The Washington Post, in its smug depiction of anyone connected with Donald Trump as intellectually challenged, had an interesting characterization of a brilliant Yale University professor of computer science who is being considered as Trump’s science advisor.
The Post called Yale professor David Gelernter, who was critically injured in 1993 opening a mail-bomb sent by Theodore Kaczynski, the “Unabomber,” leaving his right hand and eye were permanently damaged, a “fiercely anti-intellectual computer scientist” in its headline, which read, “David Gelernter, fiercely anti-intellectual computer scientist, is being eyed for Trump’s science adviser.”
Why would the Post describe him in this fashion? Because he has “decried the influence of liberal intellectuals on college campuses,.”
Aha! Those who are unaware of the eminent position liberal professors have in the pantheon of intellectuals are worthy of scorn, apparently.
The Post admits, “Gelernter is a pioneer in the field of parallel computation, a type of computing in which many calculations are carried out simultaneously. The programming language he developed in the 1980s, Linda, made it possible to link together several small computers into a supercomputer, significantly increasing the amount and complexity of data that computers can process. Since then he has written extensively about artificial intelligence, critiquing the field’s slow progress and warning of AI’s potential dangers.”
Well, that certainly qualifies him as being anti-intellectual.
Nah, that just makes him appear to be smart. Here’s why he’s anti-intellectual, according to the Post: “Beyond computer science circles, Gelernter has made a name for himself as a vehement critic of modern academia. In his 2013 book, “America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats),” he condemned “belligerent leftists” and blamed intellectualism for the disintegration of patriotism and traditional family values. He attributed the decline in American culture to “an increasing Jewish presence at top colleges.” (Gelernter himself is Jewish.)”
Additionally, (horror of horrors!) Gelernter authored an October op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which called President Obama a “third-rate tyrant” and called Hillary Clinton a “phony.”
Wait – there’s more. “He has expressed doubt about the reality of man-made climate change.”
Oh, boy. That should cement the narrative.
Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, opined, “He’s certainly not mainstream in the science community or particularly well known. His views even on most of the key science questions aren’t known. Considering the huge range of issues the White House needs to consider, I don’t know if he has that kind of capability.”
Okay, summing up. Gelernter, a) has ripped leftist college professors, b) called Barack Obama a tyrant and Hillary Clinton a “phony”, c) articulated doubts about the climate change agenda.
It would seem he’s pretty smart.