David Pesetsky does some important intellectual clean-up

David asks Evans to provide back-up for his claim that Chomsky (and by implication most other generativists) (here) think that looking at languages other than English is of little value. Evans' claim seems to be based on, ahem, a selective reading of the relevant texts. By 'selective' I mean distorted, seriously distorted. So distorted that it raises the question of bad faith. Don't take my word for this judgment, read the exchange with David.

Two things to note about this exchange:

First, how hard it was to get Evans to specify a source. One might think that criticism should rely on specified sources, preferably with accurate quotation. Evans seem to think that he is exempt from this critical standard as he is writing for a popular audience. Thus, it's ok to rebut other popular accounts (Pinker is Evans' target of choice) rather than criticize the considered judgment of the professional literature (from here):

The Language Myth is written for a general audience—not specifically professional linguists—and takes the form of an evidence-based rebuttal of aspects of the world-view developed in the popular, best-selling books written by Professor Steven Pinker of Harvard University. 

This is a bizarre understanding of what popular science consists in. Say that Pinker got things wrong (which I don't actually believe, but Steve can easily take care of himself), then the right way to set things right begins with sympathetically reviewing the basic research in the field and the views of one's targets of criticism This is a precondition for serious criticism. The second requirement is that the criticism be heavily sourced. It's not kosher to put words into other's mouths. The words used to hang someone must be their own. Chomsky is especially careful to quote his sources when he goes after them. He footnotes heavily and quotes extensively. It would be nice if his opponents were as gracious. They invariably are not. Evans is a typical Chomsky critic in this regard.

Second, Note how reluctant Evans is to defend his selective quotation (David Adger's comment is relevant here). This is particularly offensive given that Evan's renderings convey the opposite of what the full quotations clearly assert. Again, this is not unusual for Chomsky criticism. Evans should immediately retract these claims publicly or show how what he says comports with what David observes is the actual content of Chomsky's claims. It is the honorable thing to do. But don't hold your breath waiting for this. The accepted standard of Chomsky criticism absolves critics of undue burdens of accuracy. In fact, just making shit up is the usual way of proceeding. Evans seems to have adopted this standard as his own.

The more Evans writes the clearer it becomes that he does not understand the basic claims of generative grammar, nor is he a very careful reader of the relevant literature (there are nastier interpretations but I won't go there (again)), nor is he overly worried about understanding the positions he is intent on criticizing. This is shoddy work, which, sadly, does not mean that it is without influence. Thanks to David to making doing the heavy lifting in cleaning out this one stall of Evans' Augean stables.

Evans replies, the confusion mounts

It seems that our collective efforts are getting some traction. Evans cites the reply of four "distinguished linguists" (Evans' moniker) to his recent paper and book concerning the claims of generative grammar. As you might recall, he think these mythical. In reply to the Distinguished 4, Evans posts (here) a reply on the Psychology Today website. It behooves you to take a look. It's a very shoddy piece. A friend (who shall remain nameless unless s/he wants to reveal him/herself to gain some well deserved kudos) accurately sums it up as follows: 

It goes:" there's lots of empirical evidence against what I think generative grammar is. But that's irrelevant. It's all ideological in the end. Oh, and by generative grammar I mean what I think Pinker thinks Chomsky thinks. "

The confusions we noted in the earlier pieces are all still evident. It seems that Evans really can't grasp the difference between Greenberg and Chomsky Universals. See his myth #2.  In fact, he doesn't even recognize the difference between substantive and structural universals.  Moreover, given examples of such Chomsky structural universals as targets fro potential critique, Evans chooses to, once again, evade any detailed discussion. Mr Evans find me some mirror image rules in any G of any natural language. Or find me cases where extraction of adjuncts out if islands is licit. Or show me cases where anaphoric pronouns can c-command their antecedents. Let's talk tachlis Mr Evans, enough magisterial pronouncements.

Evans' other myth busters are similarly confused. Having universal principles does not preclude learning (or acquisition, a term I prefer) pace Evans' myth #3. In fact, it has been suggested that it is what enables acquisition to proceed despite the evident poverty of the linguistic input (we've discussed this endlessly on PoS).

Contra myth #4 modularity is actually pretty well established in cognitive neuroscience. Does Evans deny that sensation is modularized in the brain? Is the occipital lobe an illusion? How about V1? As for language, there is currently little evidence for localization as exists for audition and vision. But there is quite a lot of evidence for modularity in Fodor's sense of informational encapsulation. There is tons of evidence for the autonomy of syntax, evidence that is behavioral, developmental and neural. This is reviewed in the Curtiss paper we linked to (and Evans refrains from discussing). Indeed, the current work we discussed by Dehaene points to the very same conclusion (here). Thys, contra Evans' confident pronouncements, there is quite a lot of evidence for the modularity of both minds and brains and more specifically for certain types of linguistic knowledge.

There is much more shoddy argument in the rest of the post. Take a look for Evans' reply is instructive. It seems that Evans really has NO answers to our very cursory critique. It's all just pronouncements from on high. It's junk. Serious junk given its potential influence, but junk nonetheless.  Take every opportunity to dump on it when drinking this holiday season with friends, neighbors, casual acquaintances and people you are stuck with on the metro.  Spread the word: What Evans has to say about linguistics is garbage. It is wrong, unargued, misinformed and very very confused. Happy Holidays!

More on third factors

Matt Husband sends me this review of a book on evolution (thx Matt). He notes its possible relevance to third factor kinds of discussions and I though you might like to take a look. Here's a short teaser blurb:

"That's not all: the structure of the library [genetic code] makes it easy for evolution to move from one meaningful book [genetic sequence] to another. When Wagner and his colleagues tried browsing adjacent "books" – proteins that differ by a single amino acid – they found that most worked just as well as the original. The same was true when they changed another amino acid, and another. In fact, you could move, step by step, from one end of the library to the other without changing the meaning.

This allows populations to accumulate a lot of genetic variation while still remaining viable. In Wagner's metaphor, readers spread into many different rooms of the library. And that's where the big pay-off comes. By wandering far afield, you come to rooms with very different sorts of books nearby. In real terms, you end up in places where changing just a few more amino acids gives you a protein with a radically different function – an evolutionary breakthrough, close at hand."

Student evaluations

These are now a big part of the promotion and tenure process. It have never been clear to me that students actually are in a position to evaluate their courses. They just don't know enough. And in the US context, evaluations, I believe, tend to stress a teacher's entertainment value or likeability or gooniese (is the teacher a soft touch grading wise). So, though I believe that student input can be useful, I think that it likely plays too large a role given that it is probably a pretty poor indicator of teaching quality.  However, it also seems that there is now evidence that it is also gender biased, and pretty severely. This piece discusses the latter. Again, the discussion is in the context of economics, but I doubt that on this matter we are much different, though I would love to be disabused of this. I would love to know what you think, especially my female colleagues.

Biology and Physics

Are there physical constraints on evolution? Of course.  However, until recently we have known little about what these might be and how they might function. Part of the interest in the Evo-Devo stuff is that it suggests how it is that biological "novelties" might be proposed before the selection mechanisms begin to dispose. However, when some (e.g. Chomsky) suggest that physical constraints might play a very large story in accounts of biological change, some of the biological cognoscenti tend to dismiss this out off hand as a serious scientific possibility. Thank god for physicists! Being on top of the scientific food chain, they are allowed to say anything they want and be taken seriously. 

Apparently one of the things they are currently investigating are the possibly severe physical constraints on evolution (here). The hero of this little linked to piece in Quanta is Jeremy England. He is at MIT and is considering the possibility that a lot of what we think of as evolution follows as a matter of natural physical law (thermodynamics in particular). In particular, life happens when energy is applied to atoms in a thermal bath. Do this and they tend to clump and form complex molecules to dissipate the energy. Do this enough and out pops life. Of course, what's interesting is that he apparently has the equations to prove this. Moreover, as England notes, this does not invalidate Darwinian thinking, rather it treats it "as a special case of a more general phenomenon," a thermodynamic one. 

From my point of view, an interesting feature of this short piece is that nobody is calling England names. Even those that are skeptical, think that it is a hypothesis worth considering and that it will generate lots of good work regardless of whether it is true or false. In other words, his speculations (and calculations) are treated as quite reasonable and maybe even true. 

The minimalistically inclined looking for examples of third factor explanations, might enjoy the discussion. At the very least, it shows that there is lots of very interesting work concerning the causal factors behind evolution. So when someone tells you (e.g. Evans most recently) that FL could not have evolved because the scenarios are incompatible with some (mis)understanding of Darwinian processes, recall that what these processes are and how they operate is currently a topic of lots of contentious and interesting new work (i.e. the scolds don't have the foggiest idea what they are talking about). 

A panel of experts debunks Evans

Ok, some hyperbole here. But I wanted to get your attention. As I mentioned at the end of the this post, linguists need to go after this junk as a public service, both to ourselves and to the larger public interested in research on language. To this end, Ewan Dunbar, Dave Kush, David Adger and moi have started putting together meatier rejoinders to Evans' confused and deeply misleading paper and book. We posted it on Reddit (here). Direct those interested to this discussion. We want to sink this before it gains traction. Feel free to point out other lapses in logic and non-sequiturs and add them to the feed. Oh yes, we gave the thing a catchy title that, we hope, leaves little room for doubt about how bad this work is.

Vacation!!!

Just a note to say that things will be thin for the next several weeks, at least contributions to FoL from yours truly. I am off until the start of January eating to excess, drinking profligately and generating consuming whatever is near to hand. Hope all of you have an equally rewarding break. See you in the new year.