Worth a watch if you're interested in McCarthy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrUy1Vn2KdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrUy1Vn2KdI The gist is that he lik

Worth a watch if you're interested in McCarthy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrUy1Vn2KdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrUy1Vn2KdI The gist is that he liked smart people. He was good friends with Murray Gell-Mann and others at The Santa Fe Institute. I absolutely think he "liked science," I don't think he was cynical about it, though I do see where you could pick that up in his writing. According to Gell-Mann, McCarthy knew a lot about 20th century physics...not in terms of math but in a "history of ideas" sense, i.e. where major physicists stood on various questions.