Talk:John McCarthy (computer scientist)

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I am sorry that Professor Hewitt feels that my mention of the less obsequious, but no less affectionate, designation of "Uncle John" McCarthy, as Prof. McDuck ([1]) was intended in the spirit of destruction. I have restored McCarthy's Usenet credentials, already insinuated in the previous versions of this article. I hope that our celebrities' watchdogs, be they duly accredited or self-apppointed, will recognize their importance to a well-rounded account of our subject's character. Larvatus 09:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)larvatus

[edit] Atheist

He calls himself an atheist on this page, so someone should add something about that.Black Lab (talk) 22:43, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Characterization

I have worked with John (who is currently Emeritus at Stanford), have also read much of his commentary, and I believe that the characterization "with a right-wing perspective" is too simplistic to do him justice. Since it is also arguably subjective, I believe it merits default-omission. If there is a consensus to re-introduce it, I will not object.

[edit] Jewish Credentials

"Born in Boston in 1927 to Communist party activists, McCarthy lived in a family on the move. While his Irish Catholic father worked as a carpenter, fisherman, and union organizer, the family kept migrating , from Boston to New York and then to Los Angeles. His Lithuanian Jewish mother worked as a journalist for The Federated Press wire service then for a Communist newspaper and finally as a social worker." Dennis Shasha and Cathy Lazere, Out of their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists, Springer Verlag, 1998, pp. 22-23. Accordingly, as a child of a Jewish mother, John McCarthy is halakhically Jewish.

I am not sure he should be classified as a Jewish American scientist unless he himself says so. His own opinion should be more important than the viewpoint of a religion he did not follow. Tsf (talk) 20:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)