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SUMMARY:Where Darwin went really wrong: an unbridgeable gap in cognitive e
 volution - Marc Hauser
DTSTART:20140310T170000Z
DTEND:20140310T180000Z
UID:TALK51357@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Bert Vaux
DESCRIPTION:Darwin famously stated in the Descent of Man that "the differe
 nce in\nmind between man and higher animals\, great as it is\, certainly i
 s one\nof degree and not of kind." I will argue that the evidence shows qu
 ite\nthe opposite: the difference is one of kind and not degree. I first\n
 show that nonhuman animal cognition is highly myopic\, focused on\nnarrow 
 adaptive problems. Thus\, when we look at claims of teaching\, tool use\, 
 mathematics\, morality\, and language\, all are narrowly restricted to spe
 cific contexts\, showing none of the trademark signatures of human cogniti
 on. I then show why this is the case by pointing to four features of human
  cognition that are uniquely human: generative computations\, promiscuous 
 interfaces between modular systems\, spontaneously generated internal and 
 external symbols\, and abstract representations that are often detached fr
 om sensory inputs. I focus in particular on mathematical and linguistic re
 presentations and computations as exemplary cases of differences in kind a
 nd not degree. The evolution of human cognition represents a case of massi
 ve discontinuity\, pointing to radical changes in human brain structure an
 d connectivity\, changes that had to occur quite recently in our evolution
 ary past.
LOCATION:Audit Room\, King's College
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