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A thick slice of honor

3/3/2017

 
Often when two authors work on a book, one is a famous person and the other is the real writing talent. Origins by Richard Leakey (son of Louis Leakey) and Roger Lewin always seemed to be tilted towards Roger's writing, which IMHO subverted Richard's beliefs, so much so that they had to release a new book, Origins Reconsidered, but in this version, Roger is listed as a "contributor," not an author. Other collaborations are more balanced, Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray in The Bell Curve, Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele in Race are good examples. But the one collaboration that really touched me recently is Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa in the book, Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters. Kanazawa is widely hated for his views. Interestingly it's OK to hate non-white people as long as they hold the wrong views, but does he deserve it? In the Preface, Kanazawa tells the story of how WBPHMD came about. Alan asked Satoshi to help him work on another book and gave him full co-authorship in exchange for writing just a couple of chapters. "It was a very generous offer," he says, so he agreed. During the collaboration Satoshi converted Alan to Evolutionary Psychology and they talked about it all the time after the new book came out.. Then they decided to work together on a book for generalists and non-scientists explaining the basics of EP or EvoPsych as it's known. They dove into writing the new book and suddenly Alan fell ill with Hodgkin's disease. Despite an optimistic prognosis Alan became so ill that he couldn't do much work, but completed a couple of chapters while Satoshi worked on his own chapters. Alan died just two years later, at age 44, too young for such a bright mind. Satoshi decided to continue work on WBPHMD as a way of preserving Alan's contribution to the field, but because his dear friend wasn't around to proof, argue and contribute, Satoshi tells us this touching admission:
"Thus Alan never got a chance to see the final manuscript or approve the subsequent revisions that I made to his chapters. I am keeping Alan as the first author of this book because that was the arrangement we agreed upon when we began our collaboration, and because the book was originally his idea. However, the reader should know that I am solely responsible for the entire contents of the final manuscript, which Alan did not have a chance to see or approve. Alan should be credited as the genius behind this book, while any remaining shortcomings should be attributed to me." 
Quite a guy, quite a guy.

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