tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post4327921184734245167..comments2024-03-28T04:04:55.806-07:00Comments on Faculty of Language: FalsifiabilityNorberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15701059232144474269noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-10903002382941379942013-07-11T13:49:05.449-07:002013-07-11T13:49:05.449-07:00"Christina, I've had enough"
Oh tha..."Christina, I've had enough"<br /><br />Oh that's alright. I just finished reading Levinson [2013] and can understand that you have more important things to do - like making sure that you [pl] do not let so many inaccurate factual claims stand as the last word in Legate at al. [2013]. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-30247688974476200762013-07-09T15:11:47.749-07:002013-07-09T15:11:47.749-07:00Reply to David, part 3:
Lets have a look at your ...Reply to David, part 3:<br /><br />Lets have a look at your final paragraph:<br /><br />Finally, the idea that FLN could be empty, discussed briefly by Fitch, Hauser & Chomsky, is not a sign that the proposal is unfalsifiable, but actually states one way in which their proposal could be shown false. They go on to tell their readers what conclusion they would draw in such a circumstance, which is why they brought the matter up in the first place.<br /><br />In my original post I was admitting that I could have misunderstood Fitch et al.’s proposal and was asking whether it IS falsifiable. You claim: “idea that FLN could be empty, … actually states one way in which their proposal could be shown false”. But when I look at their text I see:<br /><br />“The contents of FLN are to be empirically determined, and could possibly be empty, if empirical findings showed that none of the mechanisms involved are uniquely human or unique to language, and that only the way they are integrated is specific to human language. The distinction itself is intended as a terminological aid to interdisciplinary discussion and rapprochement, and obviously does not constitute a testable hypothesis” (Fitch et al., 2005, p. 181).<br /><br />So it seems here the authors assert we are NOT looking at a testable hypothesis. If you disagree please tell us why they wrote what they did. I also would like to draw your attention specifically to: “if empirical findings showed that none of the mechanisms involved are uniquely human or unique to language, and that only the way they are integrated is specific to human language”. This is of course what Deacon or Tomasello [and many others] have proposed long time ago: the way cognitive mechanisms are integrated is specific to language but the mechanisms are not. If this is an acceptable conclusion for Fitch et al. then please explain to me what in such a case can account for the features of language acquisition you claimed earlier someone like Tomasello cannot. <br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-8447041124940185342013-07-09T14:53:48.730-07:002013-07-09T14:53:48.730-07:00Alex, I misspoke. What I should have said is "...Alex, I misspoke. What I should have said is "A proposal that every language has Recursive Merge would be falsified by finding a language with non-recursive Merge. Here's what such a language would look like ..." (And by the way, Hauser etc. did not actually claim that every language should have recursive Merge.)<br /><br />Christina, I've had enough. I thought it was vaguely useful to not let inaccurate factual claims stand as the last word in one of these discussions, but obviously that's a lost cause as long as you participate in this blog. So I give up.<br /><br />I will, however note that what Pullum called "silly and dishonest" is in fact just plain true. A set with two members has ... two members. Do you really want to argue about that? Bye.David Pesetskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09666557087629655596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-2094492315680213842013-07-09T14:46:11.769-07:002013-07-09T14:46:11.769-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.David Pesetskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09666557087629655596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-58976468426681462452013-07-09T14:43:42.289-07:002013-07-09T14:43:42.289-07:00Reply to David, part 2:
Your next passage again d...Reply to David, part 2:<br /><br />Your next passage again distorts what I wrote and distracts from what is at issue:<br /><br />“The proposal that the language faculty as a whole makes options available that not all languages use is a truism of linguistics (it's what we spend much of our time figuring out, in fact), and among your omitted bits is a set of examples provided by Fitch, Hauser and Chomsky to exemplify just this: for instance, the existence of languages with three-vowel systems even though languages are fully capable of using five-vowel systems etc. This truism could be falsified by showing that languages claimed to be different from, say, English, actually are not. So, for example, contrary to what I have always assumed to be true, I actually do speak and understand Navajo, and Hawaiian actually has as many vowels as English”.<br /><br />First you talk about a truism, when in fact to date no one has provided any evidence from biology for the Chomskyan LF: “The proposal that the language faculty as a whole makes options available that not all languages use is a truism of linguistics” – we do not KNOW what ‘the language faculty as a whole’ is, far less which options it may make available. Once you have provided concrete biological evidence for the LF you can maybe talk about truisms – so far we have at best hypotheses. <br /><br />Next, I had put CORE in capitals for a reason, because that is what is at issue. HCF [2002] claimed recursion was the CORE property of FLN, 3 years later it was only ONE tool among MANY. So the distractions about 3 or 5 vowel systems are just that: distractions – no one had claimed having 5 vowel systems is a CORE property of human language. Again this is in essence the same as Jackendoff and Pinker wrote:<br /> <br />"Moreover, FHC equivocate on what the hypothesis actually consists of. They write:<br />The only “claims” we make regarding FLN are that 1) in order to avoid confusion, it is important to distinguish it from FLB, and 2) comparative data are necessary, for obvious logical reasons, to decide upon its contents.<br />But they immediately make a third claim regarding FLN, namely the recursion-only hypothesis (reproduced from the original article). They then add: “To be precise, we suggest that a significant piece of the linguistic machinery entails recursive operations.” which actually substitutes a weaker claim: “recursion only” becomes “recursion as a significant piece.” This is soon replaced by a still weaker version, namely, “We hypothesize that ‘at a minimum, then, FLN includes the capacity of recursion’.” Thus in the course of a single paragraph, recursion is said to be the only component of FLN, a significant component of FLN, and merely one component of FLN among others". (J&P, 2005, p. 217)<br /><br />to be further continued<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-65774108933643016862013-07-09T14:29:10.724-07:002013-07-09T14:29:10.724-07:00Reply to David:
[This reply will be in several par...Reply to David:<br />[This reply will be in several parts]<br /><br />It never occurred to me that you might turn answering my question into a demonstration of your double standards. But since you went for it I have to hand it to you: this was a resounding success. In the same threat in which you accuse me of frankenquoting [most entertaining bashing I have ever taken – I shall frame it for my grandkids to admire] you refuse to comment on Chomsky’s gross distortions of Boden [leaving the audience to believe you think it was acceptable that he attributed utter stupidity to her]. So apparently, what he did in a PUBLISHED paper was okay, what I did in an informal blog with a tight word limit was not merely wrong but ‘a collection of frankenquotes’? <br /><br />Now a few comments on your own inaccuracies. You write:<br /> <br />"P2 is your own construction, a collection of frankenquotes from random parts of Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch's various papers. However, to briefly reply to its disparate bits:"<br /><br />Sorry, I have to correct you, but P2 is based entirely on quotes from ONE paper: Fitch et al., 2005. This paper was, at least partly, an attempt to undo damage caused by Everett’s claims about Piraha. It was also a reply to Pinker&Jackendoff [2005] and what you call frankenquotes has been cited by Jackendoff and Pinker in their reply to Fitch et al. as well – are these two as grossly incompetent as you seem to imply I am?<br /><br />Next you attempt to ridicule me: <br /><br />“The proposal that a particular language L might have Chomsky's rule of Merge without its recursive step is eminently falsifiable. Sentences in such a language would have maximally two words. See our paper, footnote 11, where this is discussed. Chomsky's Merge is binary, combining two elements at a time. If your favorite syntactic theory allows more than two elements to combine to form a syntactic constituent, then the proposal that this rule lacks the recursive step in some language L would not limit sentences to length 2, but the proposal would still be falsifiable insofar as more or less every test for constituency from any standard syntax textbook should fail in L.”<br /><br />This ‘rebuttal’ has been called ‘silly and dishonest’ by a highly accomplished linguist: Geoff Pullum. I quote the relevant passage here:<br /><br />“If Merge involves putting two expressions together to make a larger expression, then barring it from affecting its own outputs would mean that it would have to apply solely to words. It could put two words together to make a two-word phrase, but that would be the limit. Any occurrence of a three-word sentence would refute this restriction and show that Merge must be able to affect its own outputs. What is grossly dishonest is to represent Everett or me or anyone else as unable to understand this. Of course we agree that languages have phrases more than two words long. Nobody is denying that, and this discussion would never have started if anyone had hinted that the issue on the table was the existence of 3-word phrases. And what is silly is to represent (in effect) the discovery of 3-word phrases as an important result of modern linguistics”. [Pullum, 2012, and since it’s a partial quote here is also a link: http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2012/03/28/poisonous-dispute/<br /><br />To be continued<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-46793918466324973352013-07-09T14:05:51.312-07:002013-07-09T14:05:51.312-07:00I may be getting the dialectical situation wrong (...I may be getting the dialectical situation wrong (as I have before) but this seems backward to me.<br /><br />If the proposal P2 is roughly that every language has recursive merge, and C is asking how this could be falsified, and then D says "The proposal that a particular language L might have Chomsky's rule of Merge without its recursive step is eminently falsifiable. Sentences in such a language would have maximally two words.", then this is not a falsification, even if a language with only two words comes along.<br />What is needed for a falsification is the converse: namely that every language *with* recursive merge has sentences with more than two words. <br />If we have that converse statement, and then a language from the Amazon comes along with only two word sentences, then we can falsify the universal claim.<br /><br />The fact that a language *without* recursive merge will only have maximum two (or three) word sentences is irrelevant.<br /><br />And it seems hard to show the required converse, since there are presumably some feature systems that control the derivations and spell-out etc etc. So for example to take a naive phrase structure view (sorry) there are CFGs that only generate two words sentences.<br /><br />Alex Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04634767958690153584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-43976378896362895612013-07-09T10:06:59.460-07:002013-07-09T10:06:59.460-07:00Agreed. I also think that the best place for forma...Agreed. I also think that the best place for formalization issues lies in investigating the underlying structure of the basic concepts. We used to do this a lot in philosophy and it helped clarify what you had in mind. I think there is a nive place for this in syntactic theory as well, as you know. So we seem, once again, to be on the same page. Yay!!!Norberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15701059232144474269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-47613552941279427642013-07-09T10:00:27.438-07:002013-07-09T10:00:27.438-07:00I guess I was just trying to warn against inferrin...I guess I was just trying to warn against inferring, solely from the abundance of the unsolved-problem kind of falsifiability, that there is plenty of "relative falsifiability", i.e. substantive differences among competing theories. My own feeling is that formalisation probably has more to offer in clarifying the substantive differences between one theory and its near-neighbours than in bringing out the big unsolved-problem kind of issues.<br /><br />For example (getting back to one of my favourite pet issues, which you and I have discussed at great length), I think the differences between a "copy theory of movement", or a theory with multidominance structures, or a theory with traces, are sometimes overstated. I'd argue that nothing at all follows from the switch from traces to copies in and of itself, although I suspect that this is not universally accepted and that formalisation could perhaps help to resolve this disagreement.<br />Tim Hunterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11810503425508055407noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-20578930389348447372013-07-09T06:51:47.593-07:002013-07-09T06:51:47.593-07:00if so it would be of great help to show here and n...<i>if so it would be of great help to show here and now HOW P2 could be falsified</i><br /><br />P2 is your own construction, a collection of frankenquotes from random parts of Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch's various papers. However, to briefly reply to its disparate bits:<br /><br />The proposal that a particular language L might have Chomsky's rule of Merge without its recursive step is eminently falsifiable. Sentences in such a language would have maximally two words. See <a href="http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/000411" rel="nofollow">our paper</a>, footnote 11, where this is discussed. Chomsky's Merge is binary, combining two elements at a time. If your favorite syntactic theory allows more than two elements to combine to form a syntactic constituent, then the proposal that this rule lacks the recursive step in some language L would not limit sentences to length 2, but the proposal would still be falsifiable insofar as more or less every test for constituency from any standard syntax textbook should fail in L.<br /><br />The proposal that the language faculty as a whole makes options available that not all languages use is a truism of linguistics (it's what we spend much of our time figuring out, in fact), and among your omitted bits is a set of examples provided by Fitch, Hauser and Chomsky to exemplify just this: for instance, the existence of languages with three-vowel systems even though languages are fully capable of using five-vowel systems etc. This truism could be falsified by showing that languages claimed to be different from, say, English, actually are not. So, for example, contrary to what I have always assumed to be true, I actually do speak and understand Navajo, and Hawaiian actually has as many vowels as English.<br /><br />Finally, the idea that FLN could be empty, discussed briefly by Fitch, Hauser & Chomsky, is not a sign that the proposal is unfalsifiable, but actually states one way in which their proposal could be shown false. They go on to tell theur readers what conclusion they would draw in such a circumstance, which is why they brought the matter up in the first place.<br /><br />Etc.David Pesetskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09666557087629655596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-54013929009542387132013-07-09T01:54:25.049-07:002013-07-09T01:54:25.049-07:00The problem with this entire discussion is that, a...The problem with this entire discussion is that, again, it is void of any specific examples that illustrate what is asserted. This technique [invented by Chomsky long time ago and perfected over the years] makes it possible to evade any criticism of one's views/proposals. David can claim "that's not what Norbert said' but when asked where i went wrong he refused to answer. I have asked repeatedly for examples of frivolous requests for formalization but none is forthcoming. So let me provide a specific example to illustrate what non-minimalists are concerned about. I know Norbert will not like this example - sorry about that, but then by now he had ample of time to provide his own:<br /><br />Proposal 1 [P1]<br /><br />FLN, “is the abstract linguistic computational system alone, independent of the other systems with which it interacts and interfaces...The CORE property of FLN is recursion... it takes a finite set of elements and yields a potentially infinite array of discrete expressions” (Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2002, p. 1571, my emphasis).<br /><br />Proposal 2 [P2}<br />Fitch, Hauser and Chomsky (2005) argue, “the putative absence of obvious recursion in one of [the human] languages ... does not affect the argument that recursion is part of the human language faculty [because] ...our language faculty provides us with a toolkit for building languages, but not all languages use all the tools” (pp. 203-204), and they suggest that “the contents of FLN ... could possibly be empty, if empirical findings showed that none of the mechanisms involved are uniquely human or unique to language, and that only the way they are integrated is specific to human language” (Ibid., p. 181).<br /><br />P1 is a scientific proposal that can be falsified by empirical data. So when Everett [2005] came along claiming Piraha has no recursion defenders of P1 had two options:<br />[i] accept Everett's empirical findings and abandon P1 given that it's CORE property claim had been falsified [and come up with P3 to account for new data].<br />[ii] showing that Everett had made a mistake and that Piraha in fact has recursion<br /><br />We all know there was a good deal of [ii] going on and if Minimalists had left it at that we would be still doing science. But they did not and proposed P2. A core property was demoted to be 'one tool among others' and it was asserted that FLN can be empty. So P2 is no longer falsifiable by ANY empirical data anyone possibly could find. It asserts that even core properties do not have to be present in language L, and that FLN exists AND that it possibly can be empty. So no matter what anyone finds - P2 is unfalsifiable. <br /><br />Of course I COULD BE wrong. P2 could be falsifiable. But if so it would be of great help to show here and now HOW P2 could be falsified [formalized or not]Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-27405597194554876512013-07-08T23:47:51.935-07:002013-07-08T23:47:51.935-07:00So say we have a class of grammars/ theory of gram...So say we have a class of grammars/ theory of grammar G and a particular grammar E for English. Then presumably the core would be the class of grammars, and the auxiliary would be the particular grammar E. And if fully formalised one could say that the core+aux would be falsified by demonstrating that the grammar makes the wrong predictions about some particular English sentence. But this obviously wouldn't falsify the core. And if the core is not formalised, then it is hard to see how it could be falsified, in this case. So the combination of a lack of formalisation plus an interest in the deeper problems does seem to lead inevitably to theories which are not falsifiable. Alex Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04634767958690153584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-91126244629531910052013-07-08T16:18:15.384-07:002013-07-08T16:18:15.384-07:00I think I meant the first. But, at least at first...I think I meant the first. But, at least at first blush, it is easy to find problems with a new proposal that do not *seem* (at first blush) to be problems for an older. I have found that this is often not the case, that indeed the older account often "gets the facts" in no more elegant or principled a fashion than the newcomer. Also, as you say, it may take time to sort out that we are dealing with notational variants. However, what I meant was the first. Does it matter?Norberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15701059232144474269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-26787821968520512592013-07-08T14:44:31.165-07:002013-07-08T14:44:31.165-07:00When you say it's "already all too easy&q...When you say it's "already all too easy" to falsify a theory, do you mean that it's already easy to find <b>some</b> facts that any new proposal doesn't account for (i.e. there remain some "unsolved problems" that plague basically all theories), or that it's already easy to find facts that falsify new proposal X but which do not falsify existing alternative theory Y that X is competing against?<br /><br />In the first sense, I of course agree: no theory on the table at the moment is entirely descriptively adequate. But in the second sense, I am not so sure that it's always "all too easy". Mostly I suppose I have in mind cases where it seems that a "new" proposal is simply a notational variant of an existing proposal, which is not unheard of, and this seems like a situation where formalisation could really help.<br />Tim Hunterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11810503425508055407noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-40772266982537861612013-07-06T19:51:17.604-07:002013-07-06T19:51:17.604-07:00Maybe. I think however the bigger problem/differen...Maybe. I think however the bigger problem/difference is that some of us don't think that it is very hard to find evidence against proposals even given the low levels of formalization. Alex made this point and I agree. As I said sometime earlier, I think that people mistake the value of formalization. It lies not in getting theories to be more falsifiable, but in better understanding how basic concepts interrelate. This is a BIG plus when it is doable. Formalization per se does not advance falsifiability as it is already all too easy.<br /><br />Yes, if a theory makes no in principle falsifiable claims, it's not good. But I know of almost no theories of this kind within the linguistics that I follow. They are not only falsifiable but have been falsified, if what we mean by this are either incomplete or in apparent contradiction with well accepted data. It's for this reason that I don't find the idea all that useful. It fails to engage what people actually do.Norberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15701059232144474269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-10076704636540917222013-07-06T01:54:16.121-07:002013-07-06T01:54:16.121-07:00I think in the post Norbert made a stronger claim:...I think in the post Norbert made a stronger claim: "So there is something worse than being wrong, at least if you are a theory, and that’s being BORING!"<br /><br />I read this as meaning if I have the choice between 2 theories, one is Wrong [W] and the other is Boring [B] I should go with W [and abandon B]. Now B seems neutral between W and T [true] but if you add what Norbert said later, it would seem he had mainly true but boring theories in mind for B.<br /><br />As far as the relationship between being correct and being interesting is concerned - you're not the only one having a difficult time with that one. Apparently at least some leading linguists do as well:<br /><br />"... it is somewhat puzzling that as scientists we would have a serious notion of what would be more interesting than the truth. For instance, it would definitely be more interesting to discover that the moon is made almost entirely of green cheese than that it is made of rock and dust, especially given that it looks like it is made of rocks and dust, and the samples that have been brought back are—rocks and dust! It would be more interesting to learn that pigs cannot fly because their wings are made of an invisible substance that is too insubstantial to support their weight, rather than that they simply lack the anatomical and physiological wherewithal in the first place. ..... But granting that the less interesting explanations are the right ones, scientists do not give up the good fight and turn to other pursuits. Why should linguists?" [Culicover, 2004, 134]<br /><br />I think Peter asks an excellent question; Just WHY should linguists give up on that "the good fight"? Now I could not agree more with Alex D. who remarked yesterday; "There's no point is linguists/philosophers discussing string theory on a linguistics blog. None of us have anything to say about it." So, it would be great if the answer [if one is forthcoming] would focus on linguistic considerations alone.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-44219591313974142062013-07-06T00:12:08.189-07:002013-07-06T00:12:08.189-07:00I guess the distinction that confused me is betwee...I guess the distinction that confused me is between the sociological question of how theories actually change in linguistics, with the normative question of how they should change so that they lead to theories that are ultimately correct. So sociologically, in linguistics, it is correct that people moved away from GB not because of empirical problems but because of other sociological factors ('boredom', say). <br />But, I am reminded that this does not mean that GB is false, as abandoning a theory is not the same as thinking it is false. <br /><br />But I don't understand the relationship in this argument between being correct and being interesting. So if we are interested in finding correct theories (I am) then we need some argument that correct theories are interesting, but of course there isn't (and can't be) one, since whether a theory is correct or not is ultimately an objective fact whereas whether it is interesting is a matter of taste.<br />Norbert argues it both ways, that being interesting is a salient mark of truth, but also that being boring doesn't mean that it is false. <br /><br />Anyway I see Norbert's tongue firmly in his cheek here.. <br />and I agree with the attack on naive falsificationism even if I don't buy this particular flavour of Lakatosian analysis.Alex Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04634767958690153584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-14650185773229508782013-07-05T10:49:55.233-07:002013-07-05T10:49:55.233-07:00This is a somewhat-vague hunch, so I'm very wi...This is a somewhat-vague hunch, so I'm very willing to be told that I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the distinction between the "hard core" of a research program and the "protective belt" of auxiliary hypotheses might have something to do with the frequent disagreement about the role of formalisation. I usually find myself somewhere in between the two positions that are staked out in that debate (in the instantiation on this blog a few weeks ago, roughly Alex C. on one side and Norbert and David P. on the other).<br /><br />I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth, but my understanding is that what the pro-formalisation side often means to encourage is the practice of formalising particular combinations of core-idea-plus-auxiliary-hypotheses, and I wonder if perhaps those who disagree see this as eliminating an important distinction. In particular, one might worry that the auxiliary hypotheses will come to be seen as part of the core, and that some counter-example will be perceived as a strike against a core idea (e.g. that natural languages involve movement) when actually it really only counts against a particular auxiliary hypothesis (e.g. about exactly what the target position of wh-movement is, or whatever). I notice, for example, that Norbert uses the term "theory" to mean the core and uses the term "model" for core-plus-auxiliary-hypotheses, and on this usage perhaps a pro-formalisation person who asks for "formalised theories" rather than "formalised models" could give the impression that everything in the formalisation is to be considered part of the core, so that everything in the formalisation should stand or fall together as one monolithic object. But I don't think that is what the pro-formalisation side really means to suggest.<br /><br />It's true that it's usually not explicitly "written into" a formal system which pieces of mathematical machinery comprise the core and which parts comprise the auxiliary hypotheses, and this does sometimes seem to worry those who respond to the pro-formalisation argument. But it's still generally possible to work out, when an incorrect prediction emerges, whether it's a core idea or an auxiliary hypothesis which is "at fault". In other words, when you put together a new formalised system of core-idea-plus-auxiliary-hypotheses in order to try to accommodate new facts, it's usually easy to tell whether you've made a change to the core idea or merely to some of the auxiliary hypotheses. So <b>in a sense</b> it is true that formalisation can eliminate the distinction between core idea and auxiliary hypotheses, in that a particular set of equations or whatever doesn't <b>itself</b> draw the dividing line, but this doesn't prevent the scientist from maintaining that distinction, and responding in the appropriately subtle not-naive-falsificationist ways when the formalised system reveals an incorrect prediction. The ideas we formalise needn't be only those core ones to which we are relatively strongly committed.<br /><br />Also, there's obviously a difference between <br />(a) thinking that a theory should be abandoned as soon as it is falsified (by a single observation), and <br />(b) thinking that a theory is more valuable (all else being equal) if it meets the criterion of falsifiability.<br />The "pro-formalisation" argument has nothing at all to do with (a), as far as I can tell.<br />It does require that we accept (b), I think (or at least, the argument is stronger if we accept (b)). But (b) does seem to be generally accepted among "Chomskyan linguists" (e.g. I think that's what Chomsky is getting at when he says that we should hope to find counter-examples).<br /><br />To end speculatively and provocatively (and optimistically perhaps): is there any hope that some aspects of the formalisation debate might be resolved by clarifications of how the two sides treat the distinction between core ideas and auxiliary assumptions?<br />Tim Hunterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11810503425508055407noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-33000831587927937192013-07-05T09:33:11.013-07:002013-07-05T09:33:11.013-07:00reply to Alex: It is not surprising that you would...reply to Alex: It is not surprising that you would be confused. Just this year Chomsky himself stated that the study of language should keep to the standard norms of science:<br /><br />"In recent years, work on these topics has often been called ‘‘the minimalist program (MP).’’ The term has been misunderstood. The program is simply a continuation of the efforts from the origins of the generative enterprise to reduce the postulated richness of UG, to discover its actual nature (see Freidin and Vergnaud, 2001). The literature contains many criticisms of the MP, including alleged refutations, charges that it is not truly minimalist, and so on. None of this makes any sense. Research programs are useful or not, but they are not true or false. The program might be premature, it might be badly executed, but it is hard to see how it could be fundamentally misguided, since it hardly goes beyond holding that the study of language should keep to standard norms of science." [Chomsky, 2013, 38].<br /><br />Of course most of us associate falsifiability of proposals as being one of these standard norms. Norbert calls [demand for] falsification a form of abuse. So minimalist standard norms seem to differ from what the rest of us thinks the standard norms are. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-26041409183544016442013-07-05T07:23:56.967-07:002013-07-05T07:23:56.967-07:00Sorry for the misinterpretation, I clearly did get...Sorry for the misinterpretation, I clearly did get the wrong end of the stick. But now I am more confused. Let me try again shortly once my ideas are straight.<br />Alex Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04634767958690153584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-76937229544671750242013-07-05T06:58:51.297-07:002013-07-05T06:58:51.297-07:00"Norbert meant 'abandoned' when he wr..."Norbert meant 'abandoned' when he wrote 'abandoned.'" <br /><br />I was actually scratching my head wondering where exactly did you say or imply anything other than that. It's a *ahem* frequent phenomenon these days. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07274439353492727662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-10037555046528752702013-07-05T06:56:19.146-07:002013-07-05T06:56:19.146-07:00Thank you for the clarification. Norbert. i have j...Thank you for the clarification. Norbert. i have just one question. You write:<br /><br />"The Popperazzi (Leonard Suskind's term) beg to differ. Falsification is their holy grail. I disagree, in many (most) contexts it is a form of abuse (generally directed at other's proposals I have found)."<br /><br />This is a pretty serious accusation. Can you offer a few examples of linguists who have directed the 'holy grail of falisfiability' in an abusive manner at other's proposals? You speak of many contexts so lets say 5 examples. Thanks.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-73385426493645871382013-07-05T06:15:22.510-07:002013-07-05T06:15:22.510-07:00Norbert meant 'abandoned' when he wrote &#...Norbert meant 'abandoned' when he wrote 'abandoned.' People stop working on,(investigating the properties of, developing refinements to, testing the consequences of) theories that they've milked so much that they no longer find them interesting. The return in insight is not worth the effort anymore. In my view, this is what happened with GB, for example: it ran out of steam. Now, as you know, I DO NOT think that this means that GB is/was false. That's too crude. Indeed, I think that GB was roughly right, however, it is not fundamental. It is a good "effective theory" in search of a more fundamental one. But abandoned it has been by theorists. And I can understand why: it stopped yielding insight and its questions were no longer tantalizing. Furthermore, when a new theory beckons, the first thing you do is NOT look for flaws, In this context falsification is a silly strategy. In fact, it is a silly strategy until the theory is pretty mature (and about then it is becoming boring), and not one that I think that any sane person pursues. The Popperazzi (Leonard Suskind's term) beg to differ. Falsification is their holy grail. I disagree, in many (most) contexts it is a form of abuse (generally directed at other's proposals I have found). <br /><br />Last point: it's a throw away line to say that one is "pursuing truth." Duh. Sadly, however, we can't know truth directly. So we look for the MARKS of truth. Some think that the main mark of truth is covering (yet more) data points. Some think its more complicated than that. I am in the latter camp and one of the more salient marks of truth, one of the features that make a proposal worth pursuing and developing is that it is interesting (a context sensitive value) aka not boring. This is partly a matter of taste, I've found for damn it if some individuals are drawn to boring like moths are to a flame. But, taste, unlike technique cannot be taught and that's too bad. However, 'interesting' generally means provides explanatory insight. Theories do run out of this and are for that reason abandoned. Does that mean they are false? No. They are boring and not worth further effort.Norberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15701059232144474269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-89501907540100795362013-07-05T01:54:48.855-07:002013-07-05T01:54:48.855-07:00@Sveid:
This is a reply to Sveid who says:
"...@Sveid:<br /><br />This is a reply to Sveid who says:<br />""boring" means "can't provide further insights" hence "the running out of steam". Such theories should be abandoned. What exactly is faulty here?"<br /><br />I don't really see this line of argument as correct. Theories should be abandoned if they are "false". So for example in maths (admittedly not an empirical science) people abandon the study of particular mathematical areas because they no longer find them interesting or important, but the theory developed up to that point is still correct. Similarly in empirical science, we may abandon the study of, say, a particular organism, e.g. smallpox, for various reasons like nobody having smallpox any more, but that doesn't mean that the facts that we have discovered up to that point are now false. <br />So we all agree with that, but <br />Norbert's point is something completely different, and more controversial. He means "abandon" in the sense of "now think to be false". And that argument just seems wrong (I guess he is appealing to Lakatosian degenerating research paradigms, which is a different argument). <br /> Alex Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04634767958690153584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5275657281509261156.post-55190513753364936202013-07-04T18:51:04.751-07:002013-07-04T18:51:04.751-07:00I would like to thank everyone who offered advice ...I would like to thank everyone who offered advice re terms I could use as replacement for 'boredom'. That was very kind of you but misses entirely the point I am making [apparently only David 'clued in'].<br /><br />See, when generativists like Legate et al. criticize non-generativists like Levinson it is not because Levinson's theory is boring or 'not inspiring' [it certainly seems to inspire him] or 'has run out of steam' [seems he is just getting started]. What Legate et al. criticize is that [according to them] Levinson' 'speculation' is "advanced on the basis of misrepresentations, mischaracterizations and confusion about basic issues" [p.12]. THAT is what makes it worthy of criticism. [For the record: I fully agree, IF Levinson is guilty as charged that IS a bad thing].<br /><br />Now some of you may not have read all the wonderful posts Norbert has provided over the past 10 months. I encourage you to check out October 16, 2012. Here he educates us how the science game is played: http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.ca/2012/10/how-to-play-game.html<br /><br />Among other things Norbert tells us that when you are a SCIENTIST, S, and want to convince us that some theory T [which accounts for phenomenon P] is wrong, "if you want to play the explanation game, the “science” game, then you are obliged ... to explain why you think the assumptions are faulty and (usually, though there are some exceptions) you are obliged to offer an (at least sketchy) non-trivial question begging account of P. S cannot simply note that s/he thinks that T is really really wrong, or that T is unappealing and makes her/him feel ill"<br /><br />Being boring probably would be the kind of thing that makes Norbert feel ill. But, on October 16, he said that's not enough to toss out a theory. And he cites David Adger who is slamming Tomasello for not playing the science game:<br /><br />"…CxG [Construction Grammar, NH] proponents have to provide a theory of how learning takes place so as to give rise to a constructional hierarchy, but even book length studies on this, such as Tomasello (2003), provide no theory beyond analogy combined with vague pragmatic principles."<br /><br />This criticism has nothing to do with 'boring' or ‘running out of steam’ [the Tomasello lab easily outlasts an army of energizer bunnies]. The allegation is that no scientific theory is offered, just analogies and vague pragmatic principles.<br /><br />So what my concern boils down to is this: Do generativists apply two different standards? I would hope not but from studying Norbert’s blog it seems that generativist's work is good as long as it meets Norbert's "Against Boredom" criterion. But the theories of others are judged by "Play by the rules of the Science game"<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03443435257902276459noreply@blogger.com