Your ignorance is showing. I think it was Peggy Noonan who pointed out that the difference between liberals and conservatives is not the difference between liberal ideas and conservative ideas, but rather the difference between avoiding ideas or arguing about them. By being on the other swing of the liberal hinge you are avoiding ideas.
Linguistics is a sound rigorouse and valuable field of study.
Yeah, and we definitely need more study of grammar!
The linguists' chief claim to fame is the discovery that the Gypsies were of Indic (Sanscrit) origin. Before that, their origins were a mystery.
And it looks like transformational grammar may be helpful in developing, or at least analyzing, computer language.
Other than that, it's an interesting but not terribly important field. No social science can really call itself "rigorous"...
Linguistics is a sound rigorouse and valuable field of study.
Ah, sweet, sweet irony.
It may be rigorous(e), it may be valuable. So is wiring a house for electricity. The fundamental question is, "Is it intellectually challeging?" Or, equivalently, "What kind of mathematics is involved?"