David Gelernter
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David Hillel Gelernter (born March 5, 1955) is an American
computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...
, artist, and writer. He is a professor of
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
at
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
. Gelernter is known for contributions to parallel computation in the 1980s, and for books on topics such as computed worlds (''Mirror Worlds''). Gelernter is also known for his belief, expressed in his book '' America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats)'', that liberal academia has a destructive influence on American society. He is in addition known for his views against women in the workforce, and his rejection of the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change and
evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
. In 1993 Gelernter was sent a mail bomb by Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. He opened it and the resulting explosion almost killed him, leaving him with permanent loss of use of his right hand as it destroyed four fingers, and permanent damage to his right eye.


Early life and education

Gelernter grew up on
Long Island, New York Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...
. His father Herbert Gelernter was a
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
who, in the late 1950s and 1960s, became a pioneer in
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
and taught computer science at State University of New York at Stony Brook. Gelernter's grandfather was a
rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...
, and Gelernter grew up as a Reform Jew; he later became a follower of
Orthodox Judaism Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Oral, as literally revelation, revealed by God in Ju ...
. He received his
Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
in
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
from
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
in 1976 and received a
Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...
in
Classical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of ...
literature from the same university. He earned his Ph.D. from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1982.


Career


Computer science

In the 1980s, Gelernter made seminal contributions to the field of parallel computation, specifically the tuple space coordination model, as embodied by the Linda programming system he and Nicholas Carriero designed (which he named for Linda Lovelace, the lead actress in the porn movie '' Deep Throat'', mocking the naming of the programming language Ada in tribute to the scientist and first attributed computer programmer,
Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (''née'' Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), also known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-pur ...
).
Bill Joy William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO ...
cited the Linda system as the inspiration for many elements of JavaSpaces and Jini. In January 1993 in his book ''Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean'', Gelernter wrote: "...people and software work hand-in-glove – and sometimes hand-in-hand." On June 24, 1993, Gelernter was severely injured opening a mail bomb sent to him by the Unabomber. He recovered from his injuries, but his right hand (which he covers with a glove) and eye were permanently damaged. Some in the press suggested that there were parallels between his thoughts on the need for a human element to computers and those of the Unabomber. He chronicled the ordeal in his 1997 book ''Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber''. Two years after the bombing, the Unabomber sent Gelernter a letter, writing: "People with advanced degrees aren't as smart as they think they are.""The Images Dancing in David Gelernter's Head"
/ref> Gelernter helped found the company Mirror Worlds Technologies, which in 2001 released Scopeware software using ideas from his 1992 book ''Mirror Worlds''. Gelernter believed that computers can free users from being filing clerks, by organizing their data. The product never took off, however, and the company ceased operations in 2004. In 2013, Mirror Worlds Technologies, LLC, a related company that had purchased its patents, filed a complaint of
patent infringement A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
against Apple, Best Buy, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo (United States), Lenovo Group, Microsoft, Samsung Electronic, and Samsung TeleCommunications in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Ultimately, the company lost at the trial level and on appeal. A petition for writ of certiorari to have the case considered by the Supreme Court of the United States was denied in 2013. In 2016, the case was dismissed with prejudice. In July 2019, Gelernter, along with three other co-founders, started Revolution Populi: A blockchain-powered crypto clearing house and social network. The team also includes Rob Rosenthal, a 19-year veteran of Goldman Sachs.


Writing and art

Gelernter's paintings have been exhibited, sold, stolen and recovered in New Haven and Manhattan. Gelernter has critiqued what he perceives as cultural illiteracy among students. In 2015, he commented, "They tudentsknow nothing about art. They know nothing about history. They know nothing about philosophy. And because they have been raised as not even atheists, they don't rise to the level of atheists, insofar as they've never thought about the existence or nonexistence of God. It has never occurred to them. They know nothing about the Bible." In 2016 he said: "The alefaculty and the students don't have a clue what's going on in the world."


Politics

He is a former national fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...
and senior fellow in Jewish thought at the Shalem Center. In 2003, he became a member of the National Council on the Arts. ''
Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine profiled Gelernter in 2016, describing him as a "stubbornly independent thinker. A conservative among mostly liberal
Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference of eight Private university, private Research university, research universities in the Northeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegia ...
professors, a religious believer among the often disbelieving ranks of computer scientists..." Endorsing
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
for president, in October 2016, Gelernter wrote an op-ed in ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' calling
Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...
"as phony as a three-dollar bill", and saying that
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
"has governed like a third-rate tyrant". In his capacity as a member of the Trump transition team, Peter Thiel nominated Gelernter for the Science Advisor to the President position; Gelernter met with Trump in January 2017, but did not get the job. In 2018, he said that the idea that Trump is a racist is "absurd". In October 2020 he joined in signing a letter stating: "Given his astonishing success in his first term, we believe that Donald Trump is the candidate most likely to foster the promise and prosperity of America." Gelernter has spoken out against women in the workforce, saying working mothers were harming their children and should stay at home. Gelernter has also argued for the U.S.
voting age A legal voting age is the minimum age that a person is allowed to Voting, vote in a democracy, democratic process. For General election, general elections around the world, the right to vote is restricted to adults, and most nations use 18 year ...
to be raised, on the basis that 18-year-olds are not sufficiently mature.


Positions on science

''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', profiling him in early 2017 as a potential science advisor to
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
, called Gelernter "a vehement critic of modern academia" who has "condemned 'belligerent leftists' and blamed intellectualism for the disintegration of patriotism and traditional family values." Shortly thereafter, ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...
'' published a rebuttal of ''The Washington Post'' profile, saying it was "hard to imagine a more misleading treatment" of the "pioneering polymath" Gelernter. Gelernter has " expressed skepticism about the reality" of anthropogenic climate change," rejecting the overwhelming scientific consensus in the field. In July 2019, in a review of Stephen Meyer's book ''Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design'', which Gelernter wrote for the ''
Claremont Review of Books The ''Claremont Review of Books'' (''CRB'') is a quarterly review of politics and statesmanship published by the conservative Claremont Institute. A typical issue consists of several book reviews and a selection of essays on topics of conserv ...
'', he also rejected the scientific consensus of
evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biolo ...
. On the other hand, Gelernter stipulates he "cannot accept"
intelligent design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins".#Numbers 2006, Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for it ...
either, saying that "as a theory, it would seem to have a long way to go." In "A Response to David Gelernter's Attack on Evolution", '' Patheos'', August 26, 2019, Bob Seidensticker writes: "Let's subtitle this story, 'Guy who made his career in not-biology is convinced by other not-biologists that Biology's core theory is wrong. Computer scientist and mathematician
Jeffrey Shallit Jeffrey Outlaw Shallit (born October 17, 1957) is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is an active number theorist and a noted critic of intelligent design. He is married to Anna Lubiw, also a computer scientist. Early life ...
wrote: "Gelernter's review was not published in a science journal, but in a politics journal run by a far-right think tank. His review cites no scientific publications at all, and makes claims like 'Many biologists agree' and 'Most biologists think' without giving any supporting citations. So, not surprisingly ... Gelernter makes a fool of himself in his review, which resembles a 'greatest hits' of creationist misconceptions and lies."


Books and book reviews

Gelernter's book ''Mirror Worlds'' (1991) "prophesied the rise of the World Wide Web."John Markoff, technology writer and ''The New York Times'' reporter in a
interview with David Gelernter
/ref> Bill Joy, founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, said Gelernter was "one of the most brilliant and visionary computer scientists of our time." ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' called him a computer science "rock star". In ''The Muse in the Machine'' (1994), Gelernter theorized that creativity is based on the degree to which people focus their attention, arguing that "low focus", when attention is wandering or emotions interfere with rationality, is when people are creative. His book was harshly criticized. Psychologist Stuart Sutherland, writing in ''
Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...
'', called the theory wrong. Cognitive psychologist
Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...
, director of the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, wrote: "It makes a great story, but if you look at the contemporary records and autobiographies, it doesn't work that way." In his 2009 book ''Judaism: A Way of Being'', Gelernter wrote that God has withdrawn from the modern world, that Reform and
Conservative Judaism Conservative Judaism, also known as Masorti Judaism, is a Jewish religious movements, Jewish religious movement that regards the authority of Jewish law and tradition as emanating primarily from the assent of the people through the generations ...
do not work, that the purpose of life is to marry and rear a family, and that the
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
effort for male and female equality "is an act of aggression against both sanctity and humanity." In his 2012 book '' America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats)'', Gelernter argued that American
higher education Tertiary education (higher education, or post-secondary education) is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank defines tertiary education as including universities, colleges, and vocational schools ...
no longer cares about producing well-rounded and cultured students; academics instead believe that their role is to dictate how other Americans live and think. Scottish columnist Stephen Daisley wrote in '' Commentary'' magazine that Gelernter portrayed Obama's presidency as a symbol of the failure of American education and the success of its replacement with a liberal indoctrination system. As a solution, Gelernter proposed moving all of human knowledge to online servers so that the in-person college experience can be replaced by user-driven self-education. Daisley wrote, "''America-Lite'' is lean, incisive, convincing, delightfully indelicate, and, in a break from the conventions of the literature on education, honest. It is a fine dissection—de-construction, if you must—of the corruption of higher education and the resulting debasement of political culture. If it makes its way on to a single college reading list, Hell will have frozen over." Historian Russell Jacoby was critical in his review of Gelernter's book ''America-Lite'', saying it contained insufficient arguments. Jacoby wrote that Gelernter blamed Jews for causing the breakdown of patriotism and the traditional family, writing, "Gelernter is Jewish, and it is not likely that a non-Jew would airily argue that obnoxious leftist Jews have taken over elite higher education."


Selected works


Books

* With David Padua & Alexandru Nicolau. ''Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing''. Mass. Instit. of Tech. Pr., 1990. * With Suresh Jagannathan. ''Programming Linguistics''. Mass. Instit. of Tech., 1990. * With Nicholas Carriero. ''How to Write Parallel Programs: A first course''. Mass. Instit. of Tech. Pr., 1990. * ''Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean''. Oxford Univ. Pr., 1992. * ''The Muse in the Machine: Computerizing the Poetry of Human Thought''. MacMillan, Inc., 1994. * ''1939: The Lost World of the Fair''. HarperCollins Pub., 1996. * ''Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber''. Simon & Schuster Adult Pub. Group, 1997. * ''The Aesthetics of Computing''. Phoenix (Orion Books Ltd, UK), 1998. * ''Machine Beauty: Elegance and the Heart of Technology''. Perseus Pub., 1998. * ''Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion''. Doubleday., 2007. * ''Judaism: A Way of Being''. Yale University Press, 2009. * '' America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats)''. Encounter Books, 2012, * ''The Tides of Mind: Uncovering the Spectrum of Consciousness''. Liveright, 2016. W.W. Norton.


Articles

Gelernter has contributed to magazines such as '' City Journal'', '' The Weekly Standard'', and '' Commentary'' that are generally considered neoconservative. For seven months, he contributed a weekly op-ed column to the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
''. He has published in ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'', the ''
New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates three online sites: NYPost. ...
'', the ''Los Angeles Times'', and the ''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The (; ''FAZ''; "Frankfurt General Newspaper") is a German newspaper founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt and is considered a newspaper of record for Germany. Its Sunday edition is the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung'' ( ...
''. * "Three programming systems and a computational 'model of everything'". in Peter J. Denning, ed., ACM's new ''Visions-of-computing Anthology'', 2001. * "Twentieth Century Machines". in R. Stolley, ed., ''Life Century of Change'' (2000). * "Computers and the pursuit of happiness". ''Commentary'', Dec. 2000. * "Now that the PC is dead...,". ''The Wall Street Journal'' millennium issue, 2000.
"Americanism – & Its Enemies"
July–August 2004. * " The Inside-Out Web". ''Forbes'', April 2007.
"Machines That Will Think and Feel:
Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
is still in its infancy—and that should scare us", ''The Wall Street Journal'', March 18, 2016.
"Giving up Darwin"
in ''Claremont Review of Books''
Volume XIX, Number 2, Spring 2019


See also

* '' America-Lite'' * Linda (coordination language) * Mirror Worlds


References


External links


David Gelernter: Faculty – Computer Science at Yale


* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gelernter, David H. Living people 20th-century American painters 20th-century American scientists 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American painters 21st-century American scientists 21st-century American non-fiction writers American amputees American computer scientists American Enterprise Institute American male non-fiction writers Jewish American artists Jewish American scientists Jewish American non-fiction writers Los Angeles Times people Stony Brook University alumni The Weekly Standard people Unabomber targets Yale University alumni Yale University faculty 1955 births 21st-century American Jews American scientists with disabilities