Noam Chomsky is onto something

The November 2011 issue of Discover magazine features an interview with libertarian socialist, anarcho-syndicalist and radical linguist, Noam Chomsky.

On page 71 the interviewer says that parents marvel at how their children develop language. "It seems incredible that we know so little about the process." In response, Chomsky talks about how the new born baby "has some information about its mother's language. It can distinguish its mother's language from some other language when both are spoken by a bilingual woman." He then mentions William James calling what an infant experiences as "blooming, buzzing confusion." He said, "Somehow the infant reflexively selects out of that complex environment the data that are language-related. No other organism can do this: a chimpanzee can't do that." He wonders, "How did these things evolve?"

If I didn't know any more about Chomsky than what I've read in this article, his question "How did these things evolve?" lets me in on his foundational paradigm: he believes in Darwinism or a modified version of Darwinism.

How did language evolve? Good question. Don't see a whole lot of value for literature when a person is trying to get away from a tiger or live through a drought. It just doesn't seem to me that nature really gives a fig about literature. And to think that infants already have this amazing ability to perceive language out of all the cacophony that surrounds them. Couldn't have anything to do with what the "fetus" heard in the womb of any sort of special relationship between the mother and the infant, at least from the infant's point of view, before birth, could it?

The God of the Bible is a God of words which He uses to create things, to speak into being the universe and all the laws that govern it. He also spoke animals into being and when He spoke them, included how their organic parts would fit together and work in concert. When He created human beings, He formed the man's body from dirt and then breathed into him the "breath of life," or to put it another way, He breathed into the man the very thing that made him different from all the other living creatures: language, art, music, self-consciousness, etc., all powered by an eternal spirit. He was created in the Image of God.

From this view, language is inherent in humans. It did not evolve, it was included in the package when humans were created. It's part of the Image of God.

The phrase, "...no other organism can do this..." is very telling. If evolution were true, then there would have to be some kind of evolutionary benefit to language. It would seem that lots of other creatures would have language or be developing it. Like chimpanzees for example, who have complex societies and carry on group behaviors. But, no, they're not evolving language. We can't even make them evolve language despite all the years people have spent trying to teach apes sign language.

Noam Chomsky is onto something and it's right in front of his face, but I don't think he's seeing it.

Marilyn