
Tom Wolfe tries to take down Darwin and Chomsky - fenomas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/his-white-suit-unsullied-by-research-tom-wolfe-tries-to-take-down-charles-darwin/2016/08/31/8ee6d4ee-4936-11e6-90a8-fb84201e0645_story.html
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dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12367289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12367289)

~~~
fenomas
I saw that when it was current, but posted this article because it paints such
a different picture of the same book. In particular, the previous article
glossed over Wolfe's attacking evolution, and omitted entirely that his book
proposes to explain where language came from.

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igravious
What the hell? Did I read the same book as everyone else? I read Everett's
_Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle_ to
be a recounting of his apostasy. How his faith crumbled in the face of his
inability to do his missionary work. His work was to translate the bible into
the Pirahã's language so they could be saved. He found that their world-view
precluded this because they essentially don't give credence to hearsay (though
of course they have all sorts of superstitions).

By way of example. If you are a Pirahã dude and you meet someone and they
report that a volcano exploded you will believe them if they saw it with their
own eyes. You'll believe them slightly less if it is second-hand knowledge,
that that someone heard it from someone else. Not into gossip are our Pirahã!
But after that all bets are off. So to believe the reports of 1st century AD
writers, many many times removed, not a chance. If I remember correctly their
epistemology has visible syntactic features in their language, that's how
embedded in their thought it is.

So I read Everett's book as religion-questioning tale. His marriage broke down
because of his apostasy as he tells it.

I do not remember anything about recursion and universal grammar and a take-
down of Chomsky. Religion is an easier target than Chomsky, sure we all know
that -- Everett would have to mad to attempt that.

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fenomas
From what I gather, Everett's attacks on Chomsky's theories have taken place
in journal articles; most notably this one in 2005:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Everett#cite_note-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Everett#cite_note-3)

~~~
igravious
Good thing too. I would never have bought the book if it attacked universal
grammar. Religion, okay -- but _universal grammar_ , oh boy.

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hprotagonist
A different and more cogent take is here:
[http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Chomsky-Puzzle-
Piecing/...](http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Chomsky-Puzzle-
Piecing/237558)

~~~
hblanks
Or the excerpt of the book printed in Harpers:
[http://harpers.org/archive/2016/08/the-origins-of-
speech/](http://harpers.org/archive/2016/08/the-origins-of-speech/)

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Anechoic
_In true Wolfeian style, Chomsky is repeatedly portrayed as a nasty and
arrogant twit, reigning smugly as the King of Linguistics "in an air-
conditioned office at MIT, spick and span."_

I take it Wolfe never visited the old Building 20 at MIT.

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helloworld
This review didn't grab me -- it seems ad hominem, attacking the messenger as
much as the message -- but what does impress me is that Tom Wolfe is 85 years
old! At this point in his life, it's awesome that he's taken on a project of
such intellectual depth.

~~~
helloworld
BTW, here's a great recent profile of Wolfe, written by Michael Lewis:

[http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/10/how-tom-wolfe-
beca...](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/10/how-tom-wolfe-became-tom-
wolfe)

