That quote is taken out of context. Actually, it is part of a few paragraphs which describe some of the history. Tomasello and his co-author then go on to add that these challenges led Chomsky to adapt his theory. Here’s a bit more context around that quote:
“Fairly soon, however, linguistic comparisons among multiple languages began rolling in that did not fit with this neat schema. Some native Australian languages, such as Warlpiri, had grammatical elements scattered all over the sentence—noun and verb phrases that were not “neatly packaged” so that they could be plugged into Chomsky’s universal grammar—and some sentences had no verb phrase at all.
These so-called outliers were difficult to reconcile with the universal grammar that was built on examples from European languages. Other exceptions to Chomsky’s theory came from the study of “ergative” languages, such as Basque or Urdu, in which the way a sentence subject is used is very different from that in many European languages, again challenging the idea of a universal grammar.
These findings, along with theoretical linguistic work, led Chomsky and his followers to a wholesale revision of the notion of universal grammar during the 1980s. The new version of the theory, called principles and parameters, replaced a single universal grammar for all the world’s languages with a set of “universal” principles governing the structure of language. These principles manifested themselves differently in each language.”
I always thought that was either an urban legend, or that only unskilled, stupid people swallowed or inhaled pins. But she had probably done that for years. Her co-workers, too. She wasn't naive or thoughtless. That's what scares me. I do that (well, DID that) every time I work on something... pins are staying in the cushion now.
As if they didn't have enough laws against protesting...
Yarovaya's legislation introduces a new criminal-code article that outlaws “inducing, recruiting, or otherwise involving” others in the organization of mass unrest. The maximum penalty for breaking this law is ten years, and the minimum prison sentence is five years.