tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3040099150725637733.post559043240270143569..comments2023-11-02T08:42:23.947+00:00Comments on The Subversive Archaeologist: Mired In Psycho Linguistics Land. Dediu and Levinson on Language and Culturethesubversivearchaeologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02730417511321512990noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3040099150725637733.post-73756202584661155922015-05-18T21:56:14.558+01:002015-05-18T21:56:14.558+01:00A classic Neandertal-bashing rant boiling down to ...A classic Neandertal-bashing rant boiling down to what all Neandertal-bashing rants boil down to: there is no steel evidence that the Neandertals spoke languages like ours, or that they spoke a language at all. Painting Neandertals as dumb king size apes today is ridiculous by all conceivable standards and closely related to the badly unwarranted hilarious creationist (and vaguely racist) style belief in Chomsky's "Prometheus": one morning a Homo Sapiens Sapiens wakes up and sits up from his straw mattress and lo and behold, he can speak! And God in Heaven saw it was a good thing, amen. Perhaps a gradual incremental development of speaking abilities over time is a tad more scientific a notion, no? There's no certainty Neandertals spoke languages like ours. Oh really? No certainty. No kidding. Ian Tattersall, another "dimwitted Neandertals" virtuoso, happened to write that the absence of evidence doesn't entail the evidence of an absence. How about applying the same - correct - wisdom also to theories Neandertal bashers have a distaste for?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com