In this provocative book, six coauthors, representing cognitive psychology, connectionism,
neurobiology, and dynamical-systems theory, synthesize a new theoretical framework for
cognitive development with special focus on language acquisition. In the Emergentist
perspective, interactions occurring at all levels, from genes to environment, give rise to emergent
forms and behavior. These outcomes may be highly constrained and universal, but they are not
themselves directly contained in the genes in any domain-specific way. The human body
contains perhaps 5 × 1028 bits of information in its molecular arrangement,
but our genome contains only about 105 bits of information. Thus, we are over 20
orders of magnitude short of being mosaic organisms, where development is prespecified in the
genes. Our development is under regulatory control, where precise pathways to adulthood reflect
numerous interactions at the cellular level occurring throughout development. The human cortex
is plastic, its architecture reflects experience; innate specification of synaptic connectivity in the
cortex is highly unlikely. Theories of language must reflect this—they must be
biologically, developmentally, and ecologically plausible. Linguistic representational nativism is
just not tenable. It is so implausible that UG could be directly encoded in the genotype that we
must explore the alternatives. So the answer is not “Nature.” Nor, as the authors so
clearly argue, is it “Nature or Nuture.” Rather, it is “Nature
and Nurture.”
Hormonal control of motivational circuitry orchestrates the transition to sexuality in Drosophila
