Worm-breeding with Tongue in Cheek or the Confessions of a scientist
hoist by his own petard
by James V. McConnell
My God, he said, if you keep publishing articles in that thing, people may actually want to cite them some time, and then where will you be? You ought to change the name, throw out all that so-called funny stuff, and make it a respectable journal.
I also treasure a letter I received from a world-famous zoologist who demanded that we remove her name from our subscription list because we were misleading students into thinking that Science could be fun!
Now, in all these cases, the person doing the criticizing was a bona fide, expert scientist as well as Scientist. They were quite sincere in their comments, offered them up for my own betterment. I respect their scientific work, but I do feel rather sorry that so much of what is great and glorious and meaningful about science seems to have slipped through their fingers.
The kind of intropunitive wit that is the hallmark of the Digest can thrive only when its author is fairly secure emotionally and intellectually. People who neither understand nor appreciate humour are probably threatened by those of us who do. We speak a language they don’t understand, we react to the world around us in ways that are foreign and disturbing to them. Most of them have based their entire approach to life on the premise that seriousness is next to godliness.
Those of us who see the occasional folly and ignorance of most of our (and their) behaviour often react by cracking a joke. Humour, particularly that directed against ourselves, keeps us humble in the face of our own too-wellperceived incompetence. The totally serious person fears this kind of insightful perception into his own behaviour patterns and fears humour because he cannot afford to be humble.
Now perhaps you see the Digest for what it really is: the house organ of an anti-Scientific movement. It is my firm conviction that.; most of what is wrong with Science these days can be traced to the fact that Scientists are willing to make objective and dispassionate studies of any natural phenomena at all except their own scientific behaviour. We know considerably more about flatworms than we do about people who study flatworms. The Establishment never questions its own motives; the true humorist always does.
WORM RUNNER’S DIGEST
TABLE OF CONTENT
Volume 14 Issue 2
Published Dec 1, 1972
- James V. McConnell. Worms (and Things.)
- Rodney C. Bryani, Frederick Petty, Nelson N. Santos, Judith Warren & William Byrne. Dark-Avoidance Transfer Goldfish.
- Mary Lou Cheal. Conditioned Reinforsement or Facilitation? The Effects of Variation of Stimulus Duration.
- Roy Behrens. Anamorphosis: In Morphology & the Visual Arts.
- Joseph C. Huber. Speculations Concerning the Physiology of Learning in Paramecia.
- Harry N. Brandeis. The Psychology of Sociological Privacy.
- James H. Payne. Cockroaches, Periplaneta americana: A Preliminary Frigid Study.
- Carl C. Lindegren. Celullar Organisation in Relation to Evolution.
- Reuben Altman, Luis M. Laosa, Clifford J. Drew, Keith F. Bell, John A. Cooney, Maureen McGavern, J. D. S. Suzanne L. Gray. Book Reviews (Edited by Jon D. Swartz.) The Role of Genetics in Mental Retardation, Robert M. Allen, Arnold D. Cortazzo, Richard P. Toister (Eds.,) Psycholinguistics: Selected Papers, Roger Brown, DNA Complex & Adaptive Behavior, John Gaito,.The Anatomy of Mental Illness, Arthur Janov, The Therapist Responds, Clinton J. Kew & Clifton E. Kew, Science, the Brain & Our Future, W. R. Klemm, Reflections: Bio-psychological, Psychoanalytic, Sociopolitical, Aestetic, & Personal, Ross Thalheimer, The VII Mental Measurements Yearbook, Oskar K. Buros (Ed.;) Gordon W. Allport’s Ontopsychology of the Person, Joseph P. Ghougassian; Psychopsy — Manual for Ka-Ro Inkblot Test, Yasufumi Kataguchi; The Great Psychologists, Robert I. Watson; Mental Health Book Review Index, Council on Research in Bibliography.
- J. D. S. Re Reviewers & Reviewed.
- Suzanne L. Gray. Forthcoming Reviews, Books Received.
Volume 15 Issue 1
Published Jul 1, 1973
- James V. McConnell. Worms (and Things.)
- MaryLou Cheal. Reproduction in the Blue Gourami.
- Louis A. Allen. The Mainsprings of Behavior.
- Alan C. Preston & Robert J. Kirkby. A Note on Mice in the Hebb-Williams Maze.
- Leigh van Vallen. A Note on Dreams.
- Bruce W. Meeks, H. Kent Merill & Lesley M. Cooper. Positive & Negative Transference of Specific Learning via Injection of RNA Extract in Rats.
- Jerome Peters. Toward a Reductionist View of Sigmund Freud.
- Robert Hadek & Daniel M. Rosen. Studies in Light Avoidance Responses in the Intact, Segmental & Suprapharyngeal Ganglion Ablated Lubricus.
- MaryLou Cheal. Steroid Hormones & Brain Function, Charles H. Sawyer & Roger A. Gorski (Ed.)
- Jere E. Brophy.Language Development: Structure & Function, Philip S. Dale.
- Carolyn M. Evertson. Children & Youth; Psychosocial Development, Boyd McCandless & Ellis Evans.
- Charles C. Cleland. Communication & Affect: A Comparative Approach, Thomas M. Alloway, Lester Krames & Patricia L. Pliner (Eds.)
- Luis M. Laosa. When We Deal with Children, Fritz Redl.
- Luis M. Laosa. Cross-Cultural Studies of Behavior, Ihsan Al-Issa & Wayne Dennis (Eds.)
- Robert C. Reinehr. Methods in Psychobiology, Vol. 2, R. D. Myers (Ed.)
- Reuben Altman. Halfway Through the Tunnel, Barry R. Berkey.
- Keith F. Bell. Grouth Through Reason: Verbatim Cases in Rational-Emotive Therapy, Albert Ellis.
- J. D. S. The Psychologists, Vol. 1, T. S. Kraviec (Ed.); Personality Development and Social Behavior in the Mentally Retarded, Manny Sternlicht & Martin R. Deutsch; Mental Health Book Review Index: An Annual Bibliography of Books & Book Reviews in the Bihevioral Sciences, Vol. 17; Re Reviewers & Reviewed.
- Suzanne L. Gray. Forthcoming Reviews, Books Received.
- Jessie Shelby. An Annotated Bibliography of Research on Vertebrates.
