Bickerton: Round Two

A few years back Derek Bickerton published a book called Adam's Tongue which I reviewed in three posts (here, here and here). That book was disappointingly breezy, a lively account that made bold assertions and brushed objections aside with the swat of a hand. Say this for the guy, he's willing to keep plugging. Earlier this year he published an entirely non-breezy account of his theory: More than Nature Needs — Language, Mind, and Evolution. After reading the book I went back and read my old posts on the first work. I find that the theory has changed only a bit but the process is much more clear. Step 1 – Escape from the here and now His theory still begins with the rise of the African savanna about 2 million years ago. The human lineage of that time was unable to bring down much game and was forced to feed on the conveniently dead. That task involved "confrontational scavenging" for driving off others from the scene. Groups of protohumans worked as a team, fending off the other scavengers. These rivals, by the way, include lions, hyenas, wild dogs, jackals, large birds of various sorts like vultures and marabou storks, and the occasional leopard and cheetah. Some of these animals, notably lions and hyenas, might not have been so easy to chase off. Just as today you can see hyenas keeping their distance while the lions feed, our ancestors may have had to wait patiently while the big boys satisfied themselves. Anyway, there seems no reason to doubt that our ancestors d...
Source: Babel's Dawn - Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Source Type: blogs