From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu Wed Mar 14 21:33:24 2001 From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 12:33:24 -0900 Subject: [language] [Fwd: [evol-psych] The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science] Message-ID: <><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><> The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science (Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change) by Gary F. Marcus Hardcover - 208 pages (February 19, 2001) MIT Press; ISBN: 0262133792 AMAZON - US http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262133792/darwinanddarwini/ AMAZON - UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262133792/humannaturecom/ In The Algebraic Mind, Gary Marcus attempts to integrate two theories about how the mind works, one that says that the mind is a computer-like manipulator of symbols, and another that says that the mind is a large network of neurons working together in parallel. Resisting the conventional wisdom that says that if the mind is a large neural network it cannot simultaneously be a manipulator of symbols, Marcus outlines a variety of ways in which neural systems could be organized so as to manipulate symbols, and he shows why such systems are more likely to provide an adequate substrate for language and cognition than neural systems that are inconsistent with the manipulation of symbols. Concluding with a discussion of how a neurally realized system of symbol-manipulation could have evolved and how such a system could unfold developmentally within the womb, Marcus helps to set the future agenda of cognitive neuroscience. Gary F. Marcus is Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gary/home.html Table of Contents Introduction http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gary/introduction.html#introduction Eliminative Connectionism Symbols Rules and Variables Combinations and Recursion Type and Tokens Development Case Studies Conclusions Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day http://human-nature.com/nibbs/ To subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to: http://www.egroups.com/group/evolutionary-psychology Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ---<><><><><><><><><><><><>----Language----<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Copyrights/"Fair Use": http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. You are currently subscribed to language as: language at listserv.linguistlist.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-language-4283Y at csam-lists.montclair.edu From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu Thu Mar 22 00:43:58 2001 From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 19:43:58 -0500 Subject: [language] [Fwd: [evol-psych] A re-examination of the evolution of modern humans?] Message-ID: <><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><> NEW SCIENTIST Double take A 3.5 million year-old skull unearthed in Kenya may force a re-examination of the evolution of modern humans The skull, and additional pieces of jaws and teeth, have been classified as part of a previously unknown hominid species dubbed Kenyanthropus platyops which means "flat-faced human from Kenya". Since 1974, only one hominid species, Australopithecus afarensis, had been found in the fossil record from three to four million years ago. Full text: http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999542 To view archive/subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day http://human-nature.com/nibbs Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ---<><><><><><><><><><><><>----Language----<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Copyrights/"Fair Use": http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. You are currently subscribed to language as: language at listserv.linguistlist.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-language-4283Y at csam-lists.montclair.edu From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu Thu Mar 22 00:46:00 2001 From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 19:46:00 -0500 Subject: [language] [Fwd: [evol-psych] Fossil Find May Redefine Evolution] Message-ID: <><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [evol-psych] Fossil Find May Redefine Evolution Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 22:52:22 -0000 From: "Ian Pitchford" Reply-To: "Ian Pitchford" Organization: http://www.human-nature.com/darwin/index.html To: Wednesday March 21 4:44 PM ET Fossil Find May Redefine Evolution By WILLIAM McCALL, Associated Press Writer Scientists have discovered a 3.5 million-year-old skull in Kenya that might force them to rewrite the anthropology textbooks and drop the fossil nicknamed ``Lucy'' from the line of human ancestors. The skull was identified by Meave Leakey, a member of the famed fossil-hunting Leakey family. She said it is about the same age as Lucy but appears to be a completely different and previously unknown species, with a more human-like face. Researchers named the species Kenyanthropus platyops, or ``flat-faced man of Kenya.'' Full text: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010321/sc/ancient_skull_3.html _____ Video: Meave Leakey discusses new find http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/03/av/leakey.ram New Face Added to Humankind's Family Tree - National Geographic Flat-faced man is puzzle - BBC (Mar 21, 2001) New Human Relative Shakes Tree - Discovery Online (Mar 21, 2001) Scientists Discover Second Genus of Early Human - Reuters (Mar 21, 2001) Skull discovery raises doubts about Lucy - The Age (Mar 21, 2001) Nature 410, 433 - 440 (2001) © Macmillan Publishers Ltd. New hominin genus from eastern Africa shows diverse middle Pliocene lineages MEAVE G. LEAKEY*, FRED SPOOR†, FRANK H. BROWN‡, PATRICK N. GATHOGO‡, CHRISTOPHER KIARIE*, LOUISE N. LEAKEY* & IAN MCDOUGALL§ * Division of Palaeontology, National Museums of Kenya, P.O. Box 40658, Nairobi, Kenya † Department of Anatomy & Developmental Biology, University College London, WC1E 6JJ, UK ‡ Department of Geology & Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA § Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.G.L. (e-mail: meave at swiftkenya.com). Most interpretations of early hominin phylogeny recognize a single early to middle Pliocene ancestral lineage, best represented by Australopithecus afarensis, which gave rise to a radiation of taxa in the late Pliocene. Here we report on new fossils discovered west of Lake Turkana, Kenya, which differ markedly from those of contemporary A. afarensis, indicating that hominin taxonomic diversity extended back, well into the middle Pliocene. A 3.5 Myr-old cranium, showing a unique combination of derived facial and primitive neurocranial features, is assigned to a new genus of hominin. These findings point to an early diet-driven adaptive radiation, provide new insight on the association of hominin craniodental features, and have implications for our understanding of Plio–Pleistocene hominin phylogeny. Full text: http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v410/n6827/full/410433a0_fs.html To view archive/subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day http://human-nature.com/nibbs Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. ---<><><><><><><><><><><><>----Language----<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Copyrights/"Fair Use": http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. You are currently subscribed to language as: language at listserv.linguistlist.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-language-4283Y at csam-lists.montclair.edu From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu Thu Mar 22 16:17:26 2001 From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 11:17:26 -0500 Subject: [language] [Fwd: 12.790, Books: Quantitative Linguistics] Message-ID: <><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><> LINGUIST List: Vol-12-790. Thu Mar 22 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875. Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 09:10:59 -0800 From: Kim Lewis Brown Subject: Quantitative Ling: The Significance of Word Lists by K Brett Kessler, Brett (Wayne State University) ; THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORD LISTS; paperback ISBN: 1-57586-300-6, cloth ISBN: 1-57586-299-9; 180 pages. CSLI Publications 2001. http://cslipublications.stanford.edu email: pubs at csli.stanford.edu. To order this book, contact The University of Chicago Press. Call their toll free order number 1-800-621-2736 (U.S. & Canada only) or order online at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ (use the search feature to locate the book, then order). Book description: Similar words for similar concepts turn up in many widely scattered languages. Some linguists insist that this is simply due to chance while others claim that many if not all of the world's languages descended from a single prehistoric language. Yet neither position in this strident controversy has been analyzed or supported with statistics. New computerized statistical techniques can help determine whether or not words in different languages have an ancestral connection. In "THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORD LISTS," flexible techniques are explained, broken into steps, and illustrated in a manner that provides the necessary principles to linguists with no background in statistics. This methodology measures the probabilistic significance of sound correspondences between short word lists. Many rules of thumb invoked by linguists in order to obviate chance resemblances, such as multilateral comparison and emphasizing grammar over vocabulary, are shown to actually decrease the power of quantitative tests. While the procedures presented here are straightforward, the author also details the extensive linguistic work needed to produce word lists that will not yield nonsensical results. Examples analyze the 200 words in 8 languages that are enumerated and detailed in an appendix. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-12-790 ---<><><><><><><><><><><><>----Language----<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Copyrights/"Fair Use": http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. You are currently subscribed to language as: language at listserv.linguistlist.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-language-4283Y at csam-lists.montclair.edu From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu Wed Mar 14 21:33:24 2001 From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 12:33:24 -0900 Subject: [language] [Fwd: [evol-psych] The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science] Message-ID: <><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><> The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science (Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change) by Gary F. Marcus Hardcover - 208 pages (February 19, 2001) MIT Press; ISBN: 0262133792 AMAZON - US http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262133792/darwinanddarwini/ AMAZON - UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262133792/humannaturecom/ In The Algebraic Mind, Gary Marcus attempts to integrate two theories about how the mind works, one that says that the mind is a computer-like manipulator of symbols, and another that says that the mind is a large network of neurons working together in parallel. Resisting the conventional wisdom that says that if the mind is a large neural network it cannot simultaneously be a manipulator of symbols, Marcus outlines a variety of ways in which neural systems could be organized so as to manipulate symbols, and he shows why such systems are more likely to provide an adequate substrate for language and cognition than neural systems that are inconsistent with the manipulation of symbols. Concluding with a discussion of how a neurally realized system of symbol-manipulation could have evolved and how such a system could unfold developmentally within the womb, Marcus helps to set the future agenda of cognitive neuroscience. Gary F. Marcus is Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gary/home.html Table of Contents Introduction http://www.psych.nyu.edu/gary/introduction.html#introduction Eliminative Connectionism Symbols Rules and Variables Combinations and Recursion Type and Tokens Development Case Studies Conclusions Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day http://human-nature.com/nibbs/ To subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to: http://www.egroups.com/group/evolutionary-psychology Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ---<><><><><><><><><><><><>----Language----<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Copyrights/"Fair Use": http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. You are currently subscribed to language as: language at listserv.linguistlist.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-language-4283Y at csam-lists.montclair.edu From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu Thu Mar 22 00:43:58 2001 From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 19:43:58 -0500 Subject: [language] [Fwd: [evol-psych] A re-examination of the evolution of modern humans?] Message-ID: <><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><> NEW SCIENTIST Double take A 3.5 million year-old skull unearthed in Kenya may force a re-examination of the evolution of modern humans The skull, and additional pieces of jaws and teeth, have been classified as part of a previously unknown hominid species dubbed Kenyanthropus platyops which means "flat-faced human from Kenya". Since 1974, only one hominid species, Australopithecus afarensis, had been found in the fossil record from three to four million years ago. Full text: http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999542 To view archive/subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day http://human-nature.com/nibbs Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ---<><><><><><><><><><><><>----Language----<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Copyrights/"Fair Use": http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. You are currently subscribed to language as: language at listserv.linguistlist.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-language-4283Y at csam-lists.montclair.edu From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu Thu Mar 22 00:46:00 2001 From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 19:46:00 -0500 Subject: [language] [Fwd: [evol-psych] Fossil Find May Redefine Evolution] Message-ID: <><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [evol-psych] Fossil Find May Redefine Evolution Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 22:52:22 -0000 From: "Ian Pitchford" Reply-To: "Ian Pitchford" Organization: http://www.human-nature.com/darwin/index.html To: Wednesday March 21 4:44 PM ET Fossil Find May Redefine Evolution By WILLIAM McCALL, Associated Press Writer Scientists have discovered a 3.5 million-year-old skull in Kenya that might force them to rewrite the anthropology textbooks and drop the fossil nicknamed ``Lucy'' from the line of human ancestors. The skull was identified by Meave Leakey, a member of the famed fossil-hunting Leakey family. She said it is about the same age as Lucy but appears to be a completely different and previously unknown species, with a more human-like face. Researchers named the species Kenyanthropus platyops, or ``flat-faced man of Kenya.'' Full text: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010321/sc/ancient_skull_3.html _____ Video: Meave Leakey discusses new find http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/03/av/leakey.ram New Face Added to Humankind's Family Tree - National Geographic Flat-faced man is puzzle - BBC (Mar 21, 2001) New Human Relative Shakes Tree - Discovery Online (Mar 21, 2001) Scientists Discover Second Genus of Early Human - Reuters (Mar 21, 2001) Skull discovery raises doubts about Lucy - The Age (Mar 21, 2001) Nature 410, 433 - 440 (2001) ? Macmillan Publishers Ltd. New hominin genus from eastern Africa shows diverse middle Pliocene lineages MEAVE G. LEAKEY*, FRED SPOOR?, FRANK H. BROWN?, PATRICK N. GATHOGO?, CHRISTOPHER KIARIE*, LOUISE N. LEAKEY* & IAN MCDOUGALL? * Division of Palaeontology, National Museums of Kenya, P.O. Box 40658, Nairobi, Kenya ? Department of Anatomy & Developmental Biology, University College London, WC1E 6JJ, UK ? Department of Geology & Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA ? Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.G.L. (e-mail: meave at swiftkenya.com). Most interpretations of early hominin phylogeny recognize a single early to middle Pliocene ancestral lineage, best represented by Australopithecus afarensis, which gave rise to a radiation of taxa in the late Pliocene. Here we report on new fossils discovered west of Lake Turkana, Kenya, which differ markedly from those of contemporary A. afarensis, indicating that hominin taxonomic diversity extended back, well into the middle Pliocene. A 3.5 Myr-old cranium, showing a unique combination of derived facial and primitive neurocranial features, is assigned to a new genus of hominin. These findings point to an early diet-driven adaptive radiation, provide new insight on the association of hominin craniodental features, and have implications for our understanding of Plio?Pleistocene hominin phylogeny. Full text: http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v410/n6827/full/410433a0_fs.html To view archive/subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day http://human-nature.com/nibbs Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. ---<><><><><><><><><><><><>----Language----<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Copyrights/"Fair Use": http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. You are currently subscribed to language as: language at listserv.linguistlist.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-language-4283Y at csam-lists.montclair.edu From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu Thu Mar 22 16:17:26 2001 From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 11:17:26 -0500 Subject: [language] [Fwd: 12.790, Books: Quantitative Linguistics] Message-ID: <><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><> LINGUIST List: Vol-12-790. Thu Mar 22 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875. Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 09:10:59 -0800 From: Kim Lewis Brown Subject: Quantitative Ling: The Significance of Word Lists by K Brett Kessler, Brett (Wayne State University) ; THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORD LISTS; paperback ISBN: 1-57586-300-6, cloth ISBN: 1-57586-299-9; 180 pages. CSLI Publications 2001. http://cslipublications.stanford.edu email: pubs at csli.stanford.edu. To order this book, contact The University of Chicago Press. Call their toll free order number 1-800-621-2736 (U.S. & Canada only) or order online at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ (use the search feature to locate the book, then order). Book description: Similar words for similar concepts turn up in many widely scattered languages. Some linguists insist that this is simply due to chance while others claim that many if not all of the world's languages descended from a single prehistoric language. Yet neither position in this strident controversy has been analyzed or supported with statistics. New computerized statistical techniques can help determine whether or not words in different languages have an ancestral connection. In "THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORD LISTS," flexible techniques are explained, broken into steps, and illustrated in a manner that provides the necessary principles to linguists with no background in statistics. This methodology measures the probabilistic significance of sound correspondences between short word lists. Many rules of thumb invoked by linguists in order to obviate chance resemblances, such as multilateral comparison and emphasizing grammar over vocabulary, are shown to actually decrease the power of quantitative tests. While the procedures presented here are straightforward, the author also details the extensive linguistic work needed to produce word lists that will not yield nonsensical results. Examples analyze the 200 words in 8 languages that are enumerated and detailed in an appendix. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-12-790 ---<><><><><><><><><><><><>----Language----<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Copyrights/"Fair Use": http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. You are currently subscribed to language as: language at listserv.linguistlist.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-language-4283Y at csam-lists.montclair.edu