{"id":884,"date":"2004-04-18T20:41:29","date_gmt":"2004-04-19T00:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=884"},"modified":"2004-04-18T20:41:29","modified_gmt":"2004-04-19T00:41:29","slug":"feedback-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=884","title":{"rendered":"Feedback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Dennett writes — and I wrote back that I would publish this here, since the Guardian<\/em> is unlikely to correct every one of his niggles. I should say at once that the errors he complains of are largely my fault, and that I am damn pleased about getting the ideas right.<\/p>\n\n

Hello, Andrew,<\/p>\n\n

Thanks for the heads-up. It’s in general a nice piece, and I give
\nyou high marks for your rendition of my main views, especially your
\nversion of my line on semantic engines and the absence of mystery. But
\nthere is a curious scattering of minor errors, which could easily have
\nbeen cleaned up with a little fact-checking.
\n1. I was not born in Beirut but in Boston (as the article notes at the
\nend, when it gets it right)
\n2. My father died in 1947, not 1948.
\n3.We weren’t honeymooning in Greece in 1963 (that was my assistant’s
\nguess when she titled the scan she sent you); we were married in 1962.
\n4. Gould was attending my seminar at Tufts when my students held his
\nfeet to the fire; I also attended his seminar at Harvard (by myself),
\nbut he was reciprocating.
\n5. I wrote DDI <\/span>before he called me a “Darwinian fundamentalist” (though
\nwe had had the set-to about Cronin’s book in the NYRB <\/span>before DDI <\/span>was
\npublished).
\n6. Only 1 chapter in DDI <\/span>is “devoted” to Gould’s errors and
\ninadequacies–though if you had said 2 (including chapter 9, which has
\nquite a lot about Gould in it) I wouldn’t demur.<\/p>\n\n

It’s amusing to see the metamorphoses that have crept into the
\nrecollections of my friends–
\n7. I’m no expert skier and have often told of my preposterous
\nmisadventure in my lone downhill race in 1964.
\n8. My only tennis trophy came from summer camp when I was about
\nthirteen, though I did teach tennis the first year I was married.
\n9. The marble sculpture I was working on in 1963 was not a mother and
\nchild but a man reading a book. Nicknamed “Herman,” it has resided in a
\nfriend’s apartment in Manhattan for lo these many years.
\n10. Both my friends and enemies are wrong in their guesses about the
\nadvance for my book in progress.
\n11. Also, two books of mine were left out of the list at the end: my
\nfavorite, Elbow Room, 1984, and The Intentional Stance, 1987.<\/p>\n\n

(Does the Guardian ever print errata notices in the wake of
\ntheir profiles? If so, perhaps you can transmit these details to them.
\nIf they publish letters from the profilees, the first sentence could
\nread: “I give Andrew Brown high marks. . . especially his version. . . “
\nThere are a few other points that are marginally misleading: I think
\nBabar the gazelle departed our garden some time before my father died,
\nfor instance, though your way of telling it is poignant indeed, and my
\nboat [which I hasten to add is 20 years old, and a bargain in need of
\nmuch work] officially sleeps nine–though I doubt if many couples would
\nbe comfortable sleeping in the ‘double’ berth that is one of four in the
\nmain cabin.)<\/p>\n\n

Best wishes,<\/p>\n\n

Dan<\/p>\n\n

p.s. Do you think it is “breath-taking rudeness” to conjure up the
\nschool of New Jersey Nihilism? I think you might have found something
\nmore pungent than that. Too bad you didn’t have my more recent
\ncomparison of Jerry Fodor to Baghdad Bob (London Review of Books of a
\nfew weeks ago) in hand. I’m only rude to bullies, that is, to those who
\nhave been breath-takingly rude to others over some time.<\/p>\n\n

DCD<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Dennett writes — and I wrote back that I would publish this here, since the Guardian is unlikely to correct every one of his niggles. I should say at once that the errors he complains of are largely my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}