In my opinion, anybody who purposefully hides the historical background of
some idea in order to claim the merit all to himself, deserves to be
called a "plagiarist", irrespective of whether he contributed or not to
the enrichment of the original idea. Burger, in a way, was lucky to fall
for an idea, the life and death of which can be summed up as the history of
a lost cause. Obviously his "plagiary" would have never held out so long,
had he championned classical scientific dogma instead of defending
"heretical" theories .
As a matter of fact, the strong humanist and libertarian overtone of the
"health instinct" hypothesis made the whole concept untenable ground for
science, ever since food scientists started collaborating massively with
the capitalist world in the middle of the XIX c...History reveals that some
of the reasons why the Puritan thought has been literally trashed by
XXthc. intellectuals, in the wake of the Prohibition disaster has a lot in
common with the way instincto theories are now being "welcomed" by
mainstream science. But who does remember that some of the arguments raised
by the "dry" against alcohol referred to some instinct being cheated by the
denaturation of grapes or cereals ? Indeed many moral philosphers had warned
that purging science of all of its anti-rationalist stances, like french
scientists had been doing since the Revolution, doomed any attempt of
using scientific knowledge to improve the common lot of human beings. How
clear sighted they were...
>It has always been my opinion that Burger did not start his reflection from
scratch, or from a red cabbage as recounted in his book. Anybody whith
little exposure to philosophy or history of ideas knows that it is
impossible to write "La guerre du cru" with as little reading as listed at
the end of the book. What happened to the rest of the references ? Since
all or nearly all the quotations refer to first hand reports and original
research , and not reports on reports on other people's research, one may
guess that the work accomplished to put up "La guerre du cru" has been
tremendous . Where does this appear in the bibio ? And what about the other
people involved in finding out the necessary references ? Did BURGER look
into this prime research litterature all by himself ? If he did, he didn't
pick up the right books by chance.
With some epitemological hindsight, one realizes how extremely difficult it
must have been for somebody previously unaware of the details and working
principles of human food instinct, as Burger pretends he was when he started
his research, to devise a comprehensive theoretical framework which would
do away with all the traps of our feeble understanding. Epistemologically
speaking, very few cases occured in history where a single person " cracked
down" several paradigms pertaining to the same issue. Simply because a
discoverer is so much blinded by the dazzle of his first success, that he
cannot see that the correct interpretation of teh first paradigm
presupposes the breaking through of a second paradigm .
>In the case of the "re-discovery" of the functioning of our food
instinct, there are no less than two paradigms to be cracked before one
gets the full picture of the problem as exposed in La guerre du Cru. Let's
suppose that Burger had been acquainted, at an early stage of his search
for the Holy Diet with the idea that children have a workable instinct
(I'll call it the DKB connection : Burger was Kousmine' patient, who has a
english speaking russian physician trained in Swiss pediatry in the 1920's,
perfectly knew about the results of Clara Davis' experiments on children
food instinct ) and further, that he BELIEVED in the idea of an instinct for
children and adult alike (this belief makes him very much a citizen of
Switzerland . Burger could not have been French ...) That would still
leave us with two paradigms : the dualist view of the universe (the
paradigm of Good and Evil) which foresees that instinct will work under
certain conditions, but will fail to work under other conditions, and the
paradigm of the food spectrum ( the "Golden Age" paradigm) which determines
the set of foods which is likely to deceive our instinct, and by deduction,
the set likely to fit within its original specifications.
>My conviction that Burger could not have overcome two first category
paradigms with his own wit and reasoning power, however sharp these might
be, started to emerge after several short discussions with him on
unrelated topics. I had expected to meet a man of overflowing culture,
ready to share the tale of his intellectual victories . I found none of
that . ON the contrary. The gap between the book and the man was the first
thing which set me thinking about the actual origin of Burger's theories.
>Everything I've learned on his account since then only serves to reinforce
my conviction that the history of the re-discovery of the human food
instinct as laid down by Burger in his book is just a dressing up of the
real story. When we read LA guerre du Cru, we think we are reading the
story from square One, while, unknowingly, we are being given a start from
square 2. Research being very much an iterative process, I still have doubts
on the sequence of events. But I'm almost positive that he has not yet
provided us with the main bibliographic reference which has both inspired
his research, and laid the foundations of his early conviction. Traits of
intellectual dishonesty can be seen in the fact that he never mentionned the
experiments carried on in the 30's on the self selection of diets by newly
weaned infants. His seeming disinterest for the history of the idea of food
instinct is however, in the lack of definitive evidence, the best indication
that "something is cooking".
IMO, his actual contribution to the whole issue has been "limited" to
tidying up the details and practical arrangements of the theory. This was
indeed a most important element, but of course its importance could hardly
have be reckoned by non-followers, and could also hardly have earned him
the kind of eternal recognition his ego was demanding from his young
followers. After several tentatives to gain acceptance for his thesis from
official circles, Burger would have promptly lost all hopes of official
glory. In an effort to gain with the lay public that much recognition he
had failed to secure from his peers (Burger was himself a scientist), he
would have been led to travesty reality. The socratic dialog form which he
used in his book with wit and irony made it all the more easier...
This topic being essentially speculative, I will not enter into
correspondence with the ideas developped therein. I will however welcome
your comments.
Cheers
Denis
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