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People | Noam Chomsky2010-03-17: Headlines
2010-03-16: Headlines
2010-03-15: Headlines
About ChomskyBangkok Post: 'Resonant and unwavering' 2008-07-14
Noam Chomsky talks to the 'Bangkok Post' about the Vietnam War, Burma and the future of the human race
Story by STUART ALAN BECKER
He opposed the Vietnam War long before it was fashionable to do so. He revolutionised the field of linguistics and helped spark the cognitive revolution in psychology. He changed the way scientists approach the study of the human mind.
His "Chomsky Hierarchy" is taught in basic computer science because it offers insight into the nature of how languages are structured. His theories of Generative and Universal Grammar indicate that the human mind comes hard-wired with default settings that enable infants to quickly learn any language spoken around them.
When the US dropped the atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Chomsky walked off into the woods to be alone and contemplate what he later called "one of the most unspeakable crimes in history".
For the last 50 years Avram Noam Chomsky, now in his 80th year, has been a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was voted No. 1 in the 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll, a list of the 100 most important living public intellectuals, compiled in November, 2005 by Prospect Magazine of the UK and Foreign Policy of the US on the basis of a readers' ballot consisting of more than 20,000 votes. [more] |
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