Even though I take pride in my ability to adjust my opinions in the face of new evidence, it can really hurt, and it sure did this time. Now what should I believe? And what fragments of false belief were left behind in my mind? On top of that, I had to notify the people I gave the book to. When there are that many errors in a single chapter, who knows how many there might be in the rest of the book? It was clear to me that the book could not be trusted.
I reached out to Penguin, UC Berkeley and the Norwegian publisher Press (which published the Norwegian translation).
The worst reaction was from Press — they didn’t respond at all. Penguin said that the editorial team would take a look, but I never heard back from them. UC Berkeley responded promptly but concluded that they would not conduct a formal investigation.
Below, I’m publishing my email exchange with UC Berkeley so that others can see it rather than it just gathering dust in my email archive. In a way, it’s unfair to pillory UC Berkeley, considering that they actually have a process for dealing with research misconduct and at least responded to my complaint. Compare that to the publishers, who neither have a process nor responded. Nevertheless, I expect more from a renowned research institution like UC Berkeley, so I still believe I’m right to publish our correspondence.