These were my exact thoughts when i read the headline. But when i read the article, their strongest evidence in their defense is the fact that people with severe disabilities can still perform higher level thought.
tldr; Language is not required for thought, but on page 3 of the link, "Instead, these tasks engage other brain areas that are non-overlapping with the language
network (Fig. 1b), although they sometimes lie in close proximity
to the language areas"
I used to do rubber duck debugging, but instead i turned into listing exact step-by-step instructions in inline comments. It seems to work like rubber duck debugging, and all it took was for me to "Externalize the steps" so i can think about what needs to happen at each level of the thought heirarchy.
and section 2. you describe memory and thought as similiar in nature but those are handled in two entirely different regions of the brain.
tldr; Language is not required for thought, but on page 3 of the link, "Instead, these tasks engage other brain areas that are non-overlapping with the language network (Fig. 1b), although they sometimes lie in close proximity to the language areas"
I used to do rubber duck debugging, but instead i turned into listing exact step-by-step instructions in inline comments. It seems to work like rubber duck debugging, and all it took was for me to "Externalize the steps" so i can think about what needs to happen at each level of the thought heirarchy.
and section 2. you describe memory and thought as similiar in nature but those are handled in two entirely different regions of the brain.