Pinker Thinks Some Stuff

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	Pinker Thinks Some Stuff

echines

10-5-2007 7:33 PM

316 views

tags:

science, language

echines says:

Pinker, if you asked me, is an intellectual mediocrity of the first order--in other words of the worst kind. He's good looking, popular, glib, and not really capable of understanding the big topics he likes to write about. One day he'll go out of fashion I suppose, but I probably won't be around to enjoy vindication. Oh well.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/69a4e15e-689a-4f99-b62a-1f20af49fbb1/F3A30583-83F4-4829-9840-F8FC967E983A/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9828746" href="http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9828746" style="font-size: 11px;">www.economist.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9828746"><P>“The Stuff of Thought” reads not as a sustained development of a single line of argument but as a hotchpotch of loosely related ideas. Individually, its chapters are interesting; those that touch or expand on his central belief in a Darwinian theory of language acquisition are especially so. The book is shot through with fine thoughts and keen perceptions but, in the end, does not convince. Part of the problem is that Mr Pinker's thesis—that language is a window into human nature—is so broad as to admit practically anything with a linguistic bent to it as evidence. </p> <P>And for a writer admired for his clarity of thought and elegance of expression, there is an awful lot of clotted verbiage.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/F3A30583-83F4-4829-9840-F8FC967E983A/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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