Over the holiday weekend, I chatted with my sister-in-law about a study her and her dog participate in on providing communication tools to canines. Maybe you saw this segment on CBS Sunday Morning or some other reporting on this work. The dogs are given buttons, each of which plays a recording of a spoken word. We know dogs have some capacity to understand spoken language, since they can be trained to respond to commands. The word buttons close the loop, allowing the dogs to use words as well. While the sophistication … [Read more...] about Science Corner: Should AI Stand for Alien Intelligence?
language
Science Corner: Take Me to Your Victrola
On a trip to the National Air & Space Museum with my son this weekend, I had a chance to look at a copy of one of the records that was sent on the Voyager space probe. The photo on the right shows the top of the record, which is meant to provide details on how to play it and how to decode the images stored on it. (We sent both music and images intended to represent the ecological and cultural diversity of Earth.) These instructions also include some basic science and the coordinates of our planet. It is believed any … [Read more...] about Science Corner: Take Me to Your Victrola
Science Corner: What the FOXP2 Say
Regardless of how one understands our relationship to the animal kingdom, many of us are interested in what distinguishes us biologically from animals, especially the animals most similar to us: chimpanzees, gorillas, and the like. Thanks to genomics and widely quoted numbers like 98% genetic similarity between humans and chimps, DNA becomes central to how we answer that question. One gene that has become popular to mention in that conversation is FOXP2. There is evidence linking FOXP2 to language, and of course … [Read more...] about Science Corner: What the FOXP2 Say
Science Corner: The Word for ‘Gene’
Mosquito control is generally not a primary public health concern in the United States, thanks in no small part to substantial mosquito control campaigns of the last century that eliminated diseases like yellow fever and malaria which were endemic or transmitted regularly here. For example, in the early days of our country, our federal government was evacuated from Philadelphia (then the capital) to escape a yellow fever epidemic. Since mosquito control was successful here, it seems reasonable to share that success with … [Read more...] about Science Corner: The Word for ‘Gene’
Responding to Overnaming in Academia
Today, Matthew Boedy wraps up his four part series on overnaming. See Post 1 here, Post 2 here, and Post 3 here. For other work by Matthew at the ESN blog, including a series on the academic job search, click here. In this four-part series, I have tried to think about one particular aspect of language: naming. In describing the appearance of our central problem called overnaming, I suggested that when we speak with a moral knowledge we are in fact showing our original sin. But when we speak ethically, we … [Read more...] about Responding to Overnaming in Academia