I believe that some of the later reviews of "The Language Instinct" accurately reveal what generally is wrong with the positions taken here by the academic linguists who dismiss the book. Nobody points to the real problem behind these dismissals: not one of these linguists is willing to address the questions that lie at the heart of Chomsky's work in generative grammar and that instigated his work. These questions are (see p. 22, paperback ed.), and they are brilliant questions, never before asked: 1. How can we account for the fact that every human utterance is "is a brand-new combination of words?" 2. How do children, too young for formal instruction, master the essential grammatical structure of their native language? Chomsky's answer came to be generative grammar. The linguists, trapped by the Social Science Model they embrace, do not address these questions because they cannot and have no satisfactory explanation to put in its place. Until they can provide a different theory as powerful as Chomsky's they have no argument, only quibbles.
Yet having said that, I wonder whether Pinker is as successful as the enthusiastic reviews claim. Two kinds of comments, recurrent themes, as it were, suggest this. One criticism is that he presents speculation as fact. I can find not one example in 430 pages. One of the pleasures of reading this book (and it's a rare pleasure these days!) is Pinker's extremely careful use of language and his great care in weighing evidence, pointing out what is fragmentary and inconclusive but suggestive, and in telling us where he is speculating outright (as in chaps. 11 & 13). Why some reviewers misread so badly is related, I believe, to the second kind of objection.
Many complain that Pinker is "dismissive" of other points of view, that he is "unduly slanted," that he has an "agenda." These criticisms are meaningless in this context. Pinker is a scientist, and a scientist who temporizes and makes nothing but conditional statements is not writing science; he is publishing before he is sure of his data and has thought-through his conclusions; he would in fact not be published. Read Darwin's "Origin of Species." It's "slanted"? You bet, and it certainly has an "agenda"! But at the same time these complaints are deeply revealing about our present-day culture. One of Pinker's main points is that an all-pervasive extreme relativism has come to permeate our discourse at all levels. Here it manifests itself , in science, where it is entirely inappropriate: as the usual PC dogmas "Don't confront! Never dismiss! Somebody might be offended!" That way madness lies. That some reviewers failed to see that these kinds of responses were precisely what he is arguing against suggests that he may not have succeeded fully.
Finally, and briefly, one reviewer DOES attempt to confront Pinker on his own grounds, by suggesting that the adequacy of any theory can be tested by posing counterexamples. The problem is that his own examples counter nothing Pinker says. The first is impossible: "Yes, he's." Simply try to SAY that and the impossibility of that contraction is clear. One expects a completer (here; there; guilty, etc.). The second strains credulity: Anyone who is impolite enough to answer my phone call with a rude "Who's it?" produces instant confusion and a slamming hang-up. Unless . . . suppose the answerer is not in his office at the college but at home with an unlisted number. Then the likelihood is that the caller is friend, family, an intimate who recognizes this as a deliberately humorous, idiosyncratic, "in" way of saying "Hello," much as we use the words "whosis" and "whatsis" in informal situations. But these are intelligible ONLY because the standard, uncontracted forms are known in the first place.
Pinker's book is a powerful and important piece of work. Among other things, it argues subtly for the return of reasoned judgment to our everything-goes public discourse.
