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BOOK REVIEW
LIGHT & LIFE : An engrossing and enlightening exploration of biological clocks, ancient sun-gods, and creatures that glow in the dark
_____________________________________________________________Michael Gross 2002 153 pages
Stimulating book, chock full of interesting information. Like for example did you know this...(Taken from a section entitled A LENS IS FOR LIFE.
" The eye lens is a rather intriguing tissue. You probably know that cells are rubbed off your skin all the time, to be replaced by new cells growing from the deeper layers of the skin. Similarly, most tissues have a certain turnover rate, replacing dying cells with fresh ones. Not so the eye lens. It keeps growing at a very slow pace from the inside out, but never replaces any of the old cells or even their proteins. Even the very first lens that forms during fetal development will stay intact for a lifetime, possibly for a century. Their metabolism will be all but closed down, so you could call them dead cells, but they still manage to keep their transparency, which is their most important function"
Ever wonder why no matter how fast you go you still can't run over those big black birds who dine on roadkill and wait until the very last moment of your hell-for-leather approach before they leisurely flap off?
Ever wonder why the penis of the human male stands erect each morning?
These questions and much more are answered in this most excellent book. >> FOUR STARS<<
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BOOK REVIEW
EVE SPOKE : Human Language and Human Evolution
_____________________________________________ Phillp Lieberman 1999
Nothing radically new in this book but Phillip Lieberman decries Chomsky's kooky ideas throughout. Good - as well he should - Chomsky being the snake oil Sigmund Freud of 20th Century linguistics.
Some ideas found in this 180 page book are...
*** Our kinfolk the Neaderthals most likely spoke in a "proto-language". The reconstruction of the position of the larynx in adult Neanderthals has indicated that the language of Neaderthals was likely a paltry one when compared to we, the wonderful Cro-magnons of today. It seems that their low positioned vocal tracts could probably pronounce all human vowels except (i), (u), and (a). Moreover the Neanderthal could not produce consonants like ((k) and (g).
Big deal, you say, until you remember that frogs find their mates by mating croaks, and in the absence of any physical barriers to effect genetic distinctions, local dialects accomplish the very same thing, i.e. people mostly mate with those who sing a familiar sounding song. "Thus, the sounds of speech in themselves can account for the extinction of the Neanderthals".
*** Spoken words are not spoken nor heard as individual units when spoken within a sentence. Rather, the sentence construct holds the full meaning and our words are percieved as continous flow of water and not as a float of individual boats. Our ideas of phonetics are therefore poorly contrived, and as such they can only be of functional value to us if the sounds we make when expressing ourselves can be rearranged to reflect this continuum of vocal reality.
Forget meter and syllabification and stress, think German, think mega-byte.
(more in a minute)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Big deal, you say, until you remember that frogs find their mates by mating croaks, and in the absence of any physical barriers to effect genetic distinctions, local dialects accomplish the very same thing, i.e. people mostly mate with those who sing a familiar sounding song. "Thus, the sounds of speech in themselves can account for the extinction of the Neanderthals".
huh?
formerly known as etaoin...
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___________________ HUH? ___________________
Please excuse me etaoin, for posting a paragraph so tightly written. But honestly, I didn't think anyone was listening. Maybe this expansion will render it coherent...
Big deal, you say, until you remember that frogs find their mates by mating croaks,
Most frogs find other frogs in fogs by sounding croaks peculiar to a specific bog or even specific to the particular frog to which he hopes to mate.
(Forgive me etaoin, apparently I am my own whore and can't help amusing only me. Forgive me. I think it's best hereafter that I quote only from the book.)
"Ethologists have noted that songbirds literally sing for their partners. Birdsongs serve as "genetic isolating mechanisms". Frogs find their mates by their less than melodic croaks."
...and in the absence of any physical barriers to effect genetic distinctions, local dialects accomplish the very same thing, i.e. people mostly mate with those who sing a familiar sounding song.
I think I can handle this...
Like frogs and birds people tend to mate with those who talk as they do. Even when no mountains or deep waters are in place to accomplish genetic divergence by isolating the gene pool, a beginning dialect establishes boundaries that, outside of other factors, increases genetic divergence exponentially with the degree of semantic divergence.
For example, my dear mother did not want her two boys to join the US army, not because she was afraid that we might get killed in a war -worse - she was afraid that we might be sent up north where we might marry a fast talking yankee.
"Thus, the sounds of speech in themselves can account for the extinction of the Neanderthals".
Again, the book...
"Over the course of time even a slight advantage in coping with nature would have led to the increase of our human ancestors and a struggle available resources. That is the pattern commonly observed for species competing in the same ecological niche. Again, given the isolating effects of dialect, a small difference in lingistic and/or cognitive ability, operating over many generations, could have resulted in the Neaderthal extinction."
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Carpal Tunnel
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"Thus, the sounds of speech in themselves can account for the extinction of the Neanderthals".
Again, the book...
"Over the course of time even a slight advantage in coping with nature would have led to the increase of our human ancestors and a struggle available resources. That is the pattern commonly observed for species competing in the same ecological niche. Again, given the isolating effects of dialect, a small difference in lingistic and/or cognitive ability, operating over many generations, could have resulted in the Neaderthal extinction."
no apologies, necessary, m.
I was just curious as to how the author had decided that it was speech, or lack thereof, that would account for extinction. he had stated that Neanderthals had speech, though not as flexible as current homo sapiens, and then proceeded to say their lack of it caused their demise. seems incongruous to me. and the frog example didn't seem to support his idea. what would stop the Neanderthals from having their own dialects?
however, your recent quote, adding in differences in cognitive abilities begins to make more sense; also, territorial struggles with other sapient species with more advanced language skills, and the thesis is stronger.
anyway, it all deserves a bit more thought.
formerly known as etaoin...
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