This week we will be discussing:

Relaxation of selection, Niche Construction, and the Baldwin Effect in Language Evolution
Hajime Yamauchi & Takashi Hashimot, Artificial Life 2010

 A copy of which can be downloadedhere.

This week we will be discussing:

A draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome
Green et al, Science 328, 2010

 A copy of which can be downloaded here.

Exploring the roles of Major Forms of Cultural Transmission in Language Evolution

Tao Gong, The evolution of language, 2010

This week we will be discussing:

Is a Cultural Ethology Possible?
FT Cloak Jr, Human ecology, 1975

A copy of which can be downloaded here.

This week we will be discussing:

The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?
Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch 2002

paper can be downloaded at here.

This week we will be discussing:

Pinker, S. and Bloom, P. (1990) Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13(4):707--784.

A copy of the paper can be found here.

Starting this week we will be holding semi-weekly meetings on Thursday evenings from 6.30pm at Science Building 7 room 511 of the Hongo Campus of the University of Tokyo.

Each week we will be discussing a famous or influential paper, details of which will be posted here each week. The papers will cover a range of topics and will be largely chosen to be accessible to researchers from outside of their specific sub-field. As we will be discussing the papers (rather than having someone present them as is common in Japan) it is strongly recommended that participants read them before the meetings.

The meetings are open to anyone who is interested regardless of affiliation or research specialization. They are also very casual so feel free to come only in weeks when we will be discussing papers that are of interest.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me. Hope to see you there Thursday.

Luke McCrohon