Thursday, April 16, 2009

Tomasello's final chapter clearly and concisely wrapped up his argument with a cute little bow on top.  For the majority of the chapter he just re-hashes his argument and made it abundantly more clear to me what his argument was.  After reading this book it is clear that human cognition is pretty much a miracle of evolution, in fact its pretty much inexplicable.  The tools that humans have developed have just sped the process along.  A perfect example of this is language, especially in a child and their aptitude to learn it shows just how we have grown.  We are designed to learn from each other.  This ability is what sets us apart from everything else in the entire world.  
Is Tomasello trying to stop the debate about nature v. nurture and just try to lump them into one thing that is a process unto itself?  Also how does this relate to the phenomenon of certain group of animals (I think especially primates) learning a technique and it immediately being known to another group when it is impossible for them to have communicated?

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