possible alternative to natural selection,“principles of neural organization that may be even more deeply grounded in
physical law.”Perhaps Chomsky's most famous quote about evolutionary argumentation is this one (among several
cited in Newmeyer 1998a):
We know very little about what happens when 10^10 neurons are crammed into something the size of a basketball,
with further conditions imposed by the specific manner in which this system developed over time. It would be a
serious error to suppose that all properties, or the interesting properties of the structures that evolved, can be
‘explained’in terms of natural selection. (Chomsky 1975: 59)As Toulmin (1972), Newmeyer (1998a), and Dennett(1995) pointout, thisis virtuallya retreat to mysticism, appealing
to the simple increase in brain size plus the convergence of unknown physical principles. We must not discount the
possibility that Chomsky is right; but surely it is worth attempting to make use of the tools at our disposal before
throwing the maway.
Piattelli-Palmerini(1989) argues, alongmoreevolutionarilydefensiblelines, thatlanguageis nothingbuta“spandrel”in
the sense of Gould and Lewontin(1979).^118 In his scenario, a number of unrelated developments motivatedby natural
selection coincidentally converged on a brain structure that happened to instantiate UG, which itself was not selected
for. A similar hypothesis appears in Toulmin (1972: 459):“the physiological prerequisites of language developed, in
proto-human populations, in a manner having nothing whatever to do with their subsequent‘linguistic’expression.”
Toulmin ends up hoping that“language might then turn out to be the behavioural end-product, not of a unitary and
specific‘native capacity’precisely isomorphic with our actual linguistic behaviour, but rather of more generalized
capacities”(465). That is, he specifically wishes to deny the UG hypothesis. As Newmeyer (1998a) points out, one
cannotbothhavea specialized eccentricUG, as Piattelli-Palmerini wouldlike, and claimthatitismerelya consequence
of general capacities, as Toulmin would like.
Chomsky, Piattelli-Palmerini, and Toulmin all are in effect taking the position that UG was not something that natural
selection directly shaped—that it is in some way just a fortunate accident. The former two are using this position to
answer thecritics ofUG; Toulminis using a similar positiontodenya special UG. Without furtherevidence, then,this
argument is a standoff.
Pinker and Bloo m(1990) argue for a different position: that the co m municative
234 ARCHITECTURAL FOUNDATIONS
(^118) Dennett (1995) observes that Gould and Lewontin's use of the term“spandrel”is not analogous to the architectural sense of the ter mon which they clai mto draw.
However, the ter mhas taken on its own life in evolutionary theory, like“Universal Grammar”in linguistics, so I suppose we have to live with it.