Intellectual honesty

Mark A.R. Kleiman shows us what you do when someone takes pains to clarify something for you.

In addition to reminding me about the difference between Aesop and Prokofiev, a number of readers told me I was utterly and completely wrong about what's going on in Iran and what to do about it.

It's not unusual, of course, for me to be utterly and completely wrong, or for my readers to bring my errors to my attention.

What is unusual is that several of them made arguments and offered facts that seemed cogent even to me, and that all of them were polite.

I'm no expert, and they could well be right. So in lieu of a comments section, I'm posting some of their emails.

He's right; the email he got is very clarifying about how to handle a potentially-nuclear Iran. (Hint: if we rush in to kill people and blow things up, it will be counterproductive.)