Talk:Linguistics of Noam Chomsky
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Mischaracterization of Skinner's Radical Behaviorism
editHi, I would make the edit but I am confused by how to add references here. The lead characterizes Skinner to have "viewed speech, thought, and all behavior as a completely learned product of the interactions between organisms and their environments" in Wikivoice. Chomsky certainly did not agree with radical behaviorists, and probably believed this Wikivoice statement to be true (I can't find a concise quote from him but this is likely Chomsky's belief, or at least the belief of many Chomsky followers). However, Skinner DID NOT BELIEVE THIS. Nor do any significant number of modern radical behaviorists. This is clear from the Wikipedia page on radical behaviorism, and from these 3 well-cited sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755402/pdf/behavan00004-0023.pdf; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6701252/; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223153/. He simply believed that the science of behavior ought to be focused on observable interactions, and that one could learn a lot from them. It is appropriate to include his disagreement with Skinner since it was so prominent, but Wikivoice should not be used for plainly untrue statements.
The present caricature of Skinner's beliefs also should not be presented neutrally as Chomsky's claim, because it is a description of a person's beliefs (Skinner) who has specifically rejected that he believed it, which makes the claim not just controversial but untrue here. Scienceturtle1 (talk) 01:20, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
- Pending an editor who can insert citations, I'm removing just the description of behavioral science as it's uncited and in wikivoice and inconsistent with both sources above and the Wikipedia article about radical behaviorism. Scienceturtle1 (talk) 06:04, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Re-redirecting
editI'm re-redirecting this page to Noam Chomsky. Most of the current text is adapted either from there, from universal grammar, or another related article, and some of it is pretty questionable. While one could make a case for an article about Chomsky's personal contributions to linguistics, I'm not sure we really need that, and even so, this is not that. Botterweg14 (talk) 00:09, 19 September 2024 (UTC)