A brief book that is not so much about Speech as it is about toppling false prophets. We learn a great deal about the sordid intrigue that made Darwin the historic personality he is while keeping the lowly “fly catcher” Wallace in semi-obscurity. One hundred fifty years later, a somewhat parallel story develops between Noam Chomsky, the false prophet of speech evolution and Daniel Everett, the new “fly catcher” that (unlike Wallace) opposes the false prophet and begins the process of toppling him. Chomsky’s dogma captured on tens of thousands of pages or more and his cultural clout still holds as of today due to an army of followers built over decades and dependent on this dogma. But the damage has been done: Everett with one single study on the Piraha people has invalidated Chomsky’s conclusions.
Tom Wolfe’s irony cuts merciless into the dearest beliefs of the Evolutionary myth:
- We learn about the parallels between the evolution myth and Native American Creation myths. Yes, Evolution is nothing more than a Creation myth.
- “…the littlest creature (or “four or five” of them)…” points out the absurdity of this claim. Why one? Why four or five? Why make this utterly unsupported claim?
- Evolution is Cosmogony myth and not Science as the theory fails all five tests for scientific hypothesis: Observed? Replicated? Falsifiable? Predictive power? Illuminates other areas of science? “In the case of Evolution…well…no…no…no…no…and no”.
- Darwin’s “Just So Stories”, and “my dog” argument, especially in “The Descent of Man”.
- Dobzhansky’s synthesis of moribund Evolution theory with Genetics to revive the former, and his too categorical claim that “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution”.
- Chomsky’s 2014 statement that “The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma” after decades of “knowing” language down to the math.
Language is important of course, and perhaps even “the most powerful tool invented by people, not innate and not biologically evolved” as the author concludes, but more important Take-Aways are the doubts cast on the very sacred and very inflexible, and ultimately very unscientific beliefs of the Evolution supporters. Furthermore, the amount of supporting literature and time passage have built an imposing structure around the concept of Evolution, but this structure rests on a very flimsy base at best and will likely come crumbling down sooner or later – the higher the structure, the more spectacular its demise.