A Cultural Law of Gravity


	A Cultural Law of Gravity

wildcat

5-11-2009 7:11 AM

477 views

tags:

evolution, language, wallace

wildcat says:

"Human culture seems to have gone way beyond what such a law of gravity might allow"

a fascinating post, worthwhile your time of reading

1 Comment |

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5-12-2009 4:34 AM

abailart

Great. It made me think/"see", metaphorically a core "planet" sustaining a constantly changing and relatively unpredictable mantel of activity.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/38dfe0e4-2703-4f41-a6f9-bfa350272a7d/C8077C29-E319-42B9-A146-3567F3A022D9/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/2009/05/a-cultural-law-of-gravity.html" href="http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/2009/05/a-cultural-law-of-gravity.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.babelsdawn.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/2009/05/a-cultural-law-of-gravity.html"><P><SPAN>Alfred Russel Wallace</SPAN> was the co-discoverer of natural selection. His paper provides a framework for thinking about how culture and environment constrain varieties to stay true to type and also how changes enable varieties to stray indefinitely from the original type.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/2009/05/a-cultural-law-of-gravity.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.babelsdawn.com/img/8D9FC29A-6F14-43B4-AFAF-A4E8CA9CF433" alt="Wallace" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/2009/05/a-cultural-law-of-gravity.html"><SPAN><SPAN>It is now well established that language
cannot follow just any old rules. Linguists a few decades back thought there
was no limit to the variety of language, but research has since identified a
number of formal constraints that mark boundaries. Language can work within
those borders, but not cross them. The trouble with those borders is
understanding what these constraints mean psychologically and neurologically.
There must be some reason beyond the formal rules for why these constraints
existed. We hardly know how to think about these matters, let alone explain
them. A letter in the most recent issue of </SPAN><EM><SPAN>Nature </SPAN></EM><SPAN>reminds me, however,
that clues are coming in from, of all places, songbirds.</SPAN><SPAN><SPAN 1:p="1:p"></SPAN></SPAN><SPAN><O:P></O:P></SPAN></SPAN></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/C8077C29-E319-42B9-A146-3567F3A022D9/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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