Exploring The Uncanny Valley.

Since last Tuesday's class in Lifelong Learning Processes and our class discussion of The Uncanny Valley, I have been thinking a lot about Michael Tomasello's views on biological and cultural evolution.  The Uncanny Valley is a theory that measures the human response of revulsion to robotics, or in the case of evolution, the great apes who attain human-likeness.  As a Christian person, I would not describe my initial reaction to common descent between apes and humans as one of revulsion, but rather discomfort.  Although I have not given the topic of evolution much attention, my personal beliefs have influenced my direction towards Intelligent Design.  Of course, my spiritual experiences are personal and therefore outside the realms of science. Nonetheless, I welcome the challenge to journey into The Uncanny Valley.

The above video shows endearing robots such as Wall-e, R2D2 and C3PO gaining human responses of empathy.  Although they share some human characteristics, they are different enough to stay within our comfort zone.  However, as the images attain human-likeness, they plummet into the valley of repulsion.   Professor Plumb pointed out that the revulsion only happens when we get close to who we are as humans.  This revulsion occurs because these images remind of us our own mortality and therefore evoke a fear of death and dying (Plumb, 2011).

As a way to compensate, humans work to attain a strong sense of self, which is usually reflected bodily.   The movie Avatar was likely successful because the avatar creatures were physically strong, fast, and agile.  They also elicited noble human virtues such as peace, love and respect for their planet.  Therefore, movie viewers responded by empathizing with the avatars.  Although the avatars would have been in The Uncanny Valley at the onset of the movie, they were able to pass through the valley reflecting a super-human-like status.

In contrast, meet Wilma, pictured below, of the species Homo Neanderthalensis.   An article entitled, Meet Wilma: The face of Neanderthal woman revealed for the first time 2008, reveals that artists and scientists have created the first model of a Neanderthal based in part on ancient DNA evidence.  Wilma has been put together using analysis of DNA from 43,000-year-old bones that had been cannibalized.  Paleontologists claim that Neanderthals are the closest relatives to humans.

In reference to my class notes, the study of fossils found in Europe suggests that humans and Neanderthals lived at the same time and may have even mated.  It is believed that Neanderthals were eventually forced into extinction by humans (Plumb, 2011).

The human-likeness of Neanderthal skin, hair, facial features and facial expressions are indeed uncanny.  Because Neanderthals are considered brutish and unintelligent, they plummet into The Uncanny Valley of revulsion.  However, once we become familiarized with the Homo Neanderthalensis species, we can  establish a connection and overcome our revulsion.  According to Viktor Deak's book, The Last Human- A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans 2007, Neanderthals were skilled tool-makers and hunters.  A Neanderthal brain was larger and its skull was shaped quite distinctly from the human skull.  Their larger skeletons indicated an adaptation to the colder climate.  Their material culture indicates that they were capable of speech.  They even buried their dead in a ritualistic fashion, which indicates a belief in an afterlife.

So as our non-human ancestors, the Neanderthals, emerge from The Uncanny Valley, I ponder about their way of life, their skills, their spiritual beliefs and practices.  The question emerges: can I as a Christian believe in evolution?  Yes, I believe so.  The difference is that I acknowledge the Designer who moved the whole process along.

One of my theology teachers, Ken Perkins, had this to say on the topic of the evolution/creation debate: “Biblical creationists have often boxed themselves into a short time-frame: six-day creation, young earth (6,000 to 20,000 years old). That argument is very difficult to sustain” (Perkins, 2011).  As to the age of the earth, he pointed out that “both creation stories begin with the earth already in existence” (Genesis 1.2 and Genesis 2.5). Therefore, he agrees that the formation of the universe could well have taken billions of years (Perkins, 2011).

Unfortunately, this point of view is not accepted in many Christian circles.  Mr. Perkins made reference to his former professor, Bruce Waltke who was forced to resign under pressure from Reformed Theological Seminary because he had stated on a video, “If the data is overwhelming in favour of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult.”  The fact that Mr. Waltke was forced to resign is a sad indication that discussing evolution in conservative Christian traditions is difficult.

In an article entitled, “Science in America: Religious Belief and Public Attitudes” 2007, a poll among church-goers concluded that only 25% of evangelicals believe in evolution, and only 10% believe that evolution occurred through natural selection. When the Church as a whole thinks so differently about something so important, it takes courage to present a view that challenges the status quo. Academics like Bruce Waltke put their careers on the line if they accept the scientific data that God created through natural selection.

However, there is growing support for Christians who believe in evolution. The BioLogos Foundation is a group of Christians who are made up of professional scientists, philosophers, educators, theologians, biblical scholars, and pastors who are concerned about the long history of disharmony between the findings of science and large sectors of the Christian faith. Through dialogue, the BioLogos Foundation addresses the central themes of science and religion and emphasizes the compatibility of the Christian faith with scientific discoveries about the origins of the universe and life.

The idea of theistic evolution is a revulsion for many Christians.  Maybe this revulsion has to do with the idea that the Bible says that humans are created in the image of God.  I suppose the question is what does this image look like?  According to Mr. Perkins, "Being created in the image of God is not about our appearance or our capacities, it is about our function."  Mr. Perkins uses the analogy of a monarch whose authority is exercised by deputies, and so humans are deputized as caretakers of God's world (Perkins, 2011).

No matter what our belief systems, our goal as humans should be that of caretakers of our world and ignoring the history and scientific evidence will make that very difficult to do.  As a Christian, I do not believe that evolution is an antithesis to Christianity and I plan to do more exploring of theistic evolution.  Through my studies in theology, I have learned not to box myself into any religious doctrine or dogma, so that I can think critically about my own beliefs and the world in which I live and avoid falling into the "group think".

Non-electronic Bibliography:

K. Perkins, personal communication, January 21, 2011.

Plumb, D. (2011, January 25). Class Notes: Lifelong Learning Processes. Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, NS.

Language Acquisition in Young Children

I just finished reading Michael Tomasello's book, The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999), and I was quite interested in his views concerning language acquisition in young children. Tomasello describes the dynamics between a parent and a child and how learned behaviour, including language, is the result of the communicative relationships between them. He asserts that language acquisition depends on a child's exposure to cultural stimuli, so that the child can develop linguistic capacities such as imitation, joint attention, and discourse. This theory demonstrates that the acquisition of language depends on the acquisition of culture. This blog post follows Tomasello's argument and contrasts with linguist, Noam Chomsky, who asserts that language acquisition is innate.  The emerging question from my research is: "What happens to a child if she is deprived of culture during the formative years?"

Tomasello rejects Noam Chomsky's theory of innate language development. In his book, The Chomsky/Foucault Debate (2006), Noam Chomsky asserts that universal grammar is hard-wired into the brain and manifests without being taught.  He supports his theory by offering an analogy of a lamb who is taken away from its mother and raised in isolation. The result is that the lamb will not develop depth perception. Chomsky asserts that the mother does not teach the lamb depth perception, but that she somehow enables the lamb's visual system to work the way in which it is designed (p. 173). He suspects that language acquisition in the human brain works the same way (p. 179). 
 
In contrast, Tomasello argues that an infant's brain is genetically prepared versus hard-wired.  In his book, Constructing a Language (2003), Tomasello asserts that the genetic preparation cannot be too specific.  He states that children must be flexible enough to learn not only hundreds of thousands of individual words, expressions, constructions and conventional expressions of language, but also the different types of abstract constructional patterns that language has grammaticized historically (p. 1,2). 
 

Research in neuroscience tends to support Tomasello's theory.  In an article entitled, Building Baby's Brain: The Basics (1998), Dr Diane Bale describes the genetic preparation for the learning process. She describes how a baby's brain has more than one hundred billion brain cells. Bale says that most of the connections are done after the baby is born except connections needed for physical body functions such as heart beat and motor functions which develop in utero. However, through learning, the child's brain cells have made many more connections by the age of three.  The brain keeps track of connections that the baby uses most.  In time, the brain gets rid of the connections that it does not use regularly.

Human infants are born completely helpless. Their helplessness may be the reason they are social from birth; their very survival depends on it.  Tomasello describes that much of the initial engagements between a parent and child “involve looking, touching and vocalizing in ways that serve to express and share basic emotions” (Tomasello, 1999, p. 59). As infants develop, they learn through mimicking with basic “tongue protrusions, mouth openings, and head movements” (p 59). Then Tomasello refers to the “nine month revolution where infants begin to behave in ways to suggest that they understand their social worlds (p. 61). He refers to these behaviours as joint attentional behaviours that indicate an emergence of the self and others as distinct ( p. 62). At around eight months of age, infants begin to act with intention toward a goal which indicates a higher level of functioning (p. 73).

As a mother, I am especially interested in the discourse that takes place between a parent and infant and the resulting development of vocabulary and understanding of social contexts. Tomasello suggests that parents who spend time talking to their infants have infants who develop larger vocabularies (Tomasello, 1999, p. 110).  It is interesting to note that discourse surrounding an object that the infant is focused on is more beneficial to the infant's vocabulary than a parent who directs the infant's attention away from the object to something new (p. 110). As shared relationships continue through joint-attention, infants learn to internalize perspectives of themselves and perspectives of another other person. Around two years of age, children are able to think abstractly by using objects as symbols. “For example, a twenty-four-month-old year old might push a block along the floor and make noises such as 'Vroom!'” (p. 129). Tomasello proposes that “children learn to use objects as symbols in much the same way they learn to use linguistic symbols” (p. 129). Note that children's use of objects as symbols and their acquisition of linguistic symbols emerge around the same time (p. 129).

Tomasello's work has left me deeply curious about feral children and/or children who are otherwise isolated from social contact and culture. Not much credibility is given to accounts of feral children due to the lack of documentation and and sensational media stories which gives rise to hoaxes. I did however come across one heartbreaking story of abuse and neglect: Genie: A Scientific Tragedy (1993). Genie was kept isolated in a room from birth until her rescue at age 13. Most of her days were spent tied to a potty chair. When she was rescued, she could not speak and could hardly walk. She was subsequently subject to scientific trials, later coined "The Forbidden Experiment", to see if she could learn to speak after the critical period for language acquisition during the formative years. The scientists had some success and her vocabulary increased to approximately one hundred words. However, she had difficulty with pronunciation and did not have the ability to form a coherent sentence. She would say, “applesauce store buy” instead of, "buy applesauce at the store". Unfortunately, her story does not have a happy ending. Genie regressed after she was abused in a foster home. She never spoke again.

I recommend viewing the rest of Genie's story which is a six part video series.  There are a lot of unknown variables in terms of assessing Genie's ability or inability to acquire language.  For example, it is clear that she was exposed to language throughout her isolation although the words were likely minimal and negative.  Her personal history was so disastrous that it would not be at all clear why she had been unable to make progress.  According to Chomsky's theory, Genie did not progress because she would have surpassed the critical time to develop language.  According to Tomasello's theory, Genie did not progress because she was not exposed to cultural stimuli during the formative years.  There seems to be a general consensus among theorists that something happens in the brain at puberty that makes language acquisition at an older age very difficult.    

Overall, it is difficult to measure language acquisition in infants without a controlled environment deprived of cultural stimuli and that would be unethical, cruel and inhumane.  As in Genie's case, it would be a forbidden experiment.  In terms of theories, I tend to agree with Tomasello's theory on language acquisition: if an infant is exposed to the cultural stimuli which includes parents who are engaged with her, she will learn language.  Language is a web of complex linguistic symbols that serve to organize and express communicative thoughts.  Therefore, learned language is synonymous with cognitive development and it is a reflection of culture.