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orthonormal comments on Decision Theories: A Less Wrong Primer - Less Wrong
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We've drifted way off topic. Brain plasticity is a good point, but it's not the only piece of evidence available. I promise you that if you check out How the Mind Works, you'll find unambiguous evidence that the human brain is not a general-purpose learner, but begins with plenty of structure.
If you doubt the existence of universal grammar, you should try The Language Instinct as well.
You can have the last word, but I'm tapping out on this particular topic.
While some linguistic universals definitely exist, and a sufficiently weak version of the language acquisition device idea is pretty much obvious (‘the human brain has the ability to learn human language’), I think Chomsky's ideas are way too strong. See e.g. Scholz, Barbara C. and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2006) Irrational nativist exuberance
re: structure, yes, it is made of cortical columns, and yes there's some global wiring, nobody's been doubting that.
I created a new topic for that . The issue with attributing brain functionality to evolution is the immense difficulty of coding any specific wiring in the DNA, especially in mammals. Insects can do it - going through several generations in a year, and having the genome that controls the brain down to individual neurons. Mammals aren't structured like this, and live much too long.