Fiona Cowie: California Institute of Technology Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

The recent identification of the so-called ‘grammar gene,’ FOXP2, as well as recent advances in our understanding of the numerous psychological mechanisms involved in language acquisition, raise a number of conceptual and empirical issues that are vital to our understanding of language evolution. In what sense, if any, can a gene like FOXP2 be called a ‘gene for language’? In what sense, if any, can a congeries of multi-functional psychological mechanisms be called a ‘language organ’? In light of our answers to these questions, how are we to conceive the role of biological evolution in the evolution of language?