"is the same as"

[Stefan Georg]

I somehow knew, mi Patrici, that you'd not let this opportunity pass to let
us know where you stand. However, you make any reasonable discussion on
this - which may be a thread alien to the objects of this list anyway - at
least, say, difficult, since you have peppered your remarks with a neat
characteristic of anyone who might take a somewhat different position. So,
if it so pleases you, I am, using your words "doctrinaire", a "socially
hyper-aware apologist" and things like that. I don't take offence. I only
feel a little bit offended by the insinuation that I (or other readers of
this list) may not follow you because we are "recently trained under the
social theories of more recent times", which I can only take as meaning
that we simply do not use our own brains but prefer to have them washed by
others, which I, care amice, would rather not like to see repeated here.
What all this is, dear Pat, is commonly called "immunization", by which
you'll always end up on the right side, knowing  that my objections will be
the ones of those whom I allowed to brainwash me (or, who knows, who may
even be paying me).
This is not how it works, though. I pass in (near - ;-) silence over your
snide against Ashley Montagu (or the allegation - implicit, of course -
that I may be one of his cronies). I'll just say so much that few if any
Marxists of my acquaintance (the M.-word does not sound as dirty over here
as you may hope) would readily admit that he's one of them, but this need
not detain us further.

>Since then, Western science has determined that many human behavioral
>characteristics are biologically based, i.e. inherited through genetic
>transfer: e.g. schizophrenia, homosexuality, manic-depression, sociopathy;
>and, though disputed by socially hyper-aware apologists, intelligence --- to
>name just a few of significance.

I'm sorry, but I contest that "Western Science" has "determined" such
things ("Wild Western science", maybe [I wonder whether this snide will
make it to the list ;-]). If you are referring to literature of the kind of
the "Bell Curve", well, mwe can stop here, since we would then have to
discuss who is sponsoring this kind of "research" and to which ends it is
*meant* to be used by its originarors. But we should not, since our
moderater will quickly pull the plug on this, since we should not endulge
too much, if at all, in statements of a political nature.
The whole business of reducing, as you name it yourself below, "complex
behavioral assemblages" to the biological substrate we inherit physically
is, in my humble opinion, mostly disinformation. The very simple reason for
this is that some of these "behavioral assemblages" are exactly what they
are, and, by this virtue, *constructs*. If I find you to be a "sociopath",
which I, heaven forbid, don't, I'm applying my *construct* of, say,
sociopathy with my *construct* of Pat Ryan, both of which may or may not
have some (or much) resemblance to *your* construct of these things. That,
e.g., homosexuality - you mention this example yourself - is equally such a
construct becomes fairly obvious from the cultural history of this kind of
behaviour. It is mostly frowned upon in modern societies, but we know that
this attitude comes and goes in the history of mankind. I won't go into the
details of the role of conventionalized homosexual practices in (mostly)
Greek and (partly) Roman antiquity, but the very fact that what most people
today think they possess an insurmountable "instinct" against was once part
of the culture (Greece) or a superchic de-rigeur-behaviour in the leisure
class (Rome) bespeaks that this, like any other "complex behavioral
assemblage", is an artefact of human culture. Many societies, e.g. in
Papua-Newguinea, know forms of ritualized homosexuality appropriate for
certain ages, or part of certain rites-de-passage, without this meaning
that those people have a "genetic disposition" for the same sex. They
haven't, and they frown upon h-ty much the same way a lot of people in the
Northern hemisphere do, if they find certain cultural requirements violated
in connection with it.
What is OK in one culture may be anathema in the next one, and, lest you
take this as speaking in favour of a "genetic predisposition" of different
cultures for this or that kind of behaviour or evaluation of behaviour,
these things are also subject to *change*. I know some communities where
not beating one's wife is regarded as sociopathic behaviour, and others
where the opposite holds. But I also know  (both from history and from
personal experience, of course)people and even communities where attitudes
towards social behaviour have changed, to the better or worse, but changed
they have, and change they will, which they could not do if they were so
deeply intrenched in our physis as you or your unnamed "Western Scientists"
seem to believe.
Heaven, even *you* may become a linguist one day, I'm absolutely certain
that nothing in your genes stands in the way of this, believe me, there
*is* hope ! ;-)

Tu sum up this passage: the very reason why I take the assumption that
genes may "control" such "complex behavioral assemblages", or more
precisely, that any "Western Scientist" is able to say anything meaningful
on this interdependence is that first of all we would need an operational
definition of any one of these complexes, which is, of course, impossible.
Even if most members of a village community agree that one of its members
is "socially difficult", this is nothing more than a cultural construct,
certainly nothing which could be determined objectively. In the next
community round the corner, this person could be a pillar of the community.

>It is fatuous in the extreme to believe that genes, which control such
>complex behavioral assemblages, are *strangely* without any affect
>whatsoever on language --- especially, since even true believers must admit
>the biological basis of language ability.

We could give this discussion a healthy turn back into the direction of
linguistics, if you could name a few properties of some given language(s),
which you are unable to explain otherwise than as the result of some kind
of genetic predisposition ("mutation") of its speakers. And, no, I don't
deny that in order to have language we first have to have a brain, and that
brains are biological things.

Since >
>Similarly, I find it incredible that otherwise highly analytical thinkers
>can fail to acknowledge that genetics plays an important part in
>phonological development and change.

I fail to, and, I'm afraid, you'll have to continue to find this incredible
(though I won'*t object if you'll continue to think that I'm a highly
analytic thinker; never argue with hard facts ;-)

>Any objective non-linguist would, on the basis of common sense alone, agree
>that if the ratio of tongue mass to oral cavity or lingual mobility were
>genetically altered, it would affect phoneme production --- but, you will
>see, many linguists will dispute so simple and straightforward a
>proposition --- vehemently.

Well, OK, here we seem to be at least in the vicinity of a concrete
example. Pat, which features of exactly which extant phonological systems
betray a direct correlation to the ratio you mentioned ? I've never heard
about this in my entire life, and I'm eager to see what you have in mind
here.

>And it is high time that some linguists modernize
>their relationship with biology and genetics.

Modernize ... hmmm, let's see, who's modern here, but, lt's see some
linguistic data and your biological explanation for them.

Stefan

Dr. Stefan Georg
Heerstraße 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
Tel./Fax +49-228-691332