Inferring and Explaining

43 size. Hewas quite emphatic that languagewas not “selected for” in our evolutionary history. Chom- sky’s view was expanded upon by the important evolutionary biologist Steven Gould: Yes, the brain got bigger by natural selection. But as a result of this size, and the neural density and connectivity thus imparted, human brains could per- form an immense range of functions quite unrelated to the original reasons for the increase in bulk. Te brain did not get big so we could read or write or do arithmetic or chart the seasons—yet human culture, as we know it, depends upon skills of this kind. . . . Te universals of language are so diferent from anything else in nature, and so quirky in their structure, that origin as a side consequence of the brain’s enhanced capacity, rather than a simple advance in continuity from ancestral grunts and gestures, seems indicated. (Tis argument about language is by no means origi- nal with me, though I ally myself fully with it; this line of reasoning follows directly as the evolution- ary reading for Noam Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar.) 3 t 1 . Natural selection produced larger, and more neurally dense, human brains. It was a “side consequence” that these brains gave us such remarkable language abilities. My next rival explanation comes from my own teaching. Several years ago, I was teach- ing a philosophical psychology course, and as a part of it, I had my students read Pinker and Bloom’s article and the one by Stephen Jay Gould from which I have taken the above quote. In a take-home essay exam, I asked my students to discuss the controversy and take sides on which argument was stronger. One of my students, a philosophy minor who had taken several courses from me and knew all about inference to the best explanation ofered a rival explana- tion of Pinker and Bloom’s evidence, which she argued was better than either t 0 or t 1 . I was so taken with the originality of her argument that I ofered to coauthor with her and see if we could get her idea published. We were successful! 4 Joyclynn Potter is a committed theist. But she is also a good philosophy student. Her belief is a cornerstone of who she is and how she thinks. She is, however, intellectually curious and far from close-minded. She sympathetically read and understood Pinker and Bloom’s argu- ment and Gould’s rival argument. She rejected both, not because they were both secular natu- ralist in spirit nor because they both endorsed evolution by natural selection, but because she felt that both had explanatory problems and that traditional theism ofered a better account of what we know about language. Here’s how I tried to express Joci’s position. What is the best explanation of these facts about human language? Tere is wide consensus that there is something innate and almost certainly biological, but a totally secular evolutionary account is mad- deningly difcult to produce. Teists, however, can easily hypothesize that both a uniquely human abil- ity to acquire and use a natural language as well as mental syntax that structures human thought in a quasi-linguistic manner (a language of thought) are the products of an infnitely wise and benefcent creator. 5 InferenCe to the Best exPlanatIon t 2 . The uniquely human ability to acquire and use a natural language is a gift from God.