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RECENT ADVANCES. “In the last decade a new synthesis of modern linguistics, cognitive neuroscience and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory has begun to make important contributions to our understanding of the biology and evolution of language.” https://lnkd.in/dTkGwcGB View in LinkedIn

STAR GENEOLOGY. “Our main finding is that the rare quasars with the most massive black holes do not have the most massive low-redshift descendants.” https://lnkd.in/dX4w36NJ View in LinkedIn

SOCIALLY DRIVEN. “Increasing sociality provided the central usefulness for language in the first place and drove its evolution.” https://lnkd.in/dTkGwcGB View in LinkedIn

GRAMMAR PROOFREADING. “We argue that grammar originated as a simplified rule system that evolved by natural selection to reduce mistakes in communication. Our theory provides a systematic approach for thinking about the origin and evolution of human language.” https://lnkd.in/d_bJcG9t View in LinkedIn

THE GENETIC FOSSILS. “Molecular genetics represents an area of great interest for understanding language evolution.” https://lnkd.in/dTkGwcGB View in LinkedIn

RED HERRING. “In sum, these data illustrate the value of the comparative approach to speech evolution, and suggest that the reconfiguration of the human vocal tract has been overemphasized in recent discussions of language evolution.” https://lnkd.in/dTkGwcGB View in LinkedIn

OTHER DRIVERS. “The further discovery of a permanently descended larynx in several nonhuman species, which evolved convergently with that in humans, indicated that factors other than speech might select for such reconfiguration, and provided testable hypotheses for what these factors might have been.” https://lnkd.in/dTkGwcGB View in LinkedIn

OLD MYTH DEBUNKED. “The discovery of laryngeal lowering during vocalization in many mammals suggests that this is a primitive trait, already present long before humans diverged from chimpanzees.” https://lnkd.in/dTkGwcGB View in LinkedIn

HOMOLOGY VS ANALOGY. “These new data tell a cautionary tale: we must beware of considering any human trait unique without a thorough search among animals. More importantly they show the value of both homology and analogy in understanding the human capacity for speech.” https://lnkd.in/dTkGwcGB View in LinkedIn

ERRONEOUS PRESUMPTION. “Such a descended larynx was believed until recently to be uniquely human, and thus has been emphasized in many accounts of language evolution. New comparative data call this emphasis into question.” https://lnkd.in/dTkGwcGB View in LinkedIn