Is Noam Chomsky really that great?

[fromderinside]

My take on Chomsky is that he is akin in linguistics to what Clark Hull was in learning (behavioral drive) theory. Neither will be remembered 50 years from now. In fact Hull is already history only 60 years after his death.

Chomsky's linguistics is, as Bilby points out, truthy, but, with little actual experimental confirmation or growth to his theories.

I put him in the same class as Stephen Gould who, with Chomsky, share a theory of the evolution of language out of sync with modern evolutionary theory.

For more of where I'm coming from see this review article by Christopher Croom "Language Origins: Did Language Evolve Like the Vertebrate Eye or Was It More Like Bird Feathers" http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/lang/overview.php

Introduction: Linguistics and evolutionary theory share an extremely tenuous historical relationship, as linguistics was more concerned with philology, rather than scientific observation, when Darwin first published the Origin of Species.¹ The most important argument within contemporary linguistics and evolutionary theory was sparked by Pinker and Bloom's (1990) seminal analysis outlining comments made by Noam Chomsky and Stephan Jay Gould that contradicted the basis for modern Evolutionary Theory; this article led to an enduring debate that has persisted over the last decade.² Since Chomsky and Gould have made a number of assertions that language (the communication system unique to human beings), could not have evolved through natural selection, and natural selection has long been the prevailing theory in evolutionary biology, the challenge presented by Pinker and Bloom was to develop a theory of language origin that was compatible with the mainstream theory of evolution, the theory of natural selection.³Since then, however, research has provided evidence that some aspects of language may have been naturally selected for, in line with Pinker and Bloom's arguments, while other aspects of language did not result because of natural selection, thus also supporting Chomsky and Gould. The following explores and integrates the history, evidence, and theories surrounding both selectionist and nonselectionist explanations

 

[untermensche]

If you've got Gould and Chomsky on one side of an issue, I don't care what the current fashion says, I'd be very hesitant to take the other.

2 rare geniuses.

 

[barbos]

Gould is another ideologue and successful book seller.
But unlike Chomsky he let his ideology to affect his science.
Of course biology is much more vulnerable to ideology than linguistics.
I prefer Dawkins, he is much more honest in his science. He is pretty smug however.

 

[untermensche]

Gould is another ideologue and successful book seller.
But unlike Chomsky he let his ideology to affect his science.
Of course biology is much more vulnerable to ideology than linguistics.
I prefer Dawkins, he is much more honest in his science. He is pretty smug however.

I like Gould and Dawkins. They don't differ very much.

And Gould had no issues of dishonesty, or strong ideological bias.

 

[barbos]

Gould is another ideologue and successful book seller.
But unlike Chomsky he let his ideology to affect his science.
Of course biology is much more vulnerable to ideology than linguistics.
I prefer Dawkins, he is much more honest in his science. He is pretty smug however.

I like Gould and Dawkins. They don't differ very much.

Sorry to disappoint you but Dawkins would have been (and actually was) on the "other" side of an issue.

And Gould had no issues of dishonesty, or strong ideological bias.

In YOUR opinion.