Constanda has quite strong opinions about math education. He views calculus reform, teacher's unions and government intrusion in educational standards as being responsible for what he sees as the sorry state of education in the world today. He also has biases about language (he seems very upset that some people might say "Mary only drinks water at lunch" when they mean that Mary does not drink anything other than water at lunch), about the real numbers (he is certain that the real numbers are the numbers needed to describe the universe, whereas I consider it possible either that the universe is truly discrete and so can be adequately described with the rationals or that the universe necessarily involves complex or quaternionic quantities, each of which can find support in some physical theories), and so on.

I was really optimistic about this book at the start. I thought it sounded like a clever idea and enjoyed the first encounter between J.J. Moon (whose home is near one of the Jovian moons) and the mathematician narrator. Yet, I find that I cannot strongly recommend this book. The problem is not that the author is very opinionated. I agree with some of his opinions and disagree with others, and in any case he is entitled to have his opinions. The question is, however, whether this format is a good way to express them.

One problem with Dude, can you count? is purely due to the author's writing style, and could or should have been addressed in editing. This is the fact that J.J. and the narrator sound a bit too much alike. Rather than sounding like a conversation between Constanda and someone else, it comes across sounding as if he's having a conversation with himself. Of course, that is in fact what is happening, but I wish he had masked it a little better.

Since the author is trying to convince us to agree with his opinions, he does offer arguments and explanations. However, I am left with the feeling that rather than using the concept of the alien as a form of entertainment to get us to read the book, it is used instead as an unfair part of these arguments. That is, I feel that he is cheating. Consider, for instance, the drolly named VOTSIT, a device the aliens use to record interviews with people. The VOTSIT, as we learn through an example, forces the interviewee to answer truthfully. Then, when a calculus reform supporter is "interviewed" in the book, he is presented saying the things Constanda imagines such a person would say under the influence of this machine. This allows him to set up a "straw man" opponent. Similarly, having an alien bring us a list of ten mathematical commandments seemingly elevates Constanda's ideas beyond just the opinions of one respected math professor to an almost religious level.

Of course, a reader should be intelligent enough to remember that this is fiction, there is no VOTSIT and that everything is being written by Constanda. But, I felt that the science fiction aspect of this book did not do enough to keep it entertaining and served mostly to attempt to add weight to the arguments.

Many of the mathematical curiosities and jokes are things I've encountered before in my years as a math student, postdoc and professor. The book would have been more enjoyable for me, of course, if I was seeing them for the first time. Probably, the book was not really aimed at me. Still, I wonder whether the author has too low of an opinion of his audience. He explains in the preface that he has decided to err on the side of supplying too many footnotes, but I could not help but be offended on behalf of all readers of the book that he thought we might need a footnote to explain who Shakespeare was.

It was partly because Constanda seems to be talking down to his readers that this book kept me thinking about elitism. Personally, I agree with the author that the politically popular viewpoint that our schools should ensure that every student succeeds can lead only to lowered standards. Still, although we cannot act as if every student has equal scholastic potential, it is also possible to go too far in the opposite direction. Once one imagines the existence of a hierarchy of abilities, it becomes very easy for prejudices and elitism to become entrenched. There is certainly a hint of this in the notion that (according to the alien's criteria) a person can be assigned a low intelligence rating merely because of their profession, and I fear that Constanda's reaction to the swinging of the pendulum too far in the direction of presumed equality may itself be too far in the other direction. (At least, that is my opinion, though I do not have any extraterrestrial corroboration for that belief.)

Perhaps the world would be a better place if everyone took Christian Constanda's messages to heart. As I've said, I do agree with many of his opinions. A serious book that presented convincing evidence for these viewpoints would be welcome. An entertaining, humorous book that contains interesting mathematical tidbits and conveyed a few of these ideas along the way would also be nice. However, at least to me, this book was neither of those. Rather, it was a diatribe that was difficult to take seriously since the author seems a bit too curmudgeonly (do I really need to be terribly upset when I ask someone "How are you?" and they reply "I'm good"?), a bit too condescending, and because the arguments presented in the book rely too heavily on alien knowledge and technology.