Humpty Dumpty

HUMPTY DUMPTY ROBERT LANZA* If there is a beginning to this story, it began at the SaIk Institute for Biological Sciences (for, you see, I had an association for the summer with Dr. Jonas SaIk and was finishing up some research). I was having my coffee when the letter came. Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts 27 July 1978 Robert P. Lanza % Dr. Jonas SaIk The SaIk Institute San Diego, California 92112 Dear Mr. Lanza: I am sorry to be so slow in answering your letter, but I have been in some doubt about whether you would find it worthwhile spending the summer here. I have no research funds and could not pay you anything. Nor do I have any considerable amount of space. A young colleague of mine will be conducting some experiments with operant equipment that might interest you, and I shall be working at the time on the third volume of my autobiography. Except for an occasional hot spell, Cambridge is a pleasant place to pass the summer, and I think you would find the few people here in this building interesting. There is usually a pleasant atmosphere and a great many exchanges of opinions. If something of the sort interests you and if I can tell you anything further, please let me know. Yours sincerely, B. F. Skinner»Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115. Address: 6 Peterson Road, Natick, Massachusetts 01760.© 1994 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 003 1-5982/94/3702-0859$01 .00 288 Robert Lanza ¦ Humpty Dumpty They were indeed an interesting group of people who worked in his building. If—and it was entirely possible—there were an heir-apparent to B. F. (Fred) Skinner I feel convinced it would have been this young colleague of his. In view of this possibility, I will not (though I could) appeal to his writings as proof that he was capable of such an achievement : I will not (though I could) point to the strong backing he had from Fred himself, to the relationship he had so carefully cultivated, or to his knowledge of operant psychology. I will take the more expedient course of simply explaining why it didn't happen. This young colleague, whom I shall call James, had a loudspeaker in his office. It was rigged to an alarm clock set to go off at 7 a.m. (He was never late.) B. F. Skinner, he explained very early one morning, had influenced the lives of millions of people. "But I, on the other hand, have influenced B. F. Skinner himself." He told me this, in no spirit of egoism, but because he really believed that I would be interested in the details of his "genius." His wife, no doubt, was interested in them too: and she did not think it vanity to say so. "Isn't James a genius?" she would ask me. (She would ask me this in front of him, as it was a great comfort to have a medical student think so.) I would simply nod, looking as solemn as I could. The summer glided away, pleasantly enough, partly in exchanging opinions with James and partly in experiments in the laboratory, trying to demonstrate the qualitative similarities between humans and two white Carneaux pigeons (both males) named Jack and Jill. Fred was the only person besides James and me who was working on the project. Skinner hadn't done any research in the laboratory in nearly two decades —-when he taught pigeons to dance with each other, and even to play Ping-Pong. My impression of the gentle and yet dignified old man was entirely favorable. Yet I was sad to note that he allowed James to treat him unkindly—and that this was becoming a more frequent occurrence. The conversations between them, into which his secretary and I were occasionally drawn, had an edge and a malevolence rarely met with except between enemies: and, as I knew they had great admiration for each other, I felt certain that control alone could explain the behavior. "I'm going over to the corner to vomit," James remarked, a propos of Fred's having resisted some changes James made on...