[RNLD] MLIP Tuesday 1st September: ‘New mathematical methods’ in linguistics constitute the greatest intellectual fraud in the discipline since Chomsky' led by Roger Blench

[Ruth Singer]

Apologies for wrong information in subject line in previous email (the body
of this email is unchanged)


*Announcement: Melbourne Linguistics in the pub Tuesday **1st September
2015*

*******PLEASE NOTE LIP IS AT NAUGHTON'S UNTIL FURTHER
NOTICE*********************


Roger Blench (Kay Williamson Educational Foundation, Cambridge) will be
leading a discussion on this topic:
‘New mathematical methods’ in linguistics constitute the greatest
intellectual fraud in the discipline since Chomsky
<https://www.academia.edu/t/cMKR-KbnxwSX-hkzpR/13181187/_New_mathematical_methods_in_linguistics_constitute_the_greatest_intellectual_fraud_in_the_discipline_since_Chomsky>
(click
title to see slides from seminar on this topic)

Historical linguistics, and increasingly other areas of linguistics, have
been shaken up by the application of ‘new mathematical methods’ based on
Bayesian phylogenies and neighbour net approaches. These papers are usually
published in ‘hard science’ journals rather than linguistics outlets and
claim to put historical and phylogenetic linguistics on a scientific basis.
However, despite being ‘not lexicostatistics’ they remain founded on
lexical cognacy. The presentation argues that the application of these
methods to historical linguistics does not in fact pass any usual test for
‘science’ and that therefore these claims are overblown and essentially do
not advance knowledge. The focus of the argument is on two issues, the
problems with cognacy, in particular establishing the difference between
borrowing and inheritance, and the assertion that we can date the early
diversification of language families.

The presentation does not in any way claim that these publications are
intentional chicanery; the authors are evidently serious, merely that they
have been misled, as have the editors of ‘Science’. Equally it does not
claim there are defects in Bayesian statistics; this is all about their
inappropriate application.

Check RNLD MLIP page for background reading (to be uploaded shortly):
http://www.rnld.org/mlip


Date:             Tuesday 1st September
Time:             6:00 - 8:00 pm
Venue:           Function room (towards the rear, on the left)

Naughton's Parkville hotel (NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE DUE TO RENOVATIONS)

43 Royal Parade
Parkville Melbourne Victoria (03) 9347 2255

Food and drinks available at the venue
 http://www.parkvillehotel.com.au/index.php/menu/

LIP is an occasional gathering of language activists and linguists in
Melbourne and is coordinated by the MLIP committee: Ruth Singer (Melbourne
Uni), Harriet Sheppard, Jonathan Schlossberg, Alan Ray, Giordana
Santosuosso and Jonathon Lum (Monash Uni)

Contact Ruth Singer (University of Melbourne) with any questions:
rsinger at unimelb.edu.au
You can receive these announcements by signing up to the RNLD mailing list:
http://www.rnld.org/node/5

Dr Ruth Singer
DECRA Postdoctoral Fellow
Linguistics Program and Research Unit for Indigenous Language
School of Languages and Linguistics
Faculty of Arts
University of Melbourne 3010
Tel. +61 3 90353774
http://languages-linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/academic-staff/ruth-singer
http://indiglang.arts.unimelb.edu.au/
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