As infants we are rife with potential. For a short time, we have before us a seemingly infinite number of developmental paths. Soon, however, we become limited to certain paths as we grow into unique products of our genetics and experience. But what factors account for the variation? How do experiences shape what we bring into the world? In The Human Spark, Alan Alda pioneers in a quest for information and examination of evidence on personal, moral, and cultural developments in knowledge gained in the factors that shape the human mind, Alda explores the tension between biology and the environment. What ignites the Human Spark? He reviews major advances in the science of development over the past three decades and offers opinions and new information. He witnesses’ chimps showing signs of empathy and cooperation, but also sees how limited these characteristically human qualities are. And, in an unexpected twist, he visits a “dog lab” in Germany where he participates in experiments that show how, in many areas of social understanding, dogs, separated from humans by millions of years of evolution and are considerably more advanced than our nearest relatives. This highly intrigued me because of Ivan Pavlov's experimentation. I discovered the idiosyncratic circuitry that provides us with what is our most precious ability. The ability for language and with the distinctive insight provided by a family whose members have perspicacious problems with speech. Language is the human ability to acquire and use complex systems of communication, and a language is any specific example of such a system. Human language has the properties of productivity, recursivity, and displacement, and relies entirely on social convention and learning. Its complex structure affords a much wider range of expressions than any known system of animal communication. Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols. The language system including