As I clicked the link, I saw that there were 81 comments on this post. I didn't read them yet, but I just wanted to say: I'm reading Richard Dawkins's book The God Delusion right now, and will try to remember to discuss it with you when I next see you (if you like).
As far as intuition as part of academic learning, I'm sort of pro this idea. Linguistics involves a lot of semantic, syntactic, and phonological intuition, and above all, morphological intuition. In fact, morphological intuition (a skill gained from reading) is how "good" speakers of English speak and write - without knowing or drawing on "rules" learned in school, but just instinctively. For me personally, spelling and memorization are also instinctive, and I can use intuition to remember names after eight years of not seeing folks or to spell an unfamiliar last name.
no subject
As far as intuition as part of academic learning, I'm sort of pro this idea. Linguistics involves a lot of semantic, syntactic, and phonological intuition, and above all, morphological intuition. In fact, morphological intuition (a skill gained from reading) is how "good" speakers of English speak and write - without knowing or drawing on "rules" learned in school, but just instinctively. For me personally, spelling and memorization are also instinctive, and I can use intuition to remember names after eight years of not seeing folks or to spell an unfamiliar last name.