[lingtalks] [CogSci Talks] Save The Date -- Terrence Deacon UPDATE

[Melanie Tumlin]

Please mark your calendars for Friday, February 20th, at 2p, for a talk by
Terrence W. Deacon, Ph.D., as part of the Cognitive Science Distinguished
Series.  Title and abstract follow; flyer is attached.

Terrence W. Deacon, Ph.D.
Biological Anthropology & The Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University
of California, Berkeley

Evodevo, devodevo, and the brain:
Explaining the emergent features of human cognition

Darwin's theory of natural selection was only half a theory of evolution
because it was agnostic about the mechanisms involved. The basis of
inheritance, the causes of variation, the mechanisms of development, and so
on could be ignored and yet it was still possible to give a logical account
of species descent and modification with respect to the environment.  In the
past two decades the theoretical and experimental tools to complete this
synthesis have begun to become available. But with this information has come
a new appreciation of how the peculiarities of these various mechanism each
contribute to the forms that tend to emerge in evolution. What has only
recently become evident is that the effects of some of these mechanisms may
actually depend on a relaxation of natural selection. This may help to
explain how significant aspects of developmental control can become
offloaded onto epigenetic self-organizing processes, social transmission,
and niche construction effects. Using supportive data from a number of
sources I will argue that there is evidence for extensive offloading of
developmental control in human evolution and that this can help to account
for the emergent character of many uniquely human attributes, from language
to aesthetics to morality. Incorporating this information about phenotypic
development into our theories of brain function, cognition, and human
universals will require something on the order of a figure/background
reversal from our currently popular innate instructionism.

Friday, February 20th
2pm
CSB 003
Reception to follow


-- 
Melanie A. Tumlin
Graduate Student
Department of Cognitive Science
UC San Diego
mtumlin at cogsci.ucsd.edu

"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research." -- Albert
Einstein
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