Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T08:11:47.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Paul Broca and the Evolutionary Genetics of Cerebral Asymmetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2012

Tim J. Crow
Affiliation:
University of [email protected]

Extract

In 1873, within two years of the publication of The Descent of Man, Friedrich Max Mueller wrote:

There is one difficulty which Mr Darwin has not sufficiently appreciated … There is between the whole animal kingdom on the one side, and man, even in his lowest state, on the other, a barrier which no animal has ever crossed, and that barrier is – Language … If anything has a right to the name of specific difference, it is language, as we find it in man, and in man only … If we removed the name of specific difference from our philosophic dictionaries, I should still hold that nothing deserves the name of man except what is able to speak … a speaking elephant or an elephantine speaker could never be called an elephant.' and (quoting Schleicher) ‘If a pig were ever to say to me, “I am a pig” it would ipso facto cease to be a pig’.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Darwin, C., The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (London: J Murray, 1871), facsimile of original (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Mueller, F.M., ‘Lectures on Mr Darwin's Philosophy of Language’, Fraser's Magazine vols 7 & 8, in The Origin of Language. Reprinted in (ed.) Harris, R. (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1873), 147233Google Scholar.

3 Darwin, C., On The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection: or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (London: John Murray, 1859)Google Scholar.

4 Cited in Gould, S.J., The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

5 Mayr, E., Animal Species And Evolution (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1963)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

6 Paterson, H.E.H., The recognition concept of species, in Species and Speciation, ed. Vrba, E.S., (Pretoria: Transvaal Museum Monograph, 1985), 2129Google Scholar.

7 Eldredge, N. and Gould, S.J., Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism, in Models in (ed.) Schopf, T.M., Palaeobiology, (San Franciso: Freeman Cooper, 1972), 82115Google Scholar.

8 Bateson, B., Heredity and variation in modern lights. From Darwin and modern science), in William Bateson, Naturalist. His Essays and Addresses Togehter with a Short Account of His Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), 215232Google Scholar; DeVries, H. Vries, H., Die Mutationstheorie. (Leipzig: Verlag von Veit, 1901)Google Scholar.

9 Goldschmidt, R., The Material Basis of Evolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940; rep. 1982)Google Scholar.

10 Stanley, S.M., Macroevolution: Patterns and Processes (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1998)Google Scholar.

11 Goldschmidt, R., op. cit.

12 Op cit.

13 Kaneshiro, K.Y., ‘Sexual Isolation, Speciation and the Direction of Evolution’, Evolution, 1980. 34: p. 437444CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

14 Carson, H.L., ‘Sexual Selection: Driver of Genetic Change in Hawaiian Drosophila’, J Hered, 1997, 88, 343352CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

15 Dominey, W.J., ‘Effects of Sexual Selection and Life Histories on Speciation: Species Flocks in African Cichlids and Hawaiian Drosophila’, in Evolution of Fish Species Flocks, (eds.) Echelle, A.A. and Kornfield, I., (Maine: Orino Press, 1984), 231249Google Scholar.

16 Price, T., ‘Sexual Selection and Natural Selection in Bird Speciation’, Philos Trans R Soc Lond [Biol], 1998, 353, 251260CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 White, M.J.D., Modes of Speciation. (San Francisco: W H Freeman, 1978)Google Scholar; King, M., Species Evolution: the Role of Chromosome Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

18 Ohno, S., Sex Chromosomes and Sex-Linked Genes (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Fisher, R.A., The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Oliver, P.L., et al. , ‘Accelerated Evolution of the Prdm9 Speciation Gene Across Diverse Metazoan Taxa’, PLoS Genet, 2009, 5 (12), e1000753CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

21 Crow, T.J., ‘The Missing Genes: What Happened to the Heritability of Psychiatric Disorders?’, Molecular Psychiatry 2011, 16, 362364CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

22 Broca, P., ‘Rapport sur un memoire de M. Armand de Fleury intitul,: De l'inegalit, dynamique des deux hemisphŠres cer,braux’, Bulletins de l'Academie de Medicine, 1877, 6, 508539Google Scholar.

23 Crow, T.J., ‘Sexual Selection, Machiavellian Intelligence and the Origins of Psychosis’, Lancet, 1993, 342, 594598CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Geerts, M., Steyaert, J., and Fryns, J.P., ‘The XYY Syndrome: A Follow-up Study on 38 Boys’, Genet Couns, 2003, 14 (3), 267279Google ScholarPubMed.

25 Rezaie, R., et al. , ‘The Influence of Sex Chromosome Aneuploidy on Brain SymmetryAm J Med Genet (Neuropsychiatric Genet), 2009, 5 (150B(1)), 7485CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Corballis, M.C., et al. , ‘Location of the Handedness Gene on the X and Y Chromosomes’, American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 1996, 67, 50523.0.CO;2-W>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

27 Kretschmann, H.F., et al. , ‘Human Brain Growth in the 19th and 20th century’, Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 1979, 40, 169188CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

28 Crow, T.J., et al. , ‘Relative Hand Skill Predicts Academic Ability: Global Deficits at the Point of Hemispheric Indecision’, Neuropsychologia, 1998, 36 (12), 12751282CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

29 Maccoby, E.E. and Jacklin, C.N., The Psychology of Sex Differences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; McGlone, J., ‘Sex Differences in Human Brain Asymmetry: A Critical Survey’, Behavioural and Brain Science, 1980, 3, 215263Google Scholar.

30 Williams, N.A., et al. , ‘Accelerated Evolution of Protocadherin11X/Y: A Candidate Gene-pair for Cerebral Asymmetry and Language’, Am J Med Genet (Neuropsychiatric Genet), 2006, 141B, 623633CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Schwartz, A., et al. , ‘Reconstructing Hominid Y Evolution: X-homologous Block, Created by X-Y Transposition, was Disrupted by Yp Inversion Through LINE-LINE Recombination’, Human Molecular Genetics, 1998, 7, 111Google Scholar; Skaletsky, H., et al. , ‘The Male-specific Regions of the Human Y Chromosome is a Mosaic of Discrete Sequence Classes’, Nature, 2003, 423(6942), 825837Google Scholar.

32 Lambson, B., et al. , ‘Evolution of DNA Sequence Homologies Between the Sex Chromosomes in Primate Species’, Genomics, 1992, 14, 10321040Google Scholar; Sargent, C.A., et al. , ‘The Sequence Organization of Yp/proximal Xq Homologous Regions of the Human Sex Chromosomes is Highly Conserved’, Genomics, 1996, 32, 200209Google Scholar.

33 Yoshida, K. and Sugano, S., ‘Identification of a Novel Protocadherin Gene (PCDH11) on the Human XY Homology Region in Xq21.3’, Genomics, 1999, 62, 540543Google Scholar; Blanco, P., et al. , ‘Conservation of PCDHX in Mammals: Expression of Human X/Y Genes Predominantly in the Brain’, Mammalian Genome, 2000, 11, 906914Google Scholar.

34 Williams, N.A., et al., op. cit.

35 Chenn, A. and Walsh, C.A., ‘Regulation of cerebral cortical size by control of cell cycle exit in neural precursors’, Science, 2002, 297, 365369CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

36 Turner, J.M.A., ‘Meiotic Sex Chromosome Inactivation’, Development, 2007, 134, 18231831CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

37 Steinmetz, H., et al. , ‘Brain (A)symmetry in Monozygotic Twins’, Cerebral Cortex, 199, 5, 296300CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

38 Annett, M., Left, Right, Hand and Brain: The Right Shift Theory (London: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1985)Google Scholar; McManus, I.C., ‘Right-and Left-hand Skill: Failure of the Right Shift Model’, British Journal of Psychology, 1985, 76, 116Google Scholar.

39 Crow, T.J., ‘The Missing Genes’, op. cit.

40 Sun, T., et al. ‘Early Asymmetry of Gene Transcription in Embryonic Human Left and Right Cerebral Cortex’, Science, 2005, 308 (5729), 17941798CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

41 Enard, W., et al. , ‘Molecular Evolution of FOXP2, A Gene involved in Speech and Language’, Nature, 2002, 418, 869872CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

42 Williams, N.A., et al., op. cit.

43 Sun, T., et al., op. cit

44 Francks, C., et al. , ‘LRRTM1 On Chromosome 2p12 is a Maternally Suppressed Gene That Is Associated Paternally With Handedness and Schizophrenia’, Molecular Psychiatry, 2007, 12 (8), 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.