In a way, these findings just confirm (at least insofar as birdsong analogizes to language) that everyone has always been at least partly right. It highlights, though, that what we need in order for "partly encoded genetically" structures to "emerge" is - naturally - the use of language for communication!
Mike Merzenich appeared on TED, and spoke about brain plasticity (I also wanted to see if you can embed TED videos in blogspot). I think his research underlines the problems of looking far too much at the brain. Right towards the beginning, he says:
There is no real indication that there is any real thinking going on. In fact there is little evidence that there is any cognitive ability in a very young infant. Infants don't respond to much. There is not really much of an indication in fact that there is a person on board.
I hope the contrast with the 'baby people' at the workshop is clear :)
More to the point - if you look at the research on brain plasticity, you will find that the brain is plastic. Hardly surprising, given that we know that people learn stuff during their life, and, if (a) we aren't Cartesian dualists and (b) believe that the brain plays a substantial role in cognition, we should expect brain changes. But of course there is always the seductive allure of neuroscience explanations ;)
