Nov 30, 2006

conversations elsewhere

The real blog action is going on in the neighborhood.

1. My brother links to a Darymple smackdown of Mr. Language Instinct. While I find its elitism stodgy and its analysis oversimplified, it's certainly better than Pinker's pop-evo-psycho-linguo-babbling and laissez-faire approach to language development. Hasn't Pinker read Piaget? Left untutored, cognitive and linguistic development goes only so far. I don't teach English and coach speech and debate for nothing.

2. Mark Olson asks Two Dumb Questions.

3. Peter Wall, agent provocateur, tries to shoehorn the law into a social harms paradigm.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm hardly the first to "shoehorn" the law into "a social harms paradigm." This stuff has been in the legal community for a long time now. :-)

Jim Anderson said...

You're not the first, just the most provocative, what with the baby-in-the-microwave example and all.

I'm curious about your opinions on the new Lincoln Douglas topic, whether corporate actions should be held to the same moral standards as individual actions.

MT said...

Wow. That Dalrymple is hard-line stodge. I found him so compelling I read another article and listened to an interview. Compelling like a scab, though, and I'm glad it's over. He seems like a deeply religious writer working hard not to say so. Is he?