A Great Man Like Darwin 1

In this blog entry, I would like to introduce a great man who is like Darwin in a number of respects.

Like so many things I post, I am quite hesitant whether to post this or not. However, if it interests one person, it is worth it.

Is Darwin great? At least to some people he is. Will understanding Darwin's work make anyone's day to day life better? Not really. It will make our systems better. In order to do this smart and powerful men have to understand and make changes. All these apply to the present great man also.

Why don't I come out and say what the name of this great man is and what his field of work is? There are some reasons for it. First the field of work. If someone reports breakthrough work in quantum electrodynamics say, the following are likely to happen:

1. Very few people will doubt that quantum electrodynamics is a scientific field

2. Very few people will feel that they will have equally valid things to say about quantum electrodynamics

Unfortunately, in the field of the present great man, neither of the above is likely to happen. (In other words, people will doubt that his field is a scientific field. People will also feel that they will have equally valid things to say about the field.) Again the comparison with Darwin is quite valid. Darwin and this man provided alternate explanations for views held for tens of thousands of years and therefore found a very tough audience. They were in fact grossly misunderstood and harshly attacked.

A Bishop Wilberforce asked a supporter of Darwin called Huxley "whether it was through his grandmother or his grandfather that Huxley considered himself descended from a monkey". This is a complete misunderstanding of Darwin's theory. Darwin said that hundreds of millions of years ago our ancestors all belonged to a different species (and not that one was a monkey two generations ago).

This great man could have achieved what he achieved only in America. Given his skills he could have achieved anything he chose to. Instead of going for great riches, he toiled hard unappreciated.

He was a PhD from Harvard. Certain approaches in his field were popular there when he joined as a PhD student. However, he had his own unique approach. His thesis advisor was greatly troubled by his approach and resigned from his committee a few days before the thesis defense. Fortunately, he had enough supporters in medical school who were willing to step in and make sure that he got his degree. About twenty years later, the thesis advisor who had cold feet wrote a book in which he called his former student's thesis a "true thesis".

When I came to the US, a former Indian occupant of my apartment had left behind a lot of issues of Time magazine, one of which had a cover story on this great man. (Sept. 1971.) I read it and was violently opposed to his views. I felt that it would be very easy to prove him wrong and started working on a paper proving him wrong, which I was going to send to him. To make a long story short, in a period of about 5 years, I got convinced that he was right and have been a follower ever since. Of course, this is not all I did during those five years. That was a period of considerable tumult in my life. I had sisters to marry off. [For some reasons, this fell into my lap.] Classes to complete and a career to start. I am probably the only person in the whole history of mankind who would spend one weekend each month on horoscopes (even though I didn't believe in them) and another weekend each month trying to understand this scientist.

A common reaction to his theories is that they will work with animals and not with humans. A professor at the liberal college Oberlin was making this same criticism in class once. The students got tired of this and decided to prove him wrong in class. [This beats passive listening.] He talked standing on a dais. They decided to condition him to stand at the front right edge of the dais and lecture. They used smiles and looking at him as reinforcers. They got him to do this gradually. Soon, he was standing at the selected edge shouting "this man's conditioning theories will work with animals but not with humans". To prove that this was not a fluke, they decided to condition the behavior of looking at the blackboard and lecturing. This was also a success. [I am too tired to post a reference.]

I have given a lot hints on what this man's field is. If someone guesses what it is, I will say whether they are correct or not.

 

Coffeelover, my sole reader, thanks for your comments

> Just realized that you did not mention any beautiful women in past two blogs. Why???

I am getting a tad bit tired of the "It Happened" series, partly because some people are grossly misunderstanding it and partly because I am sort of running out of material. I have at least two more episodes planned. I think that I will post these some time. To repeat, my goal/strategy/technique in that series are along the following lines:

1. Take a totally meaningless event and write as though it was a lot more important (This part is totally light)

2. In the process analyze things as I normally do. (This part is serious)

Some people have gotten (1) above while some have not. Them are the breaks.

> Since you took time to write this blog, I am going to try my best to understand it.

I definitely appreciate this sentiment. This man's life is full of human interest stories -- I find them fascinating. I have not come across anyone even remotely close in greatness. His life is interesting solely for this, leaving out the science part. I plan to follow up Coffeelover in a Part 2 of this topic.

In some sense, this is my life's work. Unfortunately, the field is not thriving at the moment and I have no interest in hitching my band wagon to a losing cause. I am not that noble -- never was and never will be.

Thanks again.