September 07, 2004

Dr. Doolittle's Delusion

Steve Anderson has a new book out, Dr. Doolittle's Delusion: Animal Communication, Linguistics, and the Uniqueness of Human Language. It's reviewed by Donald McNeil Jr. in today's New York Times. I'm not able to get a permanent link for the review -- at least yet -- so read it while you can. Although the review says that the book is "to be published in November", amazon's web page cites a publication date of September 30. It also says that the volume "usually ships in 8 to 10 days". It's not logically consistent to assert this, on September 7, when you also claim that the same work will be published on September 30. Of course, that might depend on the meaning of "published", not to speak of "on". I don't imagine that Koko is worried about the inconsistency.

Posted by Mark Liberman at September 7, 2004 04:20 PM