Book review of Frank Wilson

Frank Wilson:
THE HAND (Pantheon Books, 1998)

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The American neurologist Frank Wilson presents a theory on why and how the human brain (and only the human brain) organizes words into sentences, i.e. where syntax came from.

He believes that the evolution of the human hand allowed humans a broad new range of activities that fostered an evolution in the brain that resulted in the brain of modern humans.

Wilson focuses on the anatomical changes that dramatically altered the function of the hand, eventually enabling it to handle and use objects. This new range of possibilities for the hand created a new range of possibilities for thought: the brain could think new thoughts. Wilson explains the evolutionary advantage of handedness ("the left hand knows what the right hand is about to do and the left hand knows what the right hand just did"), how the hand shapes the cognitive life of the child, the evolutionary purpose of playing musical instruments, etc.

"The brain does not live inside the head".