"(Gardner) writes about various kinds of cranks with the conscious superiority of the scientist, and in most cases one can share his sense of the victory of reason. But after half a dozen chapters this non-stop superiority begins to irritate; you begin to wonder about the standards that make him so certain he is always right. He asserts that the scientist, unlike the crank, does his best to remain open-minded. So how can he be so sure that no sane person has ever seen a flying saucer, or used a dowsing rod to locate water? And that all the people he disagrees with are unbalanced fanatics? A colleague of the positivist philosopher A. J. Ayer once remarked wryly "I wish I was as certain of anything as he seems to be about everything". Martin Gardner produces the same feeling."
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Academics from the United StatesJews from the United StatesAgnostics from the United StatesAcademics from AustriaJews from Austria
Original Language: English
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Sources
Colin Wilson in The Quest For Wilhelm Reich, pp. 2-3
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich
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Wilhelm Reich
1897 – 1957
österreichischer Psychoanalytiker
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