ornamentalmind, I think that my major criticism of Noam Chomsky is his lack of scientific thinking especially making predictions or controlling organisms. Most of what I've read are historical interpretations of established facts and descriptions of something that has already happened. He definitely has his facts in order. However, Noam seldom attempts to make specific predictions of societal drifts that could be verified--or at least he is not any better at predicting than other historical experts. In addition, many of his followers do not challenge what he says and most of what he says is said in such a way that makes it hard to challenge (or test). Framing has been studied extensively and the master of framing is Noam Chomsky himself.
A particular (this is just one) criticism is that he wrote a review of B.F. Skinner's "Verbal Behavior" (link below) and presented arguments against Skinner that Skinner never claimed. I included Noam's case against Skinner and a response by a behaviorist. Chomsky also accused Skinner of advancing totalitarianism (much the same as Noam--directly or indirectly--is accusing Obama). Yes, Skinner does advocate a science of the behavior of organisms, which would embrace, explore, refine and advance a scientific discipline to predict and control organisms with scientific precision (including humans). That is what Chomsky seems to fear (as do others including Skinner). The concept of "freedom" or "free will" or the idea that humans are above the laws of nature and therefore immune to scientific prediction and control is a Western religion and Chomsky is sort of the Priest. At the end of Skinner's "Science and Human Behavior," Skinner warned people that one why to defend against the abuses of a science of human behavior is for the masses to learn about how that science works and those scientific techniques employed. Politicans and government have been working on a science of human behavior for years (akin to Asimov's psycho- history). The problem with Skinner is his ideal that such a discipline should be transparent and open to the public and entire scientific community. By the way, Chomsky (from the little I've read) is a fun read, and he's a linguistic master. A Review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1959) by Noam Chomsky http://cogprints.org/1148/0/chomsky.htm On Chomsky’s Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, volume 13, pages 83–99) http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/abstracts/jeababstracts/13/%2013-083.htm Jason --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Memphis Freethought Alliance" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/memphisfreethoughtalliance?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
