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Path: lll-winken!das!ed
From: ed@das.llnl.gov (Edward Suranyi)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa
Subject: Re: random notes; for Drukman / Tamar / IED
Date: 19 Aug 89 23:13:42 GMT
References: <8908191922.AA13222@laurent.mit.edu>
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Reply-To: ed@das.UUCP (Edward Suranyi)
Organization: Dept. of Applied Science, UC Davis at LLNL
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In article <8908191922.AA13222@laurent.mit.edu> Love-Hounds@GAFFA.MIT.EDU writes:
>Really-From: jw@math.mit.edu
>
>What exactly did Martin Gardner write about Reich? Providing a reference
>will suffice. I thought that the FDA was prosecuting Reich because
>it was a legal way for the government to persecute a communist 
>sympathiser during the McCarthy era. Wrong?
>

It's quite likely that that was a part of it, since Reich was (for 
a while at least) definitely a Communist.  I think the main objection
was to the medical use of his "Orgone Accumulators.", however.

Martin Gardner wrote a few pages on Reich in his essay "Hermit
Scientists", which was reprinted in his book _Science:  Good, Bad, and 
Bogus_.  The essay was written in 1951, and he added a postscript for
the book, which was published in 1981.  It was this that I quoted a
few weeks ago on the net.  Gardner wrote an entire chapter on Reich in
his book _Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science_, which was published
in the late fifties, I think.

There are three ways of looking at Reich's work:
1) He was an outstanding psychoanalyst who later became one of the 
world's most brilliant biologists.
2) He was an outstanding psychoanalyst who later went off the deep
end when he became a biologist, and lost all trace of scientific
objectivity.
3) When he moved from psychoanalysis to biology, he moved from a field
where his incomptence could be hidden to one where it was obvious to
all.  When one considers that almost nothing was truly known and 
accepted by psychoanlysts then, and that whatever one said was sure
to be denied by another, this theory becomes plausible.  I don't
think psychoanalysis is a true science in the sense that biology or
physics are, even today.

I don't think that anyone who believes any one of these three 
statements is correct will ever be convinced otherwise, so it's
pointless to argue.

If people want to understand me, they should know that I've been
trying to fight against superstition, pseudoscience, and so-called
paranormal phenomena now for a long time -- much longer than I've
been a Kate fan (which is now about seven years).  So I must object
when I see stuff like that, in order to keep my self-respect.

Incidentally, to IED:  It's true that Reich was a good writer, and
if one is interested strictly from the artistic point of view, then
his books can be interesting.  One could get the same pleasure
out of them as a good fantasy novel.

Ed
ed@das.llnl.gov

P.S. That was my last posting before my trip, I promise!