[Buddha-l] S. Pinker (linguist, cognitive psychologist)

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Sun, 2005-06-26 at 09:47 -0500, Timothy C. Cahill wrote:

> Pinker is now at Harvard.

I was wondering about that. There are a lot of stale pages on the
Internet. I did see one reference to his being at Harvard but thought it
might be a visiting professorship. (I couldn't help wondering whether
Harvard was paying for his commuting costs.)

> I happened to notice his statement of support
> for their president in the recent squabble and subsequent
> (non-binding) faculty vote of no-confidence.

That would be consistent with his stance in <cite>The Blank
Slate,<\cite> in which he says that saying that ANYTHING may be
genetically inherited rather than culturally conditioned will bring on
the academic Thought Police. He cites ample evidence that numerous
people across the country have almost been drummed out of the corps for
even suggesting as one of several hypotheses that certain abilities (or
lacks thereof) might have genetics as a factor. It has become, he
claims, a taboo hypothesis.

> Language lovers at M.I.T. must have been enthralled when Pinker began
> taking on Chomsky!

One of my colleagues, trained in linguistics at MIT, frequently says
that linguistics has stopped being a science and has become a dogmatic
personality cult built around Chomsky. This colleague has used Pinker's
book in his introductory linguistics course, much to the horror of his
colleagues, all of whom are True Believers in whatever Chomsky has said
in his most recent publication.

-- 
Richard Hayes
*** 
"If you want the truth, rather than merely something to say,
you will have a good deal less to say." -- Thomas Nagel