Posted on 07/06/2007 11:37:41 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
I guess this is better than a redneck of my acquaintance who taught his little 2 year old daughter whenever he asked, “Who’s the king?” to answer, “ELVIS, daddy!”
Laughable.
Anybody that looks up to that old fossil Chomsky loses their credibility in that instant.
Yes, human nature exists and is not just the result of conditioning and that includes the capacity for language. But the evidence for there being a “universal grammar” or “deep structure”— for each language being, deep down, just like every other, is extremely thin.
The article below is polemical, but no more than Chomsky’s attacks on behaviorism were:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17574
==I guess this is better than a redneck of my acquaintance who taught his little 2 year old daughter whenever he asked, “Who’s the king?” to answer, “ELVIS, daddy!”
Actually, brainwashing your child to worship at the alter of Darwin’s natural selection god is far worse than brainwashing your child that Elvis is the king of music.
I studied Chomsky as an undergrad and graduate student and he is a brilliant linguist. I don’t know about his politics and don’t give a damn, like most of the musicians I love. I make up my own political mind.
I am willing to meet them halfway and agree that with regard to themselves they are correct. And as they are so infinitesimally unimportant, I will chose to ignore them.
After all, they must agree that the outcome of their arguments are meaningless in their world.
I can see how you would feel that way in regard to music, but in this case, we’re talking about someone who came to linguistics from an analytical philosophy background, and whose views of politics and (most famous) language both reflect his underlying view of human nature.
I have never heard a child use the word "wented". I have heard "goed" or "go'd" (however you spell it).
Of course, she's a Catholic at a Presbyterian college, so it may be interesting . . . .
"The Miracle of the Juniper Berries" in The Life of Brian. You can find miracles everywhere, if you want to.
It's instructive to read about the Vatican's procedure for documenting miracles, in particular the way they consider the causes of people who have been proposed for canonization. As a formal, legal process, it began in the 10th century. Until recent times, it was modeled on a trial—with the church presenting the argument that the person is a saint, and an appointed cleric who acts as the "devil's advocate," presenting evidence that the proposed "saint" is not enjoying God's presence in heaven, but is actually in hell.
Since the 1980s, the term "devil's advocate" is no longer used, but the spirit of skepticism and confrontation remains. To put it mildly, anecdotes don't cut it. For instance, the Church does not trust its own doctors to attest to medical miracles, but requires data and testimony from secular and non-Catholic sources.
No potential mortgage applicant has ever been through the scrutiny endured by those who propose a candidate for sainthood.
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