EFTA01786438.pdf

From: Robert Trivers < Sent: Thursday, August 4, 2016 10:09 PM To: jeffrey E. Subject: Re: Jeffrey just arrived at my office in Je=sey waiting to be picked u to say CUNY was underw=elming is to put it mildly 75% chance of a one co=rse spring semester, 4 months maximum pay $=0,000—that barely supports life in the city or Jersey City possibility they might get excited about me and then offe= a real job, but first is this trivial matter of the course =/div> i will learn in mid-October meanwhile i=am looking at other places who are looking at me =ot sure i want to live in Stillwater Oklahoma (Oklahoma State) <=r> but Lexington Kentucky would be more plausible (University of=Kentucky) but none of these people promoting me e=ther know me or are very strong meanwhile possibl= UC Riverside and so on =his is going to take a while to play out most gra=eful for your kind offer of support, of no use with these characters at th=s point, but potentially could be a chip in the game assuming you wish to =ffer it again damn, i forgot, this letter was mea=t to be about Chomsky a real don CHOMSKY i wanted you to know something about Noam that you may not= he not only laid the foundation for linguistics but he destroyed Skinner =nd naive behaviorism—that all human behavior could be explained by=previous patterns of reward and punishment like art true mad men Skinner went one step too far—even language could b= explained by his theory, so he wrote a book pushing the absurd theory tha= we learn to know what different sounds mean through a system of reward an= punishment; parents running around with barrels full of raisins doling th=m out so at to create linkages; and it was EFTA_R1_00109273 EFTA01786438 Chomsky who did the take down=E2 1959 beautiful paper showing the numerous absurdities that would b= required for Skinner to be right i read it in 19=5 and have been his admirer at a distance but ver= much warmed up to him when we met for the Seed interview and corresponden=e which only petered after the death of his wife, though he has kept up yo= probably know a fairly busy schedule of talks and interviews all best wishes bob <=1" =div class="gmail_extra"> On Thu, Aug 4, 20=6 at 8:54 AM, jeffrey E. <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]» wrote:=br> great On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 8:53 AM, Robert Trivers > wrote: I'm in NYC for a 1pm lunch meeting with the Dean of CUNY gra=uate school, hopefully about a semester's teaching there this coming s=ring; i will call you when i get out —2 On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 7:33 PM, jeffrey E. <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]» wrote: im in ny friday afternoon. . or we=can speak , on the phone tomow? =AO please note The information contained in this commu=ication is confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may cons=itute inside information, and is intended only for the use of the addre=see. It is the property of JEE Unauthorized use, disclosure or copyi=g of this communication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited a=d may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, pl=ase notify us immediately by return e-mail or by e-mail to [email protected], a=d destroy this communication and all copies thereof, including all a=tachments. copyright -all rights reserved 2 EFTA_R1_00109274 EFTA01786439  =AO please note The information contained in this communication is<=r>confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may constitute insid= information, and is intended only for the use of the addressee. It is =he property of JEE Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of thiscommunication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited and may be un=awful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify =s immediately by return e-mail or by e-mail to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> , and destro= this communication and all copies thereof, including all attachments. =opyright -all rights reserved 3 EFTA_R1_00109275 EFTA01786440