Simon Singh and Free Speech

11 June 2009

One of the most important and the most chilling stories about the future of free speech is playing out in the British courts. Science writer Simon Singh has been sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for calling chiropractic “bogus.” Singh lost in the lower courts and is appealing. His chances of winning are slim, as British libel laws are notoriously plaintiff-friendly. Worse still, one can sue in British courts if only one of the readers of the alleged libel is in Britain, making the UK the venue of choice for any organization that wants to silence its critics. If the British libel laws are allowed to stand, we are facing a new wave of censorship, this time via libel laws, that will allow corporations, trade associations, cults—any organization with pockets deep enough to hire lawyers—to silence their critics.

Singh had the temerity to actually tell the truth: that chiropractic is a bunch of woo with little or no real evidence to support its claims of actually being beneficial to people (beyond the benefits of the placebo effect). For this, he is losing a very large amount of money. For even if he wins, the legal fees will be ruinous. (There probably is some kind of legal defense fund, but still...)

There is some good news, though. The British Chiropractic Association has begun to tell its member practitioners to remove all their bogus claims from their web sites and to stop advertising themselves as medical professionals.

Mark Liberman over at Language Log has a good summary of the Singh story with many relevant links.

(I normally avoid political topics here on wordorigins.org, but this one is important enough that I can’t ignore it. The Singh case and the travesty that are the British libel laws strike at the very heart of how we conduct open and honest discourse in a free society. Besides, it’s non-partisan. As you can probably tell from this post, I have a strong opinion about chiropractic and other alternative “medical” disciplines, but whether or not chiropractic actually works is not the point of this post. I’d be just as much opposed to the silencing of advocates of chiropractic.)

Book Review: Origins of the Specious

10 June 2009

There are a lot of books about language out there, but it is rare to find one that combines both fun and rigorous scholarship. Usually, a book is either written for a general audience and lacks notes and bibliography, making it all but useless for anyone who is halfway serious about the subject. Or it is a dry, scholarly tome, of little interest to all but the most diehard language bugs. Patricia T. O’Conner’s and Stewart Kellerman’s Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language is one of those rare books that hits the sweet spot, combining a light-hearted and easy style with rigorous research and useful notes. Any language lover should put this one near the top of their must-read list.

In ten chapters, O’Conner and Kellerman run the gamut of language myths, debunking them with grace and solid arguments. The discuss the differences between British and American English, explaining for example why Brits tend to drop their Rs. The chapter on grammar myths explains why there is nothing wrong with a split infinitive or ending a sentence with a preposition. They take on words that have become bete noires, like ain’t and literally. Etymological myths are taken on, from the whole nine yards to cat o’ nine tails. Bad words, eponyms, and faux French pronunciations like niche get their due. Politically correct verbiage, like herstory, is dealt with, as are malapropisms, like in high dungeon.

The style is fun and the research is impeccable. Best of all, it’s got notes. Notes are essential for a book like this to be taken seriously. You can see why O’Conner and Kellerman make the claims that they do. And while it’s impossible to write a book like this and not make some kind of factual mistake, I couldn’t find any. The closest thing to an error I could find was calling herstory a standard term. It’s common enough in feminist writing, but found almost nowhere else, so calling it “standard” is a stretch. Just because it can be found in a dictionary doesn’t mean it’s standard. If that’s the biggest objection I could find, the authors are doing something right.

Origins of the Specious, by Patricia T. O’Conner & Stewart Kellerman. Random House, 2009. 288 pages. $22.00.

Nunberg on KQED Forum

3 June 2009

UC Berkeley linguist and NPR contributor Geoffrey Nunberg was interviewed on KQED’s Forum radio program on 27 May. It’s an interesting discussion touching on a variety of topics, including changes in political speech from the Bush to Obama administrations, whether um is a word, and whether or not Pluto should be called a “planet.” It’s definitely worth a listen.

FOXP2: NYT Botches It (Yet Again)

31 May 2009

Newspapers are extraordinarily bad at reporting on scientific findings. A number of factors conspire to make this so. Reduced budgets force reporters to rely on press releases and flacks for story ideas and information—which leads to the printing of sensationalist claims. Reporters don’t have the time (or the scientific chops) to fully understand the implications of a story. Editors want a “hook” that makes a story interesting, even if that hook isn’t real. Journalists don’t do research—they do interviews; which results in the stories being based on arguments from authority, considered to be one of the weakest forms of argument. And newspapers have a bias for stories that contain conflict; they often inflate (or even manufacture) opposing views to create this conflict.

Reporting on linguistics is no different, except NY Times reporter Nicolas Wade has a penchant for getting stories about advances in linguistics horribly wrong. Getting one story wrong is one thing, but he’s been doing it for years. One would think the journalistic standards of the “paper of record” would be better, but evidently not. They continue to print his ill-informed articles on linguistics.

The latest article in question is here. It concerns the FOXP2 gene, the so-called “language gene.” The trouble is, the gene is no such thing. It is not a magical gene that enables people to speak. Yet in Wade’s article he is quoting researchers in Germany who have successfully replace mouse FOXP2 with the human version of the gene saying that their goal is get mice to speak. Wade couches the story in terms of a future where you will be able to talk to your pet. To be fair to Wade, it’s the researchers who got the ball rolling by overstating the implications of their research. They found that the mice with the human gene squeaked differently than mice without it, and conclude that the gene “might have been important for the evolution of speech and language in humans.” The significance of the research is now we have mice that can be used to explore exactly how FOXP2 may impact language development in animals and humans. It’s an instrumental step that will enable further research.

FOXP2 is not a “language gene.” It is a transcription factor that regulates the expression of other genes during an animal’s development. The effects of a malfunctioning FOXP2 gene are wide ranging, but most are centered on motor coordination. There are also some impacts on brain development that are less well understood.

The “language gene” myth got its start in 1990 when a London family was discovered that had a malfunctioning version of the gene. Those with the gene had difficulty articulating speech. The problem was largely one of motor coordination--they couldn’t manage the mouth and tongue movements needed to speak English understandably. But they could be taught sign language, demonstrating that the innate capacity for language was unaffected. Some members of the family also problems learning and using grammar—their basic language functions were impaired—but they also had significantly diminished IQ and their brain development was impaired in general. The problem was not limited to language. The changed squeaks in the mice are more likely the result of changed motor function, causing them to squeak differently, than any increased linguist function.

So sticking a human FOXP2 gene in an animal isn’t going to enable animal speech. Language is an extraordinarily complex trait and is undoubtedly governed by a host of genes. The problem is that Wade should know this. Back in 2005(!), linguist Geoff Pullam over at Language Log thoroughly debunked a similar article by Wade on FOXP2.

Maybe there’s some malfunctioning gene carried by newspaper reporters that doesn’t allow them to learn from past mistakes. Let’s hope not. And let’s hope that the next time Wade gets a bug to write a story about linguistics, he actually talks to some linguists before going to press. That’s not really too much to ask.

[Hat tip to Language Hat for alerting me to the issue.]