Evolution of Indo European languages

It is often said that ProtoIndoEuropean was reconstructed by comparing the existing language. This is not completely true. Reconstruction of the PIE is based on the hypothesis that PIE contained all the phonemes present in the many branches of the language family (with minor variation) and that each nrabch arose by losing part of the phonemes, which is possible but ithat is difficult to distinguish from the alternative hypothesi that the original set of phonemes was reduced and that the different branches arose by consistent shift in phonemes. This is particularly important sicen the PIE was reconstructed long before the discovery of Hittite, which is quite unlike  in grammar and phonology from reconstructe PIE. If you look at a table of words in different Indo European languages you see that Hittite is consistently more similar to Sanskrit and secondarily to Greek  For instance PIE *dʰugH₂-tér Greek tʰugátēr Hittite túwatara. IThis is consistent with the grammar off Hittite, which is very similar to the more archaic forms of greek. For instance the conjucationof verb closely matches the athematic conjugation of Greek and Sanskrit, which is more archaic; reconstructe PIE grammar instead is based on the more recent thematic conjugation.

This has profounf implications, since it does not mean that PIE did not exist, but that instead of representing the protolanguage it represented an intermediate form between the oldest languages (Hreek Hittite and Sanskirt) and the more recent ones. The study of PIE leads to the conclusion that it was spoken in Ukraine, if instead Greek Sanskrit and Hyitte are the oldest languages the most probable location is somewhere near Kurdistan, where an archaic form of Indo-Arian language is spoken. One of the main arguments fro the Ukarine location is the presence of the word for horse among PIE roots, but such word is not present inHittite.

Of course it is equally possible that the XIX century ideas about PIE are true, that it arose in Ukraine, and that Hittite is somehow a branch of Indo-Arian language with a large number of loans from semitic languages of Anatolia, but I am unconvinced.

Creole, innatedness of language, complexity

In the previous post I exposed the ide of Chomsky that part of the language is inante and that the inante part is the capability to merge two units into a new one. A few linguists think that many more rules of syntax are innate, basing on the study of creoles. Creoles are languages born in colonial areas where peopel from different countries meet together. The children of these people "inventend" new languages which are a a mix of many languages and have a simplified but perfectly functional grammar. Creoles arose many times in various places where the colonizers brought workers from different colonized countries (The antilles, New Guinea etc.), and a remarkable feature of these languages is that they share essentially the sme grammar. For instance the order of words is usually subject verb object, whereas among all languages other forms (for instance subject object verb like in latin) are very common. This led a few linguists to believe thatre is a basic grammar ahrd-wirde in the brain and that the infinite variation existing among languages is a cultural developemnt.

I was watching a video from the Economist in which a British said that he did not like American since it is pretty basic. American is in many ways more expressive than British English (it is almost impossible to speak of philosphy in British english whereas it is not so difficult with the syntax of American englisth, which I therefore use), but it is true that it looks much simpler than British English. Linguist assume that all languages have more or less the same complexity, but many languages are simpler to master. It is largerly a matter of affinity with his own mother tongue (French is easy for an Italian but difficult for an english speaker), but it is quite obvious that some languages are "easier": Malese is quite simple to learn, and many find greek (an extremely complex language) much esasier than latin. Since creoles are among the "easieast" languages, and assuming that the gramamr of creoles is actually the basic grammar of human language, that means that easiness is not relateed to the complexity of the language, but to the distance from this basic grammar. As a matter of fact British English is an infinte series of idioms, which arose thorugh use, whereas American enlighs is probably actually more basic, as stated by the mildly racist British of the viedo.

Chomsky

The theories of Noam Chomsly are usually summarized in the following terms: the deep structure of language is fundamentally innate. The problem with this formulation, aas was pointed out by a linguist. is how much structure of the language is innate: dog certainly is not, since in closely related languages it is spelled differently, whereas the distinction bwteeen noun and verb is universal so it is a good candidate for being hard-wired. recently Chomsky clarified his ideas by saying that a mutation, maybe a punctiform mutation, which he calls "merge" allowed to merge two concepts into one. The structure of syntax which Chomsky discovered, and which are his scientific triumph, are very complex, largely unconscious, and difficult to understand, but the main idea is that language can merge units to form a new unit. This property - articulation - is unique to natural language, since it lacks for instance in the complex language of bees and even in the language of mathematics, and by the way allows the language to speak of himself (which mathematics can not). it is not unreasonable to believe that this merging propriety is genetically determined and that arose suddenly. Art arose suddenly and in very sophisticated form about 40.000 years ago, and it is usually thought to be a sign of the birth of language.

Pero Angela, sciensa, divulgazione, scuola, carisma, Daverio

Molti pensano che Piero Angela sia uno scienziato, ma Piero Angela è un (ottimo) giornalista. Quark. che amavo moltissimo, era eccellente televisione ma pessima scienza - ha fatto innamorare della scienza un sacco di persone, ma se andiamo a vedere cosa diceva, erano favolette che ben poco hanno a che fare con la scienza vera. Per fortuna quando la divulgazione si fa così - ed è un buon modo di fare divulgazione- dei contenuti ti dimentichi dopo 10 secondi, quindi aver raccontato favolette non fa essenzialmente danno. E' la stessa cosa della scuola, che racconta sostanzialmente favole e funziona quando riesce a incuriosire: Io sono convinto che si possa fare divulgazione e didattica in un altro modo senza bisogno di arrivare al dottorato (e un buon esempio essite già ed è Daverio), ma il metodo giornalistico funziona.

Angela ovviamente non dirà mai di essere un giornalista e non uno scienziato, perderebbe l'aura e di conseguenza il carisma che serve per attirare l'attenzione,

Principio di autorità e meritocrazia

In questa spaventosa intervista Piero Angela sostanzialmente invoca il principio di autorità a difesa della meritocrazia. Non si rende conto che è proprio il principio di autorità, per cui chi comanda decide arbitrariamente chi è bravo e chi no - nella migliore delle ipotesi a simpatia, nella peggiore meglio non dire come - ad aver dannato questo paese. E il bello è che Angela non si rende nemmeno conto di invocare il principio di autorità. I paesi "meritocratici" sono quelli più democratici.

Verità, scienza, democrazia, Piero Angela

Alle righe 16-17 Piero Angela dice che lascienza democratica. Poco prima che uscisse questa infernale querelle sui vaccini, in cui non si sa se sono più insensate le posizioni dei pro o dei no-vax (che almeno hanno il merito di mettere in discussione l'industria farmaceutica) parlavo con Antonio Praturlon, il maggior geologo italiano, di cui ho l'onore di essere carissimo amico. Praturlon, sulla base di una lunghissima esperienza di ricerca internazionale, diceva che in fondo la verità si decide a maggioranza. Io gli controbattei che no, non si decide a maggioranza, si decide all'unanimità. Ma appunto, Praturlon è uno scienziato, mentre Angela è un giornalista (bravo)..

Berlusconi, politica economica, collasso delle amminsitrazioni comunali,

“Se dobbiamo guardare a quello che è successo in tante città – ci ha spiegato – si potrebbe dire che non sono idonei ma governare un Paese è una cosa diversa. Oggi amministrare una città è quasi impossibile perché gli enti locali sono stati ridotti a pezzi, senza soldi, strutture e potere. E’ difficile criticare una forza politica perché non si esprime al meglio a Roma o Torino. Non avendo mai governato prima solo un profeta potrebbe dirci se il M5s è in grado di farlo oppure no”. (da tiscali.it).

L'unica cosa che mi interessa di questa intervista è l'affermazione del tutto vera che oggi è impossibile governare una città per mancanza di risorse. Quello che però tutti sembrano aver dimenticato è che ciò dipende dall'aver abolito l'ICI, la principale fonte di entrata (allora) per le casse comunali, abolizione che fu una delle principali cause del successo di Berlusconi. Non mi sento di criticare Berlusconi per la sua demagogia, forse è pi0 colpevole Pinocchio che il gatto e la volpe - è più colpevole un popolo che prima si fa togliere una non esagerata tassazione sulla casa e poi si lamenta di strade disastrate e mezzi pubblici a pezzi, e che neanche appoggerebbe alcuna misura di redistribuzione del reddito, perché ammira profondamente "chi ce l'ha fatta" e non si sognerebbe mai di togliere al ricco fosse anche solo un soldino (se la prendono con i politici, il che in sé sarebbe giustificatissimo, per non guardare dove bisognerebbe guardare). Alla fine, quello che il popolo italiano chiede è di continuare a stampare moneta (molti lo teorizzano anche sul web) - come si è fatto per una quarantina di anni fino al 2008 - la prima volta, dopo dieci anni di moneta facile (cioè di cambiali), negli anni 80, finì con Amato che faceva il prelievo forzoso nelle banche (nel '94); la seconda volta, dopo venti anni che Tremonti (anche lui fondamentalmente un socialista craxiano) faceva deficit spending appoggiandosi alla forza dell'euro, finì con l'euro che stava per zompare, lo stato italiano fare default e Berlusconi cacciato dalla Merkel - cacciata di cui ancora piagnucolano. Mi sa che non si sono nemmeno resi conto che la cacciata di Berlusconi è stata causata da Tremonti (gli italiani, perché Berlusconi Tremonti Sgarbi e Mentana ne sono perfettamente consapeboli).

Trasformismo and blocked lists

I was reading in yhe "Economist" that the number of members of the Italian parliamentchanging allegiance has dramaticallyrisen, due to the blocked lists which should limit corruption and horse trading and ended up insetad in trasformismo, an olf plague of the Italian Parliament.

Grillini, elezioni a Ostia, voto di destra

I grillini alle recenti elezioni di Ostia hanno perso il voto di sinistra che si è massicciamente astenuto e adesso cercano di recuperare - i furboni - quello di destra. Il PCI ed eredi hanno fatto la stessa politica per una cinquantina d'anni si è visto con quali risultati.

Ultima cena

Come è noto, l'ultima cena di Leonardo fu dipinta con una tecnica speciale che non aveva la durata nel tempo dell'affresco e che portò alla sua quasi totale dissoluzione una cinquantina di anni dopo la sua creazione. In una delle puntate del compianto programma televisivo "Passepartout" Philippe Daverio sosteneva che però Leonardo non aveva fatto un esperimento sbagliato, aveva creato una performance, che come una performance era destinata a non durare. Considerando che Leonardo era decisamente un uomo del '800, forse Daverio non aveva tutti i torti.

Flora, linguaggiom vegetazione

Pignatti, l'atuore della Flora d'Italia, diceva sempre che conoscere una flora equivale a conoscere una lingua. Di questa lingua le specie sono le parole e la sintassonomia è la grammatica.

Occorre riconoscere che non pochi che fanno i botanici di professione di questa lingua non conoscono né il vocabolario né la grammatica.

Grillini

I grillini sono un partito di vecchi di destra e di giovani di sinistra.

Biodiversity courses, tools as means and not as aims, ecology

In the previous post I said that statistics is a tool and nothing else (bur also nothing less): I remember a graduate whom I was the co-relater, who did an important study of the enviroment of a Park in Albania. When he discussed his thesis (in Italy undergraduates discuss a thesis like graduates) the commission asked nothing about the ecology of the park and asked instead about the NMDS -I suppose they would have asked a student discussing a thesis on diploids and tetraploids about the type microscope he used to tell the former from the latter.

All this is terrifying to me, but tells us a deep truth about the courses of niology alla around the worls. With rare exceptions, they teach technical skills, like pipetting or statistics. Technique is fundamental, but science is a matter of thinking, not of tools (although the bosses of big tech firms are aiming at freewing us from the burden of thinking). Erathostenes calculated with striking precision the diameter od the earth with a stick  Galileo is famous for the telescope, which for the time was a rather sophisticated instrument, but much of his revolutionary ideas in physics were developed with relatively rudimentary tools such as the inclined plane.I am not assuming that brain is better than hands, but that you must not make the tool an aim in itself - a tool is a tool since it serve to us to extend our senses.

Since it is difficult to change the courses of biology, and since molecular biology is essentially a technical matter, I am convinced that we should take out ecology from biologists, and introduce completely different curricula, based mainly on taxonomy and analysis (see my previous post). In Italy there is a course named natural sciences, which with the introduction of many more teachings in matehmatics and biophysics could do the work well, provided that we change the name from natural sciences into course in biodiversity (natural science is a very small course, but I think simply changing the name could do miracles). In the anglo-saxon world the question is more problematic, but curricula are much more flexilble than in italy and it is probably only a question of advising (and again of naming). We must thank Raven fro the invetion of this beautiful name, biodiversity, let's make it work.

The art of lying with statistics and ecology

It is all too easy to say that statistics is the art of lying and that you can demonstrate everything by simply changing a parameter. You can actually change evrything bu cahnging a parameter, but that is true also if you change the method of staining of a preparate under a microscope. The problem is that biologists (an psychologists and physicians) think that statistics is a sort of artificial intelligence, not different from the supercomputer in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; where you enter the data and get the answer. Science is not that easy and if such a computer will ever be build it will anwser "42". Statistics is a tool, exactly like a microscope. If your put the wing of a fly under the microscope you will get a very different picture than if you put a leg - and that is exactly what you do when you change a parameter. The fact that most ecologists do not appreciate this is because they often cannot tell a wing from a leg: they download huge amounts of data from repositories and play with models without knowing much about  the data - they often put under the microscope the lef of a fly thinking it is a wing. 

Another problem is that statistics is expressed in formula, so that many mistake statistics for mathematics, which statistics is not. Mathematics is a language, statistics is again a tool. A language is a set of rules that allow to relate thing (often in very complex ways) and thus extends our midn, whereas a tool is something that extends our senses, like the microscope or the telescope. Fundamentally statistics is a tool that allows to "see" the randomness and noise in data, which is something that our brain has much difficult to appreciate. The simple regression model is for instance Y = a*X +error;; the difference between a statistic tool and a mathematical relation is just in the last tarm.

When facts falsify hypotheses facts are wrong

Thomas Huxley, the friend and supporter of Darwin said that when ugly facts are in contrasts with good ideas good isead must succomb. As a mattert, history of science shows that m many cases exaclty the opposite happens. Think of Wallace's continental drift. A bounty of facts supported his theory, and yet it was forgotten since it seemed impossible that continents could move. In ecology this is even more frequente. Consider for instance this paper in the top (and very fine) hournal !Ecological monographs" ; In shotr it says that the idea that phylogenetic distance is proportional to ecological distance is not supported by fact. But since this is counterinutivive, the facts have to be biased.

Of course not only the facts are not biased in this and other cases, but also the intuition is a very poor guide to science. It would suffice to consider orcas and shark. They occupy more or less the same niche, and yet they are hugely apart phylogenetically. Or birds and pterosaurs: it is simply the process of convergence. Of course the hidden reason for so shallow a paper is the idea (that I exposed in previous post) that you should explain ecology with evolution (which is the opposite of Darwinism) or otherwise the explanations are false. But poor reasoning, provided it is in agreement with conventional wisdom, is highly appreciated among scientist, who, often, are very conformist.