From: andrew@rentec.com (Andrew Mullhaupt)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Heidegger, Hitler, Racism and logic.
Date: 21 Aug 92 22:00:38 GMT
Organization: Renaissance Technologies Corp., Setauket, NY.

In article <BtALB7.5D0@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>
>In article <1186@kepler1.rentec.com>, andrew@rentec.com (Andrew Mullhaupt) writes:
>|> In article <Bt4stL.Lxx@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>|> >|> Logic, by itself, can be a most dangerous tool. I hope that this
>|> >
>|> >I hope this isn't going in a direction where an appropriate response
>|> >will be, "When logic is outlawed, only outlaws will use logic".
>|> >
>|> >It may be fruitful to draw a distinction between logic and rhetoric
>|> >here.
>|> 
>|> Care to elucidate?
>
>Only that while logic deals with the goodness and badness (correctness/
>incorrectness -- in the sense of being truth-preserving or not) of inferences,
>rhetoric deals with the convincingness (sorry -- terrible term) of arguments.

Given the recent 'truth is good' question, it is surprising to me that you
use the word here.

>|> >|> logic: Many Nazis have displayed an unswerving dedication to logic in
>|> >|> their implementations of 'final solutions' [Extremely final in many
>|> >|> cases] and 'medical research'.  I _understand_ the
>|> 
>|> For those with a strong enough stomach, one should read R. J. Lifton's
>|> book _The Nazi Doctors_. He interviews some of the miscreants so you
>|> get a close view (Lifton is a psychiatrist) but Lifton makes it quite 
>|> clear what the actual scientific value of the Nazis was: nothing.
>
>I'm not sure what you mean here.
>
>Not having seen it I cannot comment on this book.  However, I do recall
>a couple of years ago discussing the Nazi experiments with someone, and
>I remember her saying that the Nazis in fact made some substantial
>advances in certain fields of medicine (I think treatment of burns may
>have been one of these), but that the records were not generally accessible
>and mention of the research tended to be suppressed because of the obviously
>hideous nature of the experiments. 

You hear this kind of stuff occasionally, (also relating to exposure to
extreme cold experiments which were performed because of the Russian
front...) but ask yourself - are there not enough fire departments to do
burn research? The point Lifton makes is that the great bulk of the Nazi
experiments were totally useless, as they were based on ridiculous Nazi
genetic theory, and then the stuff left over was more of a psychological
defense mechanism for the experimentalists. They needed a way to convince
themselves that they had not been co-opted into pure killing machines,
which for the most part they had. Several of the larger scale experiments
are treated in detail by Lifton, and it is clear that the people involved
and the results produced are not central to any further development.

>I'm not sure what "actual scientific
>value of the Nazis" means here, but it is undeniable that within the
>regime there were some pretty bright scientists and engineers
>(who may or may not have subscribed to the political agenda).  Do recall
>such things as the V1, the V2, and the first jet-powered fighter aircraft.

I don't want to get involved in history of the Meteor vs. the Me 262, but
jets and the jet fighter were being developed in Britain. Operational use
of the British planes was not critical, since long range was the Allied
priority at the time.

Keep in mind that the scientists in Germany were not all Nazis. Heisenberg,
without doubt the greatest scientist involved in the Nazi effort, was not
a Nazi. You occasionally hear that the German scientists didn't always work
towards completion of their appointed projects, etc., as witness to the lack
of Nazism of some of them. Samuel Goudsmit's report _Alsos_ treats in detail
the level of progress of the German atomic effort.

I believe there were two very strong pure mathematicians who were convinced
Nazis, (Teichmuller and Bieberbach) and this is the best I can think of. By
far the flower of German science had fled the advent of Nazism.

So given the unbelievably powerful pre-war German science, and the lack of
positive Nazism evident in the few big names who stayed through the war, I
am not surprised to find that this seems to be the way it went in the life
sciences, especially since the Nazis promoted a false foundation there, too.
(Cf. Lysenkoism/Stalinism).

But this is a historical point.

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta,sci.logic,sci.math