liable when it comes to an objective experiment? The implication from the state-
ment “Baker wished a favorable outcome” is that my work and that of other sup-
porters of Reich is biased and skewed. This is a subtle catch-22: those who take the
trouble to demonstrate the validity of his work become tainted as “sympathetic”
and thus excluded. ... I would have been personally happier had [Reich’s] pendulum
experiment come out exactly as Reich states, but it did not and that is what I report-
ed^29.The negative replications of Drs. Lion and Little contain the possibility of a reverse
bias. The FDA chose both men as expert scientists in part because they indicated an eager-
ness to be helpful in what they thought was a worthwhile effort to stop an obvious fraud.
This kind of attitude does not suggest “objectivity” any more than the enthusiasm of the
positive replicators.
A second, more important point concerns the paucity of these replications. It is
now over forty years since Reich asserted a temperature difference in the accumulator. Why
has so little been done when so much is at stake? And, especially, why has so little been done
by highly qualified scientists?
These questions presuppose a disinterested scientific community that will look
calmly at any new concept or finding, if it has even a remote possibility of adding to our
knowledge. However, as the scientific historian Thomas Kuhn brilliantly argues, upholders
of an established conceptual scheme (or “paradigm,” in his language) are not likely to be
kindly disposed toward any new paradigm or “revolutionary science.”^30 This resistance is
not due simply to prejudice or pigheadedness, though both may be factors in any given
instance. Representatives of a particular scientific discipline may accomplish a great deal by
pursuing an agreed-upon paradigm and applying it to an increasing number of problems—
in short, to pursuing “normal science.” Scientists are reluctant to abandon their established
concepts unless through their investigations they uncover such significant “anomalies” or
divergent findings as to constitute a “crisis” in the field. “The reason is clear,” Kuhn states.
“As in manufacture, so in science—retooling is an extravagance to be reserved for the occa-
sion that demands it.”^31
It is much easier to try to find some means of explaining new findings through the
old theory or adumbrations to it.An example of using the old theory to explain orgonomy
is to posit that Reich’s bions developed not from disintegrating matter but from highly heat-
resistant air germs. An example of adumbration is to explain the effect of the accumulator
in terms of negative ions, obviating any need for a new orgonomic paradigm.
The proponents of the new paradigm have the responsibility to advance their case
with sufficient persuasiveness to win over a young generation of scientists not yet totally
immersed in the existing conceptual scheme. In the grim words of the renowned German
physicist Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents
and making them see the light,but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new
generation grows up that is familiar with it.”^32
272 Myron SharafFury On Earth