One thing that we think has happened in this
process is that, in effect, the genome of the finch in
captivity has become progressively degraded like it
does in many domesticated species in which you get a
lot of variants showing up - you get a lot of randomwalk
effects. A question we want to ask is: Exactly
what genes were hit by this; can we trace it out? A lot
is known about genes that are active in song production,
so I think this will be a very fruitful way to go.
Pinker: You said that the human vocal call repertoire
is smaller than that of other great apes such as chimpanzees.
Deac on: Not smaller than all great apes, of course,
because orangutans have an almost zero,.
Pinker: Is that well established, especially if you were
to include among human vocalizations things that
may have been given linguistic output but which,
nonetheless, might be triggered - like swearing, like
exclamations of various kinds, epithets, expletives?