the time I spent on Syntactic Structures. This much I know for sure: Chomsky's theories were used as weapons in the campaign to destroy the teaching of English grammar. I haven't read Chomsky for years, apart from his political screeds, but back in the 70's I noted what I was later to observe in cognitive psychologists influenced by him (e.g., Jerry Fodor) that they seem indifferent to research that is being done on the brain.
Speaking of which, someone brought up the mind/brain problem, and it reminded me that the pioneers in neurophysiology, Eccles and Penfield, both said that mind could not be explained in terms of brain events, though anyone who ever took high school biology has been assured that consciousness has been proved to be, in Haldane's words (if I remember right), an epiphenomenon like the steam whistle on a train.
"...in Haldane’s words (if I remember right), an epiphenomenon is like the steam whistle on a train. "
Someone else said the epiphenomenal mind is related to the brain as froth is to the beer, to which my old prof replied, "you can't get drunk on the froth!"
With Dr. Fleming I certainly agree that we ain’t got no teaching of grammar these days. With Dr. Fleming (and The Venerable John Henry Newman) I would also agree that our chemists are not our best cooks, our geologists not our best stone masons, and our theoretical linguists not our best historical philologists and hickory-stick schoolmasters. And the vice versa is also true.
Americans have always preferred the pragmatic to the theoretical – a fact lamented by that melancholy lefty Richard Hofstadter in his magisterial elegy, Anti Intellectualism in American Life – for my money still the best analysis of what’s wrong with American education (and American business, religion, and politics), however unfair he may be to conservatives. I know of an unfortunate provost at an American university who decided that the English department needed a linguist. Three candidates were invited, one a Structuralist, another a card-carrying Chomskyan, another a Generative Semanticist. They came, they gave their lectures, and the audience understood nothing. But then, what would they have understood from lectures about theoretical physics – say, a debate among a Newtonian, a Planckian, and and Einsteinian? Even less, a debate among theoretical mathematicians? Americans admire the telephone and honor its inventor, Bell (they also think him an American). But the name “Michael Faraday” remains a village in China. Americans also think they can corner the contemporary fabrics market and know nothing of John Newlands' and Dimitri Mendeleev’s Period Table of Elements – a sad delusion.
To stick with the math analogy: The concrete is certainly easier to grasp: one apple, two bananas, one half of a persimmon. But 1, 2, 1/2?, the rules of addition? One-ness, two-ness, one-half-ness are of a different order than apples, bananas, and persimmons. Is it an order of less esteem? I don’t think so. It certainly is an order that requires a certain aptitude to grasp and an iron-pants discipline to master. In the same way, “John hit the ball”is easier to grasp than {article+proper-noun+verb+article+noun}, to say nothing of the “strict subcategorization rules” of the various elements (definite/indefinite, count/non-count noun, etc), of the transformations of "generative grammar" that produce such syntax, or of its “deep structure” . (I think Chomsky would like this analogy.)
In Germany, the shoe is on the other foot – and just as wrongly placed. Lessing (a German) remarked that if Germans (or at least German professors) were presented with two doors, one labeled "The Kingdom of God", the other "Lectures on the Kingdom of God", they would choose the latter. A student companion in my German university days was a theoretical mathematician. He told me of the twitters and giggles he and his follow Theoretical Mathematics majors had for poor Applied Mathematics majors, much as American students have for Education and P.E. majors. Never mind that theoretical mathematicians have theories the practical value of which is a number that resembles the shape of an egg. But then, it took a long time for Pascal’s math to become applied.
Cloistered deep in the quiet of my library, at the close of the day, as the shadows gather, I wonder if this theoretic/applied division is really valid. Remember Faraday and Bell. In aesthetics, when I gaze upon Michelangelo’s design of for the Piazza del Campidoglio, I find it hard to believe that he knew nothing of x/y algebraic graphing or maybe even of Apollonius’ conic sections. (http://www.wga.hu, “artist index”, “M”, “Michelangelo”, “architectural works”, “after 1530"). To turn to medicine, I think I know why, in America, my pharmacist is from India, my physician from Pakistan. In those countries the pupils privileged enough to go to school do not eschew the theoretical, an mastery of which is needed to learn something like organic chemistry. Put simply, their kids like math; American (and German) kids don’t. Granted much of the blame is to be put on Dewey’s disastrous educational pragmatics, to say nothing of the dumbing-down from 1/2-ness to 1/2 persimmon so that the “retards” can get it (we pray), or turning the same into a moronic “project”. Math teachers indeed tell me how hard it is to turn their “chalk-and-talk” instruction into entertainment. I suspect Dewey and Co. are the real reason “kids don’t know no grammar [sic]”, be it English or Sanskrit.
Of course Dr. Fleming isn’t advocating the reign of Deweyism (or its source, Benthamism). Yet I wonder if a thoroughgoing pejorative judgement with respect to “most linguistic speculation about the nature of language” obliges one to train one’s 50 Caliber Smith & Wesson on the source of all speculation and theory, the author of the second most influential book in the Western canon: Euclid. (And The Elements is a far better text book than what American and German children must endure in their geometry classes.) Just as Chomskyans might have done damage in America to applied grammar, so maybe the Euclidians did damage in Alexandria to applied road construction and house building. Still, to stand under the dome of the Pantheon in Rome or of Santa Fosca in Torcello is to take Euclid out of the cross-hairs and offer him a toast, exclaiming in wonder: “QED”.
I have to believe, along with Aristotle, that, once you originate the species homo sapiens sapiens, you originate him whole. When man originated, and lacking experimental proof and independently and incontrovertibley proven demonstrations, the intelligence, the speech, the manual dexterity, the social nature, the upright posture, etc., etc., all came at the same instant. Other than warning or mating calls, animal sounds serve no other prupose. Speech goes hand-in-hand, simultaneously with thinking and knowing which are properties of the soul not the brain. The ancient attributed much of mans higher capabilities to his heart. Well the higher capabilities appear to work directly through the brain but there is no demonstration whatever (that dreaded scientific requirement) that the brain originates any of this stuff. I think the ancients were closer to the truth.
Another thing about language that Wade does not even acknowledge (more of his natural selcection, I guess) is that in recorded history languages have gotten simpler. Latin once had 7 cases instead of the current 5, and verbs had 3 numbers: singular, dual, and plural, instead of the current singular and plural. The earliest record we have of language shows that it was very complex, which seems like an odd way to evolve something.
As for education, the public project in the USA, as opposed to the familial or village or personal, and since the 1850's has always been to program students, and they trusted the subsequent adults, for work and consumption. You can even find it in the public record: whole word reading was developed specifically to prevent children from learning to read too well! You don't need to read well if at all to work in most factories and be cheated in the local stores.
I don't disagree much with Novalis' defense of theory. The problem is with the misapplication of theoretical methods. To have a theory about language without knowing much about actual languages is, I continue to believe, a mistake, just as putting forward theories about the nature of society without studying known socieities leads to the nothing called sociology and the more vacuous nothing known as political science. My own natural bent, since childhood, is all-too theoretical and I narrowly escaped becoming a chemist. I do not say there is no merit in speculations about the nature and origin of language. Only the contrary, but I am not at convinced that Chomsky and his school have established their work on a foundation that excludes other approaches.
Language is, among other things, a human art and though its tendencies are reducible to rules, the study of language must remain a hybrid between cooking and chemistry. But even traditional philologists have their bugs when they stray from particular studies. I know a comparative philologist who hates Chomsky but when I asked him why Slavic languages use the instrumental case for predication, e.g. I called him a fool, where fool goes in the instrumental, I was treated to an absurd theory that had absolutely no basis in anything, just a string of parallels attached to a big idea. Rather than looking for parallels in the ablative absolute, he should have got down to business in examining Slavic parallels and perhaps other language families--Indo-Persian--where the instrumental was preserved.
The most important lesson I learned from Aristotle was to postpone speculation on human things until I had acquainted myself with a body of observed facts. Thus he collected and reviewed constitutiuons before writing the Politics. I do not think that it is asking too much to demand of linguists that they learn several languages well, including their own, before putting forward sweeping theories.
In some respects the structuralists are hardly any better, and their effect on the teaching of English was the first round of the disaster. The analysis of sentences, diagramming, etc., have nothing to do with learning to use English correctly and effectively.
The evolution or devolution of IE languages from a hypothetical proto-IE is a complex issue, because to construct the original IE, we have to read backwards from known languages, like Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, to construct a hypothetical original from which we then can trace the evolution. I think it mostly works but one must be careful. There does seem to be a set of parallel developments, collapsing case forms and developing prepositions as substitutes. Why Latin and Greek lost the instrumental is beyond me. In Slavic languages it seems indispensable. Latin at least develops a rather coherent ablative with three sets of uses--locative, ablative, and instrumental--but Greek in this respect seems sloppier.
Finally on education. As a consequene of original and my peculiar sins, I used to read grants (gratis, by the way) for the US Department of Education. The funniest was an application for $1 million or so from a Harvard educationist who, in the 50's, had pioneered the dumbing down of elementary school textbooks to the point that first grade readers could only use a few hundred words. Of course it was a complete disaster, so the perfessor wanted the million bucks to study the ill effects. But Harvard is Harvard and Secretary Bennet overruled the committtee's recommendation.
"…and subsequently being brought further along to consciousness herself."
We are not 'brought to consciousness' by language, self-awareness or consciousness is the condition of possibility of language. That language is indexical, or self referencing, presupposes use by something with a self, i.e., a self-aware creature. It's not as though language just fell from the sky with an inherent feature unuseable to available creatures, which could be used to develop consciousness. First you have self-aware creatures, then they use language. Neither are there degrees of self-awareness; a creature is either self-aware, or not.
With Dr. Fleming’s views, stated in his last posting, I am in agreement. I am also in agreement with his judgement of a simpleton in a scholar’s garb:
I once heard one of his [Chomsky’s] more important disciples declare there was no difference between saying, “I like him playing the violin”, and “I like his playing the violin,” citing this as an example of what he chose to call the sloppiness of language, that is, having multiple forms of expression available. When someone tried to straighten him out, the Chomskyist (a Yale prof.) smiled and responded, “We must be speaking different dialects.”
Allow me to lift the hood and look and the engine. Consider
i. “I like his playing the violin”.
What is meant is
ii. I like the way [that] he plays the violin.
Yet notice how much more elegant, and how much less prolix and breezy, (i) is when compared to (ii). What is more, (i), with its genitive pronoun modifying a gerund, is more likely to be printed than spoken – all proving not only Dr. Fleming’s point (i.e., his interlocutor having no contact with real language), but also that this linguist reads little. We are dealing thus not with a difference in dialect but in medium: Dr. Fleming reads; Mass Man watches TV. Such Mass Men, I am afraid, infest Mass Academe. Once when attempting to obtain a teaching license, I had a professor of Education who could not recognize as grammatical an absolute clause, herself something of an ignoramus.
Now consider
iii. “I like him playing the violin” [I don’t think the speaker means “him playing the violin” as an absolute],
which can mean
iv. I like him when he is playing the violin, and
v. I would prefer that he, rather than another, play the violin
.
– which proves that the present active participle ("playing") is beloved by the common writer, is often ambiguous, and often is grammatically misused. I would advise the writer to use (iv) and (v) rather than (iii).
By the way, the difference between (i) and (iii) can indeed be explained by Chomskyan grammar – which leaves one to wonder if Dr. Fleming’s responder is ignorant of his own trade. Alas, Chomsky has been turned into a guru, with more groupies and camp followers than disciples.
To turn to comma rules, themselves quite complex even for the those of us not functionally illiterate: For I myself am guilty of using the comma the way a composer uses a bar on a scale, my sensibility more auditory than visual. I am also guilty of using the Middle Style when the Plain would do. I am now about to enter into a kingdom where Dr. Fleming is king. Would he allow me thus to submit the following scan, as a pupil might submit to his teacher for the latter’s note and markings – “teacher-blood”, to translate the phrase beloved by German pupils?
The ancients – I’m thinking of Quintillian – spoke of komma and kolon not only as we would use “phrase” and “clause” respectively, but also an units in a auditory structure. For the Grand Style, such units were to be arranged for a builded effect, to which was added the solemnity of cadence. Consider Cranmer’s first collect for Advent, as close to music as it gets, -- in the Grand Style, moving more with Virgil’s weight than Homer’s swiftness.
vi. ALMYGHTYE God, geue us grace, that we may cast awaye the workes of darknes, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the tyme of this mortall lyfe, (in which thy sonne Jesus Christ came to visite us in great humilitie;) that in the last daye whē he shall come again in his glorious maiesty to judge bothe the guicke and the dead, we waye ryse to the lyfe immortal, though him who liueth and reigneth with thee and the holy ghoste now and euer. Amen
To put this in kola, with / and // indicating weak and strong caesuras respectively, and the meter marked after:
1. Almighty God, give use grace
u-u-/ -u-//
2. that we may cast away the works of darkness
uuu-u-/u-u-u//
3. and put upon us the armour of light
u-u-u/u-uu -//
4. now in the time of this mortal life
-uu-/ uu-u-//
5. in which Thy Son Jesus Christ
uuu-/-u-/
came to visit us in great humility
-u-uu/u-u-uu//
6. that in the last day
uuu - -
7. when He shall come again in his glorious majesty
uuu-u-/uu-uu-uu/
to judge both the quick and the dead
u-uu-uu-//
8. we may rise to the life immortal
uu-uu-u-u//
9. through him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost
uuu-uu-uu u - /uu-u-/
now and ever. Amen.
-u-u// - - //
My point: wouldn’t commas be fine for the heavy caesuras, if not some of the light? As every pupil, I pray for a good note.
Granted, “Window pane prose” Cranmer’s ain’t. Indeed, to write window pane prose well is a talent of no small order, and one that I lack. In the hands of a Swift or an Orwell, window pane prose can be elegant, even engrossing; in the hands of most writers, it is tiresome and wearying, Hemming Way notwithstanding (although he did know how to use the absolute well).
To circle back to the participle and absolute, consider the line from Paradise Lost that C. S. Lewis used in his magisterial A Preface to Paradise Lost, a work that rescued Milton from the pejorative judgement of Eliot, Pound, and the New Critics, and is still the best defense that I know of Milton’s style. (whether Milton can be turned into a High Church Anglican is another matter.)
vi. Heav’n op’ed wide her e’re enduring gates/harmonious sounds on golden hinges moving
- -- u-u-u-/u-uu-u-u-u-u
Does the poet mean
vii. an absolute: “harmonious sounds moving on golden hinges”, or
viii. a participle (modifying “heaven” or “gates”?): “moving harmonious sounds on golden hinges”?
Milton is certainly imitating Virgil, with Latin’s free word order. Yet were one to substitute (vii) and (viii) for (vi), beautiful cadence would be replaced with stumbling prose. (And, by rumor and report, Heaven’s weighty gates do open in a solemn and beautiful andante.) This is not to mention Milton’s use of glorious back vowels (o, a [“ah”], and u [“ooh”]), to be compared with Pound’s use of crisp front vowels leading to a open, to imitate soaking:
The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings ....
u-u- uu-u - - u-// (or u-- uu-u -- u-)
uuu- /uu- -uu-u [with an terminal Adonic foot in the manner of Homer],
or perhaps uu - -/ uu-/ -u - -u)
– beautiful in its own way, albeit to a different affect than Milton.
Brevity, I’m afraid, isn’t Virgil’s and Milton’s virtue. It isn’t mine either.
I'm not to good with the close italics marking either. Sorry.
and when in haste I confuse "to" and "too" too.
Was my posting, to follow #86, too off-topic?
Perhaps for others but not for me. I've only just glanced at it but I think I'll have to print it out, so bad have my eyes become. If you are interested in these things, I'll be happy to send you my most recent pedantic piece on the origin of the rhetorical/metrical term period. How many years have the terms period and colon floated through my nightmares!
Although only an amateur (quite literally) in English studies, I am going through both Dryden and Milton looking at rhythmical and structural echoes of Latin and Greek. I used to know something about this, though I have forgotten most of what I knew when I taught a course on classical backgrounds to English literature at Chapel Hill.
One major difference between Vergil and Milton is that, although Vergil is certainly capable of writing long, even periodic sentences as at the beginning of the Aeneid (echoed obviously by Milton at the beginning of PL), he is often quite terse. What are the lines we remember? Sunt lacrimae rerum, mentem mortalia tangunt. As Anthony Camps, from whom I once took an Aeneid course, pointed out both in his lectures and in his nice little book aimed at students, Vergil often achieves his most powerful effects through fairly brief sentences and tiny words--res, mens--and note the graphic simplicity of tangunt, touch. He might have said overwhelm, seize, thrill, set aflutter, etc, but he preferred the simplest word. Now, Milton is not incapable of a pithy phrase, but it is not his strongest suit.
I'll get back to you on your metrical analysis. The rhythms, by the way, are very similar to what you might find in Aeschylus: iamb + cretic (or a syncopated iambic dimeter), choriamb+iamb, etc. This is how I spend my early mornings, alas, doing the next-to-last round of revisions on the old dissertation.
PS The rhetorical structure in the quotation from PL VII certainly suggests an absolute construction. Metrical analysis requires the two full lines:
Attendant on thir Lord: Heav'n op'nd wide
Her ever during Gates, Harmonious sound
On golden Hinges moving, to let forth-
The three lines in question if analyzed in terms of stress pattern are simply:
x/x/x/x/x/
x/x/x/x/x/
x/x/x/x/x/
But in terms of quantity, something more like
u-u-----u-
u-u-u-u---
u-u---uuu-
I have a font that can do a better job...
Another PS. One of the problems with 20th century linguistic theories is that they abandon traditional language and terms of analysis. For the Chomskyans, the distinction between participles and gerunds is not meaningful, but to an educated speaker of English (one trained on Latin as nearly all good writers have been), the old categories were not merely terms of art and analysis, they described what we were taught to believe were real things. Thus, while FvH's observations on the difficulties of an expression like "I like him playing" are quite true, the mere fact that such a sentence is possible shows that there is a structural category of that type available to us. It is not at all clear that we would have trouble with, "I heard him entering the room," though it is true we would not typicall say, " I heard his entering," because we would prefer the simple noun "entry." On the other hand, "I heard him singing" is clearly perceived by educated speakers to be both correct and distinct from "I heard his singing."
It would have been quite possible for Chomsky to have worked within the constraints of traditional grammar while producing his own theoretical take, but in changing the terms of analysis he and his followers also seriously damaged the language.
I am going, probably tomorrow, to do two very short descriptions of the next two chapters and post them as a new entry. This way it will allow you all, many of whom know more of this than I do, to exercise your eloquence and ingenuity.
I thank Dr. Fleming for his correcting my quotation from Milton, and for his correcting my notation for qualitative and quantitative stress. My relying on my very faulty memory was wrong.
My dear baron,
The misquotation was interesting in itself and momentarily confused me because Milton, in PL, does not usually have lines with feminine endings. It is good to quote verse without checking--Plato is filled with mistakes which indicate how much poetry he remembered--and, when mistakes are made, the quality of the mistake reveals the writer's level of competence in versification.
There is no good notation for English in common use. The macra/brevial system, technically, represents quantity, and, while quantity matters in poets like Dryden, Milton, Keats, Tennyson, it is a question of nuance and feeling, not a systematic pattern. The dumbest article on meter I have read was written by a fine scholar, Martin West, who imagined there could be 7 leves of stress in Greek verse, despite the fact that all verse and most art can be reduced to an ideal pattern of strong and weak. No matter how an artist may tune up or down individual instances, the theoretical pattern--if it is truly a rhythm--is basically an on/off switch. One could do the same thing with loud/soft, bright/dark, and, naturally, the pattern does not have to alternate strong weak. More complex ratios are common, though not, alas, in English, where we tied ourself so firmly to iambic verse that most experiments in other meters, even in trochaic, seem merely eccentric. The exceptions--including Tennyson's Maude, Browning's trochaic "Tocata etc." with one of the stresses typically weakened to resemble the ionicus a minore (uu--, cf, Marvell's great octosyllabic line "to a green though in a green shade"), and Hopkins' misguided archaism--are wonderful.
I was disappointed by the cheap shot at the author's use of commas. Firstly, you're speaking more of orthographic convention than of language; remember, we all learn language orally, not graphically. Orthographic conventions may or may not have anything to do with the natural syntax of the language. In the case of the comma, the orthographic error on the part of the Wade shows that he is probably merely being influenced by his native syntax. Although you haven't given the context, the phrase 'but is not possessed' certainly has a subject, only it is a subject which is not overtly expressed, namely the subject of the preceding clause with which this one is conjoined. This is a common phenomenon of discourse called 'ellipsis'; you will almost certainly have come across the term in your classical studies. It serves to eliminate redundant information, and is allowable in languages which permit covert subjects. Were I to represent the syntax of the clause using the standard tree representation, there would be an empty subject 'node' before the verb. Clearly Wade unconsciously used punctuation to reflect the underlying, rather than the surface syntax.
As to your cheap shots at Chomsky, all I can say is: Chomsky is only revered among generativists, and by no means are all linguists generativists, although non-generativists usually respect him. But even among generativists, there is certainly widespread debate about some of his ideas, for example over his most recent theoretical contribution of 'minimalist' syntax (already over a decade old), which many generativists have not accepted.
Chomsky himself was famously sceptical of the ability of Darwinism to account for the evolution of language. If you want a more informed opinion of the current state of 'evolutionary linguistics', see the work of e.g. Terence Deacon. Naturally, what he says is controversial, like everything else in this debate. Most linguists as you noted are not involved in it, preferring to stick with areas where real empirical advances are possible.
Please explain in what way generative transformational grammar has undermined the teaching of English. I'm all ears.
In fact, professional linguists interested in language pedagogy try in vain to get professional language teachers to head their call for the formal study of grammar as a part of foreign language learning for adults. Currently, the vogue in adult foreign language teaching is to avoid formal grammar, on the incorrect belief that adults learn languages the same way as children. A child does not need you to tell her what the dative case is, but an adult does, if he speaks English and is trying to learn Russian.
And what is the difference in meaning between 'I like him playing the violin' and 'I like his playing the violin'? Many linguists will be dying to know.