Is Language a Window into Human Nature?

"I told him to be fruitful and multiply, but not in those words."

Woody Allen

Is the gap between objective and inner reality the reason we have difficulty understanding large numbers, the way statistics works, scientific theories like quantum physics or how to navigate the complexities of modern society, which is so different from a small tribe of hunter-gatherers?

Harvard cognitive scientist and experimental psychologist, Steven Pinker's new book, The Stuff of Thought examines what it is we have been able to find out about the mysterious, intuitive ways in which the human mind works using the most unique characteristic of our species, language, as the main source of information.

Deeply ingrained in all the world's languages are conceptions about sex, intimacy, power,fairness--as well as ideas of divinity, degradation, and danger. This intuitive model of reality is a product of natural selection: the way it parses the world around us, the way it uses shortcuts and assumptions would have served our hunter-gatherer ancestors well, but it is less than perfect for dealing with some of the problems we face in the 21st Century.

Full article here:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/01/language-as-a-w.html