Reddit mentions of Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development (Neural Network Modeling and Connectionism)

Elman, Bates, Johnson, Karmiloff-Smith, Parisi, Plunkett, Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development

A nice overview of connectionist theory and what neural networks can tell us.

I actually disagree pretty strongly with the Language Instinct take on language acquisition (I sympathize more with the empiricist/emergentist camp--see Re-thinking Innateness) but I agree that Pinker is important/influential nonetheless

>I don't disagree with you as much as it might have sounded like I do, I just don't think the issue is as clear cut as you make out.

And why not?

>The modules need not be physically localized, I don't think that's what people suggest. The modules could be physically and functionally discrete while being stretched out across the brain (like the visual system).

"Could be".

>Well, there's a large burden of proof on the opposite opinion too. I find the claim that a general domain 'blank slate' learning model could develop language simply from experiencing it equally unlikely.

You'd be surprised at what domain-general algorithms can do given a lot of data:

See: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data (long video)

And: Rethinking Innateness

The issue is not what you find intuitively plausible, but what is demonstrably true.

>The genome certainly encodes many complex behaviors such as precise motor skills.

Where does the genome encode precise motor skills? I'm not aware of newborns with highly developed motor skills.

>The delicate and precise physical structures of the eye, the skeleton, the vascular system, and the functions provided by the autonomic nervous system are certainly hard-wired.

You'd be disregarding self-organization in biology if you said that.

>The systems can be of the 'machine learning' type, but still be genetically encoded if their parameters and weights are innate.

Again, given that we know the neocortex develops along reaction-diffusion lines, the question is: how? How is that even physically possible?

We already have "dynamic models inspired by a new kind of "developmental connectionism," a marriage of connectionist models and developmental neurobiology, forming a new theoretical framework for the study of behavioral development.". Chomsky would not approve.