Noam Chomsky's statement on killing of Osama bin Laden

[Michael F]

Richard,

"Ignorance of Professor Chomsky's career doesn't indicate the absence
of an important career."

Because I think he is outrageously underqualified in the field of
Political Philosophy to make outlandish claims in the public sphere
against our government and President, you assume that I'm discounting
his institutionally recognized academic achievement in the fields of
Modern Science?  I haven't made one comment disparaging Chomsky's
academic achievement in the field of Linguistics.  Actually, I grew up
with an Ivy League Linguistics prof in my family that I was really
close to, and as a youngster (my teen age years) I vividly remember
having discussions regarding Manufactured Consent and Linguistics in
the living room and at the kitchen table.  During my undergrad years
at a state college, I vigorously read West, and my Ivy League family
members upbraided me and told me that in the inner circles he was
considered an academic "Pima Donna".

Actually, I'm sure MIT and Princeton value Chomsky and West for the
very reason that they spout-off in a wide variety of directions; the
more the two spew politically naive rhetoric that appeals to high
school Seniors, the more media coverage the schools get, resulting in
more applications arriving in the mail.

"But then scientists and philosphers have no business doing economics,
politics or linguistics."

To an extent I agree.  We'd be in complete agreement if you said,
"Philosophers have no business in linguistics."  One must be of a
sound mind to understand the ramifications of systemic implementation
of economics systems or the overhauling of existent economic systems,
as many in the Bush and Obama administrations were and are not.

Mike

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 7:05 PM, Richard Fiero <rfiero at gmail.com> wrote:
> Michael F wrote:
>>
>> . . . Chomsky and West are of similar sophistic natures.  They are
>> celebrities, not
>> philosophers.  Amazing how they turn their back on Obama.  They are
>> typical of the "revolutionaries" that particular(not all) institutions
>> and departments are creating.  I actually prefer Ward Churchill to the
>> turn-coats!  Ward could put on a show and his histrionics are much
>> more entertaining and humorous than West's preaching/ hip-hop act and
>> Noam's solemn delivery.
>>
>> Mike
>
> Ignorance of Professor Chomsky's career doesn't indicate the absence of an
> important career. Noam was quite a cyborg in his day as Maxwell's Demon got
> loose and became well-funded. But then scientists and philosphers have no
> business doing economics, politics or linguistics.
>
> Fragments from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky
>
> the Chomsky hierarchy has also become important in computer science
> (especially in compiler construction and automata theory).
>
> The Chomsky hierarchy is often taught in fundamental computer science
> courses as it confers insight into the various types of formal languages.
> This hierarchy can also be discussed in mathematical terms[106] and has
> generated interest among mathematicians, particularly combinatorialists.
> Some arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research
> results.
>
> Donald Knuth admits to reading Syntactic Structures during his honeymoon and
> being greatly influenced by it. "…I must admit to taking a copy of Noam
> Chomsky's Syntactic Structures along with me on my honeymoon in 1961 … Here
> was a marvelous thing: a mathematical theory of language in which I could
> use a computer programmer's intuition!
>
> the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science
>
> In Martin, Davis,. "Computability, complexity, and languages: Fundamentals
> of theoretical computer science."
>
>