this might be interesting....

[john at research.haifa.ac.il]

Yes, but I'm not in a position to judge exactly which areas people like him
are expert in. I'm a linguist, but there are many areas of linguistics I'm
not an expert it--but for many of these I could easily convince even very
educated non-linguists that I am an expert. I'm routinely regarded as being a
specialist in phonetics in Israel simply because I teach an introductory
phonetics course, because no one else does...
Best wishes,
John




Quoting Tom Givon <tgivon at uoregon.edu>:

>
>
>
> Well, JMS is already RIP. But a few years before his earthly demise they
> gave him the Nobel for his life-work in biology. So at least the
> committee thought he knew what he was talking about in HIS field.  It is
> surprisingly common for eminent biologists, chemists & physicists to
> stray into the evolution of mind & language. It seems to hold a fatal
> attraction for them. Francis Crick did that, as did Monod & Delbruck, as
> did Murray Gell-Man. Not always with the most salutary results, but
> these guys have adventurous minds, speculation on a very thin ice-sheet
> of facts has never bothered them in the fields they DID get their Nobels
> in. (Watson once wrote, about the DNA saga: "...We didn't just want to
> solve the puzzle, we wanted to solve it with the absolute minimum amount
> of facts..."). What is interesting, I think, is that all these guys came
> to the same conclusion that the evolution of mind and language was the
> real Holy Grail of science (rather than Physics, Chemistry or Biology,
> where they got their Nobels. I happen to share their conclusion). What
> also stands out is how little help they get from linguistics. Of course,
> they usually hook up with the wrong linguists (guess who...). But the
> fun of listening to John Maynard Smith's video snippets is NOT language
> evolution, but evolution, period. So if you are curious, or if biology
> turns you on, or if you just enjoy seeing how a beautiful mind works,
> you might enjoy listening to him without rushing to judgement.   Best,  TG
>
> ========================
>
>
> john at research.haifa.ac.il wrote:
> > If we can see when he's talking about the evolution of language that he's
> > willing to publicly speculate about things that aren't his forte, maybe we
> > should be a little bit suspicious about how much he really knows about the
> > other things he's talking about...
> > John
> >
> >
> >
> > Quoting Tom Givon <tgivon at uoregon.edu>:
> >
> >
> >> Dear FUNKfolk,
> >>
> >> I am taking the liberty to attach a link sent by a friend. There are
> >> several enjoyable short-chunk video talks in there, most enlightening of
> >> them by the great evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith. For those
> >> of you interested in evolution, cognitive science, evolutionary
> >> psychology or its predecessor socio-biology (not to mention just plain
> >> science), there is a chance you might actually enjoy it. What he has to
> >> say about the evolution of language is not exactly his forte. But the
> >> rest is first rate, and even his pianissimo is challenging.
> >>
> >> Cheers,  TG
> >>
> >> =================
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> http://webofstories.com/play/4253
> >>
> >> John
> >>
> >> --
> >> John M. Orbell
> >> Institute of Cognitive & Decision Sciences
> >> 255 Straub Hall 1284, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403
> >> Work 541 3460133 cell 541 5100854 fax 3464914 Skype: John M.Orbell
> >> Home:  http://polisci.uoregon.edu/facbios.php?name=John_Orbell
> >> ICDS:  http://uoregon.edu/~icds/ICDS_ENTER.html
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > This message was sent using IMP, the Webmail Program of Haifa University
> >
>
>




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