Can anyone give a steelman version of Chomsky's anti-statistics colorless green ideas sleep furiously argument? The more I think about it, the more absurd it seems.

Here's my take on Chomsky's argument:

• The phrase "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is extremely improbable from a statistical perspective.
• However, it is also entirely consistent with the rules of grammar.
• Therefore, one cannot use statistical reasoning to draw conclusions about the rules of grammar.

Naively, this seems plausible enough. But consider the following mirror-image argument, about physics:

• Consider the event "a sword fell out of the sky" (not the sentence, the physical event).
• This event is extremely improbable from a statistical perspective.
• However, it is entirely consistent with the laws of physics; if a sword were dropped out of a hot air balloon, if would obviously fall to the ground.
• Therefore, one cannot use statistical reasoning to draw conclusions about the laws of physics.

The mirror image argument seems patently absurd, but it follows the exact same line of reasoning.