Monday, Sep. 25, 1972

Vague Verbiage

Andreski's prime example of the "nebulous verbosity" of social scientists is his fellow sociologist Talcott Parsons. For example, instead of saying simply that a developed brain, acquired skills and knowledge are needed for attaining human goals, Parsons writes:

Skills constitute the manipulative techniques of human goal attainment and control in relation to the physical world, so far as artifacts or machines especially designed as tools do not yet supplement them. Truly human skills are guided by organized and codified knowledge of both the things to be manipulated and the human capacities that are used to manipulate them. Such knowledge is an aspect of cultural-level symbolic processes, and, like other aspects to be discussed presently, requires the capacities of the human central nervous system, particularly the brain. This organic system is clearly essential to all of the symbolical processes...

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