From: Maru Dubshinki (marudubshinki@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Nov 06 2005 - 18:16:16 MST
On 11/6/05, justin corwin <outlawpoet@gmail.com> wrote:
....
> Both Wiener and Sidis are thought of as crazy people. Even the
> normally NPOV Wikipedia describes Wiener as the 'prototype' of
> absentminded academic later in life, and includes a particularly
> pointless Anecdotes section, which repeats apocryphal stories about
> Wiener's inability to deal with every day life.
>
> Looking at the historical evidence, both Wiener and Sidis were
> relatively prolific scientists, Sidis doing well in mathematics, and
> after retiring, writing quite a few books under psuedonyms, on
> anthropology, linguistic studies of native american culture and
> language, cosmology (in one of the few books he published under his
> own name, he predicted something very similar to a black hole in
> 1925).
....
> --
> Justin Corwin
I think I shall object to your characterization of Wikipedia's entry;
I wrote and did some research for that article, and the anecotes as
well. Of the 4 listed, #4 is doubly sourced (once in Wikipedia, and
once outside it if you go googling), and the previous 2 derive from
Weiner's own autobiography. #1 I do not know about, but even assuming
uncharitably that it is false, a 75% accuracy does not render the
whole section 'apocryphal' ("of dubious veracity", "of doubtful
authenticity", "in the nature of an urban legend", "not canonical"),
much less "particularly pointless"- would you have the Albert Einstein
article not mention his place in popular culture?
~Maru
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:53 MDT