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

[Bruce G. Seidner Ph.D.]

Lots of folks have taken on Chomsky-like idealism. One of my favorites was 
Herbert Terrace who debunked the claims of "nurturing" an ape to use 
American Sign Language in the case of Nim Chimpsky.

I too wish I were not saddled with the Karma of a body that becomes sick, 
old, and dies all too soon.

I can imagine lots of alternatives.

Bruce


At 09:32 PM 6/26/2005, you wrote:
>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
>
>
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Bruce G. Seidner, Ph.D.                                 1111 Northshore Drive
Clinical & Forensic Psychology                                  Ste S-490
Family Mediation                                                Knoxville, 
TN 37919

865.584.0171 office
865.584.0174 fax
bseidner at earthlink.net

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