Former Fortune columnist dies at 84

Daniel Seligman, a columnist at Fortune magazine for more than two decades, died recently at the age of 84, writes Dennis Hevesi of the New York Times.

Hevesi writes, “Mr. Seligman, who later wrote for Forbes magazine and other publications, was an editor and writer at Fortune from 1950 to 1997 and wrote more than 400 ‘Keeping Up’ columns in his last 21 years at the magazine. Among the array of subjects Mr. Seligman poked fun at were political correctness, affirmative action, overbearing bureaucrats and what he considered loony leftists.

“He also disputed those who doubted the value of I.Q. tests, a topic he fully examined in his 1992 book, ‘A Question of Intelligence: The I.Q. Debate in America.’

“Many of Mr. Seligman’s opinions were grounded in his own application of mathematics, and while he was an ardent anti-communist in his early years, he sometimes used statistics to criticize the right, as well. In a 1992 column he tweaked a fictitious Conservative member of the British Parliament who wondered why so many of his colleagues had been ensnared in sex scandals.”

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