" Sure animals talk in their own way, with chirps and grunts and the like, but only humans can form words. It is this, some evolutionary psychologists contend, that is what truly separates us from the rest of the species on the planet. But why us?"
Josh and Chuck dive into the fascinating and hotly debated question of how humans developed language as a species. They explore the two main competing theories from heavyweight linguists - Steven Pinker's gradual adaptation theory versus Noam Chomsky's idea that language appeared suddenly as a byproduct of other brain developments. Along the way, they discuss everything from MIT research on child language acquisition to ancient toolmaking, brain anatomy, and even how a guy named Tan helped scientists understand speech production.
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