A Hauser affér

Valamikor 2003-ban olvastam anno a mára csak HCF néven elhíresült The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve tanulmányt és ismertem meg Marc Hauser nevét. Ez volt a nagy biolinguistics hype kora, én is felültem rá és pár évig nyelvészeti érdeklődésemet teljesen lekötötte a rekurzió eredete és természete. 2007-ben már nem foglalkoztam a témával, de egy barátom révén elért a Hauser ellen indított vizsgálat híre. Ekkor még azt gondoltam, hogy ha követett is el hibát, az nem lehet lényeges - egy kis gond ui. mindig akad az adatokkal  egy empirikus vizsgálatnál. 2010-ben azonban a The Chronicle részletesen foglalkozott a vizsgálattal és már lehetett látni hogy valami nagyon nincs rendben, a kísérletek manipulálása mellé már a plágium vádja is bekerült. Most úgy tűnik véget ért a vizsgálat, Hauser is elismerte hibáit, de ezzel egy szerintem nagyon fontos kutatási irányzat diszkreditálódott és került a margóra.

A LanguageLog remekül összefoglalta a Chomsky-Hauser-Fitch és a Pinker-Jackendoff vitát:

Step 1 (2002): Marc Hauser, Noam Chomsky, and Tecumseh Fitch wrote an article in Science entitled "The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?" (Vol 298, Issue 5598, 1569-157 , 22 November 2002). A free version is available here. The abstract:

    We argue that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial interdisciplinary cooperation. We suggest how current developments in linguistics can be profitably wedded to work in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience. We submit that a distinction should be made between the faculty of language in the broad sense (FLB) and in the narrow sense (FLN). FLB includes a sensory-motor system, a conceptual-intentional system, and the computational mechanisms for recursion, providing the capacity to generate an infinite range of expressions from a finite set of elements. We hypothesize that FLN only includes recursion and is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language. We further argue that FLN may have evolved for reasons other than language, hence comparative studies might look for evidence of such computations outside of the domain of communication (for example, number, navigation, and social relations).

Step 2 (2004): Steven Pinker and Ray Jackendoff responded with an article in Cognition entitled "The faculty of language: what's special about it?" (Volume 95, Issue 2 , March 2005, Pages 201-236 -- free version here). The abstract:

    We examine the question of which aspects of language are uniquely human and uniquely linguistic in light of recent suggestions by Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch that the only such aspect is syntactic recursion, the rest of language being either specific to humans but not to language (e.g. words and concepts) or not specific to humans (e.g. speech perception). We find the hypothesis problematic. It ignores the many aspects of grammar that are not recursive, such as phonology, morphology, case, agreement, and many properties of words. It is inconsistent with the anatomy and neural control of the human vocal tract. And it is weakened by experiments suggesting that speech perception cannot be reduced to primate audition, that word learning cannot be reduced to fact learning, and that at least one gene involved in speech and language was evolutionarily selected in the human lineage but is not specific to recursion. The recursion-only claim, we suggest, is motivated by Chomsky's recent approach to syntax, the Minimalist Program, which de-emphasizes the same aspects of language. The approach, however, is sufficiently problematic that it cannot be used to support claims about evolution. We contest related arguments that language is not an adaptation, namely that it is “perfect,” non-redundant, unusable in any partial form, and badly designed for communication. The hypothesis that language is a complex adaptation for communication which evolved piecemeal avoids all these problems.

Step 3 (2005) Fitch, Hauser and Chomsky have responded, with an article due out in Cognition entitled "The evolution of the language faculty: Clarifications and implications" (free version here). The abstract:

    In this response to Pinker and Jackendoff's critique, we extend our previous framework for discussion of language evolution, clarifying certain distinctions and elaborating on a number of points. In the first half of the paper, we reiterate that profitable research into the biology and evolution of language requires fractionation of “language” into component mechanisms and interfaces, a non-trivial endeavor whose results are unlikely to map onto traditional disciplinary boundaries. Our terminological distinction between FLN and FLB is intended to help clarify misunderstandings and aid interdisciplinary rapprochement. By blurring this distinction, Pinker and Jackendoff mischaracterize our hypothesis 3 which concerns only FLN, not “language” as a whole. Many of their arguments and examples are thus irrelevant to this hypothesis. Their critique of the minimalist program is for the most part equally irrelevant, because very few of the arguments in our original paper were tied to this program; in an online appendix we detail the deep inaccuracies in their characterization of this program. Concerning evolution, we believe that Pinker and Jackendoff's emphasis on the past adaptive history of the language faculty is misplaced. Such questions are unlikely to be resolved empirically due to a lack of relevant data, and invite speculation rather than research. Preoccupation with the issue has retarded progress in the field by diverting research away from empirical questions, many of which can be addressed with comparative data. Moreover, offering an adaptive hypothesis as an alternative to our hypothesis concerning mechanisms is a logical error, as questions of function are independent of those concerning mechanism. The second half of our paper consists of a detailed response to the specific data discussed by Pinker and Jackendoff. Although many of their examples are irrelevant to our original paper and arguments, we find several areas of substantive disagreement that could be resolved by future empirical research. We conclude that progress in understanding the evolution of language will require much more empirical research, grounded in modern comparative biology, more interdisciplinary collaboration, and much less of the adaptive storytelling and phylogenetic speculation that has traditionally characterized the field.

Step 4 (JP, 2005): Jackendoff and Pinker will respond to the response, in an article entitled "The Nature of the Language Faculty and its Implications for Evolution of Language" (listed as "in press" at Cognition, but not yet available on line -- free version of 3/25/2005 here). The abstract:

    In a continuation of the conversation with Fitch, Chomsky, and Hauser on the evolution of language, we examine their defense of the claim that the uniquely human, language-specific part of the language faculty (the “narrow language faculty”) consists only of recursion, and that this part cannot be considered an adaptation to communication. We argue that their characterization of the narrow language faculty is problematic for many reasons, including its dichotomization of cognitive capacities into those that are utterly unique and those that are identical to nonlinguistic or nonhuman capacities, omitting capacities that may have been substantially modified during human evolution. We also question their dichotomy of the current utility versus original function of a trait, which omits traits that are adaptations for current use, and their dichotomy of humans and animals, which conflates similarity due to common function and similarity due to inheritance from a recent common ancestor. We show that recursion, though absent from other animals’ communications systems, is found in visual cognition, hence cannot be the sole evolutionary development that granted language to humans. Finally, we note that despite Fitch et al.’s denial, their view of language evolution is tied to Chomsky’s conception of language itself, which identifies combinatorial productivity with a core of “narrow syntax.” An alternative conception, in which combinatoriality is spread across words and constructions, has both empirical advantages and greater evolutionary plausibility.

Hauser karrierjét a kibontakozó polémia nagyon megdobta, hiszen hirtelen a szűkebb szakmáján kívül is ismertté vált a neve, nyelvészek, kognitív tudósok, pszichológusok, de még társadalomtudósok is érdeklődni kezdtek kutatásai iránt. Ő pedig nyitott feléjük! Persze már Wild Minds című (amúgy egyszerűen zseniális könyve) is megalapozta hírnevét, sőt valószínű ezzel érte el a határterületek érdeklődését is. A közönség eredményeket követelt és Hauser szállította is azokat. Ekkor jött egy szokásos pályázati ellenőrzés, ami során felmerült a kírésleti adatok manipulálása. Ekkor még tovább dolgozhatott Huaser, hiszen ilyen kétségek gyakran merülnek fel a világnak azon felén ahol legalább ellenőrzik a kutatások szakszerűségét.  A vizsgálat indulásakor már kijött 2006-os, Moral Minds című könyve. Erről 2011-ben derült ki hogy gyanúsan egybe cseng John Mikhail kutatásaival. Habár egész jól védte magát, annyi bizonyos hogy az etika területén tett kiruccanása kínos, már csak a tartalom és a felületes filozófiai iskolázottság mutogatása miatt is tényleg úgy tűnhet az olvasónak hogy Mikhail gyenge utánérzését írta meg.

A tanulság az is lehetne hogy a suszter maradjon a kaptafánál. Sajnos azonban ha egy labor nem alkalmazott vagy természettudományt művel, akkor sok múlik azon, hogy sikerül-e egy sztár professzort találni az élére, aki meggyőzi a kutatási pénzeket osztogató szervezeteket, hogy valami nagyon fantasztikus dolgot kutatnak. Ez pedig rengeteg elvárást és felesleges feladatot ró a "sztár" vállára. Ezt erősíti meg Hauser most kiadott közleménye is:

Although I have fundamental differences with some of the findings in the ORI report, I acknowledge that I made mistakes. I tried to do too much, teaching courses, running a large lab of students, sitting on several editorial boards, directing the Mind, Brain & Behavior Program at Harvard, conducting multiple research collaborations, and writing for the general public. I let important details get away from my control, and as head of the lab, I take responsibility for all errors made within the lab, whether or not I was directly involved. I am saddened that this investigation has caused some to question all of my work, rather than the few papers and unpublished studies in question. Before, during and after the investigation, many of my lab’s research findings were replicated by independent researchers. I remain proud of the many important papers generated by myself, my collaborators and my students over the years. I am also deeply gratified to see my students carve out significant areas of research at major universities around the world.

És mi a helyzet akkor a rekurzióval? A minimalista program biológiailag akkor megalapozott? Nem tudjuk, hiszen Hauser visszavonult, ilyen kutatásokra jelenleg nem adnak pénzt másnak sem.