Comparative and Canine Cognition; Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes
I just finished Everett’s book Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes, and a more thought-provoking book I can’t imagine. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, the author spent much of his life over the last 30 years with a hunter-gatherer tribe, the Piraha, in the Amazon basin. Everett began his work as a missionary and a linguist; his work with the Piraha changed his faith, but not his dedication to studying language.
What makes the book so interesting is his discussion about what the Piraha culture has to say about the derivation of human language. Everett is very clear: he argues persuasively that both Chomsky and Skinner got it wrong (in relation to language). In brief, Chomsky argued that language is innate in humans, and that there are universal ‘laws’ of grammar that are passed down genetically. Skinner argued that all language is learned and that genetics had nothing to do with it.
Everett argues that neither are correct. He presents a compelling case that language and culture can not be separated. He suggests that culture and environment play a significant role in shaping not just language, but how individuals see the world. From this perspective, grammar (a major focus on linguists for decades) is far less important than “culture-based meanings and constraints on talking of each specific culture in the world.” He says that studying linguistics apart from anthropology and field research is like studying chemistry apart from chemicals and the laboratory.
It is not surprising that I am impressed with this argument, given that it fits into my world view as an ethologist: that arguments about “nature versus nurture” are as meaningless as arguments about which is more important, the ingredients or the recipe, to the success of an omelet. (Starting with hard boiled eggs wouldn’t work out too well.)
Speaking of ethology, I’m reminded of how the sensory system of each species creates a different reality than that of other species. For example, because bees see colors that we don’t (we even call colors we can’t see variants of ones we can–”ultra violet” for example), their visual reality is completely different from ours. While we might admire the pure yellow petals of a composite flower, bees see a far more complex bloom with lines and stripes pointing like arrows to the nectar within. Thus, there really is no such thing as one “reality,” and Everett’s work reminds us that that is true within our own species.
The Piraha are only interested in events that were personally witnessed by the speaker, are unable to interpret two dimensional photographs, (practice and training helps a bit, but not much), use no numbers, love to talk but talk about a narrow range of subjects, and most amazingly, seem never to worry. They don’t even have a word for “worry.” This does not mean they live an idyllic life, not by a long shot. They can suffer terribly from disease, predation and romantic entanglements gone sour.
And this is why I’m writing about them here: Everett’s work brings up the question of “what is unique about being a human?” and “what do we share, and not share” with other animals, like our dogs? The lines are getting more and more blurry, aren’t they? Surely dogs live more in the present than most of us.. but how much of that is innate, and how much is cultural? I’d argue that most dogs are a LOT happier than most people… how much of that is innate, and how much cultural? And has living with humans affected dogs such that our culture has influenced their behavior? You’re probably aware of Brian Hare’s work on communication between people and dogs in which he argues that dogs are innately better at reading ‘pointing’ signals from humans than non-domestic canids and even chimpanzees. (I’ll write more about this some time, I have some questions about it.). Could it be that dogs learned to worry from living within a western culture? (Can dogs worry? Do they? Is “worrying” different than experiencing anxiety?)
Lots to think about. Meanwhile, it’s New Year’s Eve morning and I’d better get back to my pathetic attempts to keep up with my email before I take a few days off. We got a lovely light snow last night, the sun is shining, and I’m yearning to get back home to Jim, Will and Lassie. We are awaiting (at least Jim and I) an unplanned set of lambs from Snickers and Truffles, who were bred by some ram lambs when they scrambled over a fence downed by a fallen tree. I’ve been worried the lambs would be born when it was brutally cold and we’d go out to the barn to find frozen baby lambs. But I’m going to take a page from the Piraha… worry? What’s that?
I hope you have a thoughtful and loving New Year. It’s been quite a year, hey? I hope, whatever is happening in your life, that you are able to be ‘in the present’ as much as you can, and to savor the beauty that surrounds us all. Here’s a detail of the barn door in the snow . . .
December 31st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Interesting post! It would be interesting to take dogs from around the world living in different cultures and put them together to see how they would interact?
January 1st, 2009 at 8:12 am
How can I savor the beauty of the world when you keep recommending books? After finishing Bekoff’s book on play, which lead me to Burghardt’s book on play which just arrived from Amazon, I have now started Power’s book on play. In addition, I have Temple Grandin’s new book coming upon release and Alex and Me reserved at the library. I “need” to reread “For the Love of the Dog” and Panksepp’s “Affective Neuroscience”. I am rereading Miklosi’s “Dog, behaviour, evolution and cognition.”
My point is that when my wife and I acquired our first dog 5 years ago, I never imagined what a journey into the study of human and other animal biology would ensue. The questions of the differences between and among species is now one that perpetually fascinates me. I have come to believe we human primates are less unique than we might like to think. I don’t think that diminishes us, I think it makes the continuum that is existence even more interesting. I prefer the feeling of being included in the complex weave of nature to feeling apart from it.
On the subject of inter-species communication there is a study published in the current edition of Animal Behavior finding that the socialized wolves at Wolf Park outperform canis familiaris in the pointing test. I suggest that may support the proposition that culture does matter in acquiring communication methods/styles. Socialized (I believe we would say “enculturated” if speaking of primates) wolves perform differently than wolves raised under different circumstances. What other behaviors change when species become closely affiliated? Interesting, I think.
January 1st, 2009 at 8:37 am
Very, very interesting questions. I’m gonna have to take some time to do some serious thinking on these. Fortunately, with the break btwn semesters I’ll have time to give them some thoughts. I am intrigued.
January 1st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
This is really interesting Patricia. I just finished reading Alex and Me, by Irene Pepperberg. I’m sure you are probably familiar with her work with Alex, the Grey parrot. Through her work with Alex, she discovered and shared with all of us amazing new insights into the way animals think, at least the way the avian mind works. Alex was able to not just learn words, but the meanings of those words, and the concepts behind them. It has been the predominate belief that the human brain was the only one capable of learning and communicating through verbal language. That this ability separates us from the rest of the animal world. But Irene’s work with Alex opened up incredible insights into the capabilities of the animal mind. According to common scientific wisdom, without a cerebral cortex, a parrot should not be able to make the kind of mental connections that Alex did. An example of this would be how Alex was able to grasp the concept of none, or zero. Or how he was able to come up with his own words to describe certain items. I can’t and won’t get into too much detail here, as I don’t think my explanations would do Alex justice. But I do recommend reading the book to anyone interested.
But this really highlights how much we don’t know about animals and how they think. And this of course applies to our dogs. We make a lot of assumptions about what our dogs can and can’t do mentally. But how do we really know? After all, when Irene started her work with Alex, everyone thought she was crazy. But the world has changed dramatically, and I think it’s naive and egotistical for us to assume that we are above the animals we live with. That we are somehow disconnected from animals and nature, when more and more we see that we are not.
At any rate, I know that’s not directly related to your original post. But I wanted to share that since we are talking about communication. And your post definitely makes me want to read Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes. I’ll have to look for it on my next book run:)
Happy New Year!
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:29 am
Just a quick comment on the lambs–I used to have a flock of 200+ ewes, all scheduled to lamb in early March (for my pasture-based system). I went to the barn (actually an open shed) one morning in January when the temperature was 6 degrees and found a ewe with twins, both dry and nursing. I never stop being amazed at the wonders of this world.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Keep those great reading suggestions coming!
I always considered that what made us humans different was the ability to handle abstract concepts (like number operations). Now, the Piraha demolished my theory…
They are obviously the living proof that several of those concepts are not innate.
Happy new year!
January 12th, 2009 at 9:42 am
This article reminds me of when I majored in anthropology, back in the 60s, and got fascinated by how language shapes our realities and vice versa. I remember one article which questioned whether the straight line existed if a language didn’t describe it. As I recall, other anthropologists snorted at the very question.
I later raised llamas and wrote about them. I found my anthropology background helpful in observing their interactions, and I found my sense of what was unique about being human began to shift and blur, much as you describe. Now I only live with dogs and cats, and even there I find so much more kinship with them than with a lot of people I know… hmm, guess I’m veering off in another direction there!
February 4th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Just linked to your great review of this book on my own. As I say in my own review, the claims that Everett makes about culture and language being in a hierarchy with culture very much the determiner is not news to anyone who has recently entered linguistics as the last ten years have seen much growth in this area.
Anyway, my review is at
http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?p=435