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Published online 18 October 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2007.177
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Modern speech gene found in Neanderthals
Genetic studies hint Neanderthals were equipped for language.
Researchers delving into the DNA of Neanderthal remains have found the human form of a gene crucial for the development of language.
The result indicates that this modern form of the gene could have appeared much earlier than previously thought — in the ancestors of humans and Neanderthals.
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"mutations in this gene are known to cause a severe language problem in which affected individuals cannot grasp grammar" Isn't that a broad misstatement of facts. Hasn't it been shown not to be the case. I refer the readers to Alec MacAndrew survey (http://www.evolutionpages.com/FOXP2_language.htm) and Language Log's numerous posts (most recently: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005038.html)
A. Of Genome and Evolution Chapter II, from "Life, Tomorrow's Comprehension" http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1 Natural Selection Is A Two Level Interdependent Affair 1) Evolution ensues from genome/genes modifications ("mutations"), inherently ever more of them as new functional options arise for the organism. 2) Modifications of genome's functional capabilities can be explained by the second-stratum organism's culture-life-experience feedbacks to its genome, its prime/base organism. The route-modification selection of a replicating gene, when it is at its alternative-splicing-steps junctions, is biased by the feedback gained by the genome, the parent organism, from the culture-life-experience of its progeny big organism. THIS IS HOW EVOLUTION COMES ABOUT. 3) The challenge now is to figure out the detailed seperate steps involved in introducing and impressing the big organism's experiences (culture) feedbacks on its founding parents' genome's genes, followed by the detailed seperate steps involved in biasing-directing the genes to prefer-select the biased-favored splicing. 4) I find it astonishing that only very few persons, non-professional as well as professional biologists-evolutionists, have the clear conception that selection for survival occurs on two interdependent levels - (a) during the life of the second-stratum progeny organism in its environment, and (b) during the life of its genome, which is also an organism. Most, if not all, persons think - incorrectly - that evolution is about randomly occurring genes-genome modifications ("mutations") followed with selection by survival of the progeny organism in its environment. Whereas actually evolution is the interdependent , interactive and interenhencing selection at both the two above levels. end chapter II ------------------------ B. Culture Is a Ubiquitous Biological Trait http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=207 I note again and again the common mistake: genetic changes have NOT made us human. Human culture has been changing our genetics. (This is followed with copies of two non-acknowledged letters I sent to Scientific American...) Dov Henis