And from what I read Norm was probably right. Koko’s handlers took a lot of liberties interpreting her sign language, and if you look at a lot of what she said they are just requests for either food or play, not dissimilar from a dog getting excited when you say “treat”.
While Norm did spark the initial debates that formed linguistics as a study, pretty much all of his ideas and theories in the field have been thoroughly discredited. He basically was so incorrect that people formed an entire academic discipline to prove him wrong.
We can all hate Chomsky, and should, but saying his linguistics has been discredited it absurd. This sounds like saying “Marx was so wrong that an entire field of political economy had to develop to prove all that he got wrong.” (I used Marx as a common point we all have, not to argue equivalent value between the contributions) He caused a significantly large shift in thinking which caused the field to develop further than his initial thesis, sure. I think several of his claims have been shown to be “too strong” but that’s very different from just being horribly wrong.
I’ve argued it here before, most people really misunderstand the value of the “universal grammar” argument. And I think often attribute a much stronger claim to Chomsky than he was making. It’s useful to think of humans as predisposed to certain rational/logical connections between the experiences they have at a very young age. And language has that logic built in at some deep level as universal ways that concept connect. It was just a shift from linguistics as descriptive to something which could make wider predictions. Often wrong, but it’s developing like any other science.
Attack Chomsky for being a pedophile and/or pedophile supporter. Attacking his linguistics only makes us seem clueless.
Also attack Chomsky because he’s a chauvinist unwilling to consider contribution by non-stereotypical-academics to revolutionary theories.
Yeah, the “universal grammar” aspect seems to have fallen apart. Other parts of his theory about humans being the only animal to demonstrate grammar still hold true. It’s not been demonstrated yet in any nonhuman animal (unfortunately, yes, even Koko).
idk theres promising research on linguistic cadence of many whale species. my personal opinion is that they are sapient to some degree, they even have been shown to adapt to really complex new stressors in the environment caused by us very fast, and have demonstrated cultural memories and sharing of information. i also kinda feel like most apes are sapient in some fashion, like yeah maybe as smart as an 8 year old or something but terrible at communication which limits them severely
I’m not sure if Noam Chomsky was actually involved in underage sex trafficking, but his associations are damning enough that we should all refer to him as “Norm Chomsky” from here on out
And from what I read Norm was probably right. Koko’s handlers took a lot of liberties interpreting her sign language, and if you look at a lot of what she said they are just requests for either food or play, not dissimilar from a dog getting excited when you say “treat”.
Norm is a creep though.
While Norm did spark the initial debates that formed linguistics as a study, pretty much all of his ideas and theories in the field have been thoroughly discredited. He basically was so incorrect that people formed an entire academic discipline to prove him wrong.
We can all hate Chomsky, and should, but saying his linguistics has been discredited it absurd. This sounds like saying “Marx was so wrong that an entire field of political economy had to develop to prove all that he got wrong.” (I used Marx as a common point we all have, not to argue equivalent value between the contributions) He caused a significantly large shift in thinking which caused the field to develop further than his initial thesis, sure. I think several of his claims have been shown to be “too strong” but that’s very different from just being horribly wrong.
I’ve argued it here before, most people really misunderstand the value of the “universal grammar” argument. And I think often attribute a much stronger claim to Chomsky than he was making. It’s useful to think of humans as predisposed to certain rational/logical connections between the experiences they have at a very young age. And language has that logic built in at some deep level as universal ways that concept connect. It was just a shift from linguistics as descriptive to something which could make wider predictions. Often wrong, but it’s developing like any other science.
Attack Chomsky for being a pedophile and/or pedophile supporter. Attacking his linguistics only makes us seem clueless.
Also attack Chomsky because he’s a chauvinist unwilling to consider contribution by non-stereotypical-academics to revolutionary theories.
Feels kind of like a Relativity of Wrong moment.
EDIT: wtf lol why is “hermi” with an “e” at the end censored? And why is it censored as part of a URL? Oh well here is a link that works
Yeah, the “universal grammar” aspect seems to have fallen apart. Other parts of his theory about humans being the only animal to demonstrate grammar still hold true. It’s not been demonstrated yet in any nonhuman animal (unfortunately, yes, even Koko).
idk theres promising research on linguistic cadence of many whale species. my personal opinion is that they are sapient to some degree, they even have been shown to adapt to really complex new stressors in the environment caused by us very fast, and have demonstrated cultural memories and sharing of information. i also kinda feel like most apes are sapient in some fashion, like yeah maybe as smart as an 8 year old or something but terrible at communication which limits them severely
I don’t know enough about linguistics to say if that’s true or not.
I’m just saying I think he was right about Koko.
I’m not sure if Noam Chomsky was actually involved in underage sex trafficking, but his associations are damning enough that we should all refer to him as “Norm Chomsky” from here on out
Norman Champsky