
	Where results make sense

Topic: Terrence Deacon

	Terrence Deacon (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Terrence Deacon is an American anthropologist (Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology, Harvard University), currently Professor of Biological Anthropology and Linguistics at Berkeley.
		Deacon taught at Boston University and, prior to that, at Harvard University.
		Deacon's research combines human evolutionary biology and neuroscience, with the aim of investigating the evolution of human cognition.
	pedia.newsfilter.co.uk /wikipedia/t/te/terrence_deacon.html (278 words)

	John Hawks Anthropology Weblog : Terrence Deacon's The Symbolic Species
		Deacon differs from this assumption by claiming that symbols are the essential element of human language, far more important in his view than grammar.
		In Deacon's view, the essential process encouraged by Baldwinian evolution in ancient hominids was the extension of joint attention and the breaking of mnemonic-indexical connections that are involved in symbol learning.
		Deacon places these functions correctly in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, but incorrectly argues that this part of the brain underwent relative expansion during human evolution; in fact chimpanzees probably are the same relative size in terms of prefrontal cortex area as humans, and several other parts of the brain may also be involved.
	www.johnhawks.net /weblog/topics/minds/deacon.htm (1571 words)

	Book review of Terrence Deacon
		As a consequence, Deacon rejects the idea of a universal grammar a` la Chomsky, of innate linguistic knowledge.
		Deacon envisions a hierarchy of levels of reference (of meaning), that reflects the evolution of language.
		Deacon believes that Artificial Intelligence (thinking machines) is possible, and not too far from happening, easier than commonly believed.
	www.thymos.com /mind/deacon.html (576 words)

	Voice of the Turtle - Comrade of the Printer
		Deacon argues that the first symbolic systems (perhaps systems of hand gestures) were created to ritualize marriage bonds, so that males could be induced to provide for females and their offspring.
		Deacon next faces the problem of how humanoid apes were able to go, in relatively short time, from having to take great pains to understand a single symbolic relationship to learning complex languages practically effortlessly by the age of three.
		Deacon takes the more optimistic view of the possibilities raised by his own narrative of origins, seeing the beauties and pleasures of symbolic thinking (or, as we are more used to thinking of it, consciousness) as outweighing the neuroses that, he argues, are its inevitable accompaniment.
	voiceoftheturtle.org /printer/reviews/books/amy_deacon.shtml (3629 words)

	Terrence Deacon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Terrence Deacon is an American anthropologist (Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology, Harvard University 1984).
		He taught at Harvard for eight years, relocated to Boston University in 1992, and is currently Professor of Biological Anthropology and Neuroscience at Berkeley.
		Deacon's theoretical interests include the study of evolution-like processes at multiple levels, including their role in embryonic development, neural signal processing, language change, and social processes, and focusing especially on how these different processes interact and depend on each other.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Terrence_Deacon (304 words)

	Gans - Origin of Language
		Deacon is a neuroscientist whose presentation of the emergence of human language is founded on ongoing research into the structure and evolution of the brain; but unlike most laboratory scientists, Deacon also has a real grasp of the relevant anthropological issues.
		Deacon’s central point, that the human brain with its unusually large prefrontal cortex evolved as a result of language rather than being the cause of its emergence, is not new, although it has never before been presented in such persuasive detail.
		Deacon’s explanation for the origin of symbolic representation begins with the dependency of proto-human societies on meat, procured by all-male hunting and scavenging parties whose activities would oblige them to be away from home for long periods of time.
	www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu /ap0501/gans.htm (5735 words)

	The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain - Terrence Deacon
		Terrence Deacon is professor of Biological Anthropology and Linguistics at University of California-Berkeley.
		Deacon is a renowned neuroscientist whose work on the evolution of language and the brain provides an important backdrop for understanding the neurological challenges involved in learning to read.
		Terrence Deacon: I began the study of language and the brain mostly because it is the most fascinating subject around with the biggest problems.
	www.childrenofthecode.org /interviews/deacon.htm (7457 words)

	The Origin of Language by Desmond Fearnley-Sander
		Deacon's construction of this story, to which no brief outline could do justice, is fascinating in its detail and careful argument.
		Deacon’s analysis of these matters is the most conceptually difficult and least satisfactory part of the book.
		According to Terrence Deacon, "the idea that an innate universal grammar is the only way to account for language abilities was first argued by the MIT linguist Noam Chomsky." But this misconstrues the situation.
	human-nature.com /nibbs/02/spr.html (2150 words)

	Amazon.de: The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain: English Books: Terrence W. Deacon (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Deacon suggests that changes in the relative sizes of brain regions during human evolution is a mechanism for adaptations that allow humans to better perform language tasks.
		Deacon tries to gloss over this contradiction by assuring us that his theory is really making use of a powerful mechanism for evolving a more language-competent brain, the mechanism of "parcellation", which he claims can mechanistically explain data such as those given in Figure 8.3.
		Deacon has provided us with a working model of how to apply this hard-won knowledge of the brain to our understanding of human language, but Deacon's is just an early pass at this kind of empirically-anchored theoretical neurolingustics.
	amazon.de /Symbolic-Species-Co-Evolution-Language-Brain/dp/0393317544 (2329 words)

	Amazon.co.uk: The Symbolic Species (Penguin Press Science S.): Books: Terrence Deacon (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Deacon focuses on the learning strategies (specifically, the ability to learn symbolic reference), as the basis for the evolution of language and the human brain.
		Deacon does not believe that language emerges from a human-only increase in "general intelligence," which is sort of the folk psychology idea for the emergence of language- our bigger brains just made us "smarter," in some ill-defined way.
		Deacon explains this remarkable fact by presenting his ideas for how one learns symbolic reference, a kind of learning strategy different from any other in evolution, a learning strategy that sets humans apart.
	www.amazon.co.uk /Symbolic-Species-Penguin-Press-Science/dp/0140264051 (1631 words)

	Language Miniatures 65: Co-evolution of language and brain (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		But Deacon questions this idea as too narrow, and claims instead that once hominids crossed the 'symbolizing threshold', the process ever since has been a constant back and forth, the brain and language evolving together and constantly shaping each other.
		Deacon makes the bold (and to many, somewhat doubtful) assertion that the ancestors of homo erectus began to be able to think symbolically as far back as two million years ago, and that this symbolic thought was the first step into true language.
		This brings Deacon to the surprising assertion that languages are hard to learn later in life because they have evolved to be easier to learn by the immature.
	home.bluemarble.net /~langmin/miniatures/deacon.htm (933 words)

	Deacon: The symbolic species
		Deacon uses this idea to explain the astonishing ease with which small children acquire language and also relates it to attempts to teach language to chimpanzees, especially a young bonobo called Kanzi.
		Specific structures are required to make vocalization possible; Deacon relates the extraordinary story of a harbour seal called Hoover, who acquired - apparently as the result of brain damage caused by infection - the ability to utter speech.
		He believes that their demise when our own ancestors appeared on the scene was due not to cultural or linguistic inferiority but to diseases brought by the newcomers to which the unfortunate Neanderthals had no inbuilt resistance.
	www.accampbell.uklinux.net /bookreviews/r/deacon.html (1129 words)

	Salon \| Sneak Peeks
		One of the main reasons small children "appear preadapted to guess the rules of syntax correctly," Deacon suggests, is that syntax itself has adapted itself to the patterns most regularly guessed by generation after generation of children.
		Deacon draws on research in diverse fields, ranging from linguistics to medicine, and delves deeply into the biology of human and animal brains.
		And for all his understanding of language in the abstract, Deacon has some trouble making himself understood -- hiding some of his most radical conclusions in the midst of long and convoluted arguments and (like a researcher teaching signs to a recalcitrant chimp) repeating himself endlessly to little effect.
	archive.salon.com /july97/sneaks/sneak970718.html (470 words)

	A Natural Hierarchy of Dispositions and Nondual Co-Emergence (from Evolutionary Theory Conference Summary), Esalen ...
		Deacon stated that his primary intellectual goal is to develop a bottom-up, naturalistic, causal explanation for the emergence and/or evolution of meaning (purpose, intention, desire, function, semiosis) from matter.
		Deacon emphasized again that the key factor in third-order systems is the creation (accidentally or not) of some type of proxy (a smaller chunk that represents the architectural dynamics of some larger whole system of molecules) that is capable of seeding a new or second-generation system.
		Deacon calls this a "tail wagging the dog effect," because the tail of the process (third-order dispositions) have through the course of millions of years of evolution captured and used the dogs (the first- and second-order dispositions) that they originally came from.
	www.esalenctr.org /display/confpage.cfm?confid=18&pageid=135&pgtype=1 (3440 words)

	REVIEW OF Deacon's The Symbolic Species
		Deacon has surveyed the related fields of aphasia and other language-related disorders, but also ranged much further from his home base, delving into classics in the philosophy of language, such as Frege, Quine and C.S Peirce, linguistic theorizing in the Chomskyan tradition, social anthropology and paleontology.
		Deacon's thesis, as I understand him, is that the critical event in human evolution was the emergence of a mental ability to represent complex and internally coherent abstract systems of meaning, consisting of abstract entities, abstract properties of such entities and abstract relationships between them.
		I have a hunch that Deacon's insight may be very valuable, but he has not explained it in terms that are unequivocally clear to linguists and philosophers.
	www.ling.ed.ac.uk /~jim/deaconreview.tls.html (1458 words)

	JOURNALISM AT BUCKS COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE
		Deacon's study of monkey and human brains has led him to the conclusion that language is controlled by the prefrontal area and by two other areas behind it--Broca's and Wemicke's areas.
		This so-called ventral prefrontal area, Deacon found, connects to several areas: to Broca's area, to other areas where speech is produced and analyzed, and to primitive parts of the brain responsible for automatic, emotional vocalizations such as laughing and crying.
		Deacon insists that language ability stems from the organization of the brain, not the position of the larynx or shape of the skull base.
	www.bucks.edu /~rogerst/neand.htm (1141 words)

	Leading Scholars Brief Biographies, Esalen Center for Theory & Research
		Terrence (Terry) Deacon, Ph.D. (Harvard 1984), is Associate Professor in Biological Anthropology at Boston University and a member of the BU Neurosciences program.
		Deacon's current research focuses on the evolution of the brain, and he is best known for his work on the evolution of human language abilities.
		Deacon's research also includes cross-species transplantation of embryonic brain tissue both to study evolutionary and developmental brain differences and to develop new cell replacement therapies for brain damage, some of which have found their way into medical procedures.
	www.esalenctr.org /display/bio.cfm?ID=98 (232 words)

	The Symbolic Species : The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain
		Deacon's grounding in biological ideas gives his well-focused book an entirely different flavor from many books on language origins, with a lot to chew on.
		Terrence Deacon brings formidable credentials to his task of explaining how human brains and language co-evolved.
		One of the most frustrating things about this book is the frequency with which Deacon follows a fair, insightful and scholarly discussion of some issue with a wildly speculative proposal that lacks empirical support, even plausibility.
	human-nature.com /darwin/books/deacon.html (494 words)

	Gene Expression: The children of Universal Grammar
		The chapter where Deacon takes on Chomsky & co. and UG he offers his counter-proposal, that UG is an artifact of the reality that language coevolved with the human brain, the ones we see being babbled around us tend to reflect the learning biases of children (the Baldwin Effect looms large in Deacon's narrative).
		Deacon basically forwards the proposition that languages were selected and constrained, some would say "canalized," toward certain universal structures (which UG theorists posited emerge out of UG), but these structures are only byproducts of cognitive biases and limitations of the human symbolic mind.
		On the other hand, Deacon promotes both neural connectionism and attempts to diffuse points in favor of mental modularity in the context of language, which seems to me a pretty straight on attack on Pinker's model (Deacon's book was published in 1997, so he makes copious references to The Language Instinct).
	www.gnxp.com /MT2/archives/003550.html (929 words)

	washingtonpost.com: The Growth of the Little Gray Cells
		In Deacon's view, human language capacity is, on the one hand, just a small step from primate communicative behavior; some primates have large vocabularies and relatively abstract ways of expressing information.
		In these two respects, Deacon takes sharp issue with MIT linguist Noam Chomsky's idea of a "language acquisition device" (LAD), a module somewhere in the mind (and/or brain) that is innate, present at birth in all humans but without analogs in the brains of other creatures, and specialized for language alone.
		Likewise, Deacon's version fits more readily into modern theories of evolution in seeing connections between human and animal communication; Chomsky's autonomous and unique LAD is difficult to account for in a Darwinian framework.
	www.washingtonpost.com /wp-srv/style/longterm/books/reviews/symbolicspecies.htm (665 words)

	Drury University: Terrence Deacon
		As a neuroscientist, Deacon uses a scientific approach to the issue, with results that have broad implications for human culture.
		Terrence Deacon is an Associate Professor who received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Biological Anthropology and is currently directing the expanding biological anthropology component of the Boston University Anthropology curriculum.
		Professor Deacon's research focuses on the evolution of the brain and he is best known for his work on the evolution of the human language abilities.
	www.drury.edu /multinl/story.cfm?ID=1721&NLID=135 (286 words)

	Deacon, Pinker, and Parsimony
		Terrence Deacon, in The Symbolic Species, while dismissive of most of Chomskyan linguistics, still sees the learnability problem as a challenge to any theory that hopes to explain human linguistic knowledge.
		Deacon does propose less innate brain complexity, but given the credibility he gives to the learnability argument and his advocacy of biased learning, he is far from being an empiricist.
		Since Deacon explains his biases in terms of the standard learning processes and the preexisting symbolic system, he can offer an allometric explanation, one that does not require too much selective force, and which could more conceivably be governed by genetic regulation.
	keck.ucsf.edu /~caywood/language.html (2689 words)

	The Symbolic Species, by Terrence Deacon (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Deacon prefigures his thesis that Language and intellect arose together.
		I have much to object to in a section that ends about page 30 where Deacon follows a good many modern evolutionists in trying to say that human evolution is merely another niche which is not so special in the greater scheme of things.
		I agree with Deacon that signification is unnecessary in the life styles of other animals, obviously, and that its advantages are not as incremental as those of the early eye.
	www.cap-lore.com /books/Deacon.html (598 words)

	Note on Linguistic Symbols: Deacon to Seidenberg
		What Deacon draws from this example is that these two chimps were able to learn the ``system of logical relationships between the lexigrams - relationships of exclusion and inclusion'' (p.
		But Deacon doesn't seem to come back to it later, after he discusses all those other topics: neural architecture, human brain specializations, the physical evolution of our species, etc. In Chapters 8 and 9 he discusses how human neural specialization affects language, but not in terms of the sign-sign relationships.
		But it surely must be the case that what he is claiming is that our hugely enlarged prefrontal cortex and its specialized connections with other parts of cortex and brainstem somehow (among other things) support the learning of all those word-word relationships that specify groups and subgroups of related concepts.
	www.cs.indiana.edu /~port/teach/645/deacon-seiden.html (1975 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)