[language] [Fwd: [evol-psych] 'Speech Gene' Tied to Modern Humans]

[H.M. Hubey]

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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [evol-psych] 'Speech Gene' Tied to Modern Humans
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2002 12:39:32 -0600
From: Ian Pitchford <ian.pitchford at scientist.com>
Reply-To: Ian Pitchford <ian.pitchford at scientist.com>
Organization: http://human-nature.com/
To: evolutionary-psychology at yahoogroups.com



Science
Volume 297, Number 5584, Issue of 16 Aug 2002, p. 1105.

LANGUAGE EVOLUTION:
'Speech Gene' Tied to Modern Humans
Michael Balter

The ability to communicate through spoken language is the trait that best
sets humans apart from other animals, most human origins researchers say.
Last year the community was abuzz over the identification of the first gene
implicated in the ability to speak. This week, a research group shows that
the human version of this so-called speech gene appears to date back no more
than 200,000 years--about the time that anatomically modern humans emerged.
The authors argue that their findings are consistent with previous
speculations that the worldwide expansion of modern humans was driven by the
emergence of full-blown language abilities.

"This is the best candidate yet for a gene that enabled us to become human,"
says geneticist Mary-Claire King of the University of Washington, Seattle.
But other researchers caution that uncertainties underlying the team's
mathematical analysis, as well as debate about the gene's function, make
dramatic conclusions premature. The case that the gene is closely linked
with language ability "can only be said to be circumstantial," comments
geneticist David Goldstein of University College London.

The gene, called FOXP2, was identified last fall by geneticist Anthony
Monaco's group at Oxford University, in collaboration with cognitive
neuroscientist Faraneh Vargha-Khadem and colleagues at the Institute of
Child Health in London (Science, 5 October 2001, p. 32). They showed that
FOXP2 mutations cause a wide range of speech and language disabilities.
Geneticist Svante Pääbo's group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, in collaboration with Monaco's team, then
set about tracing the gene's evolutionary history.

Full text
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/297/5584/1105a






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--
M. Hubey

hubeyh at mail.montclair.edu /\/\/\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey



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