Quote #280

Neither Chomsky nor Church would make my top ten list. No, I don't actually have such a list, but my feeling is that their impact has been more on what is taught than what is done. Part of my unease is that I'm uncertain to what extent 'Computer Science' is a science. I feel more comfortable comparing what my colleagues and I do with the activities of architects and engineers than with mathematicians, physicists, or biologists. There are things in software that feel more as if they have been discovered than invented, but most of what [passes] for computer science is purely man-made. --Bjarne Stroustrup, November 2000 [261]

More from Noam Chomsky

  1. I personally regard Chomsky as a kook and a half on toast. --Jimmy Wales, December 8, 2001 [260]
  2. I don't have as complete and overall philosophy as he does. I agree with some of the things he says. I've seen things that he said that I d…
  3. In any case, Chomsky's problem is not that he's anti-War -- this 'war' is getting sillier by the minute - the problem is that he's an idiot…
  4. A similar denial is evident in the rhetoric of Noam Chomsky; prodded for commentary on the war, he recites a litany of past American wrongd…
  5. [Fisking Chomsky is] easy, but fun. --Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit), May 12, 2002 [258]
  6. People are wasting time on dissident relics like Noam Chomsky. Professor Chomsky is a pretty good dissident: he's persistent, he means what…
  7. Chomsky, you're a New World Order shill, and I've got twice the brain you've got with both arms tied behind my back. --Alex Jones, May 25, …
  8. And when I did reality checks against the idiotic, immoral, anti-American, vicious things he says, I find him a moral wasteland, and a fool…

All Noam Chomsky quotes