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Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

hef19898

Chomsky is yet another person, who gained public "fame" for expertise in his initial field. And who then went on to believe that his newly gained recognition, and expertise in one field, qualifies him to reach out into other fields with public comments. And since the internet and society works the way they do, people assign him authority in those fields as well since he's famous. Hence, he became more popular science than hard science. At which point it is almost fair to just ignore him.

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This is absolutely not the case. His political writings and interventions got publicity the same reason as for many other people who were in academia in the 1960s: public opposition to the Vietnam war. This was a fulcrum in American (and western) culture and opposition germinated strongly on college campuses, so plenty of people in academia got a bit of "fame" as a result of this.

Most people I know who have read Chomsky have read his political writings only, and barely know him for his linguistics, and he almost never in any of his writings blurs the distinction between the two or mentions one in the context of the other.

I'd say rather his linguistics career has been mostly something that ran parallel to, not intersecting with, his interventions in debate about foreign policy etc.

And he if he wouldn't have been an linguist at university during Vietnam, just how many people would have read his thoughts on policy?

I'm sorry but that discredits his wide history as a modern intellectual. He did philosophy and linguistics from the start.

Like it's fine to not agree with him, but he often offers a great introduction to topics like war and labor organizing for folks. His pop science is at least based on real science and his own reasoning.

And who would you suggest instead? If you say anyone before the 1960s but filtered through the likes of Jordan Peterson or Steven Pinker I'm going to have a hernia. THEY are pop science crap.

Personally, I have a peoblem with all those "intelectuals". Most of the time they were never top of the crop in their field to begin with, and then switched over to general intellectualism using top notch rethoric skills. Peterson is living, or already fell off, the extreme end of this spectrum. People like Chomsky occupy places on the same spectrum so.

And spare me philosophers.

Laymen need people who can synthesize the works of academics/researchers.

If someone like Chomsky wasn't talking about "faciness" and the ethics of ChatGPT, would anyone really bring that up? In an academic setting or otherwise.

This again also discredits his work as an academic for coining and bringing to light topics like CFGs.

Or in another similar vein: Bill Nye helps to distill scientific concepts for children (and adults too). There is something to be said for him helping to engage some students more in science, AND for whatever interpretation and analysis of Creationism vs. Evolution he did at that debate with Ken Ham, for the lay people. To a degree, it doesn't matter if he got every one of his points 100% logically sound, it can be a springboard that hopefully gives theists some food for thought on why Evolution is the best we empirically have and that the Bible isn't a primary source for citing.

So I again ask who you would rather speak to me about these topics, or am I supposed to just dig through thousands of scholarly articles and hope the ones I discuss and cite have the "correct" opinion and rhetorical skils?

Bill Nye condenses scietific facts, true. And he does that very well. What he does not is selling his own ideas on everything.

ChatGPT, well, everybody brings those issues up. But who really cares about "faciness"?

Also, evolution is as much a fact as gravity. Pretending there needs to be a discussion being had, especially one not between biologists and other experts, just gives credit to opinions that don't deserve it. But since there are people denying gravity, well...

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