On Intelligent Design Against Chomsky's Language Evolution

초록

Chomsky assumes that language resulted from evolution and emerged only via a mutation or a small mutation. Chomsky's proposal of language evolution through a mutation (mutations) poses so many profound problems. According to Yang (2010), it has been observed up to now that mutations usually occur within the boundary of species, most mutations are deleterious rather than beneficial, there are rare occurrences of mutations in nature, and strong repair system works against mutation, and so on. Moreover, as is quoted by Shin (2009:314-315), mutations usually do not produce a new gene, hormone, enzyme, organ, a system, or a species. These observations cast strong doubts on the assumption that language faculty can be entered into the brain of the human beings through a mutation or mutations. Behe (1996)'s irreducible complexity as “a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning” and Dembski (1999)'s specified complexity have shown that intelligent design explains language as well as the sophisticated and delicate systems of bacterial flagellum, the woodpecker, and the bombardier beetle more clearly and systematically than evolution theory. Chomsky's narrow interpretation of language faculty (FLN) does not provide descriptive as well as explanatory adequacy. His new FLN is too poor to describe all the languages of the world, not satisfying the criterion of his descriptive adequacy which he always asserts any adequate linguistic theory must meet. It is clear that his new FLN, based on the computational mechanism of recursion, cannot describe all the languages of the world, which is only possible with a lot of principles and parameters. His FLN cannot explain the diversity of world languages and children's acquisition of any language given the linguistic context. His FLN also cannot explain the language acquisition of any second language on the part of an adult. If FLN is just the computational mechanism of recursion, it should not be a burden to master a foreign language on the part of adults, which in fact is an unbearable burden for any adults to master. His language theory does not satisfy the criterion of the adequacy of explanation which he always holds any adequate linguistic theory should meet. Furthermore, Chomsky's Minimalism is attacked even by some linguists like Parker (2006), based on evolution that Chomsky holds true, which is also a problem for Chomsky.

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