Science and faux-science
 

Usually, I detest the way the media reports events in science to the general public, particularly medicine.
Most often, such reports strike me as "faux science" or the interpretation is far beyond justification.
But then every once in a while, an article in the news that strikes me as being important.
Time will say whether a given article is "for real" or is only "faux-science"

Here is one article I expect will turn out to be eventually real and significant...

NY Times (opinion)
By ANNIE MURPHY PAUL
Published: February 4, 2012

The Upside of Dyslexia

Most of the things in my life that I thought were horrible and damning when I was younger have turned out to be assets in my maturity.

This.

There are, however, vision therapists who can provide special glasses that actually have very carefully crafted prisms instead of normal lenses, basically spreading the peripheral part large and minimizing the center, and they can completely change the way certain individuals are able to see the world. Like, kids with severe dyslexia put on a pair designed for their unique visual field, and they can instantly read. It's cool stuff.

Hmmm... dyslexic kids prolly hit the curve ball better.

I'm mildly dyslexic.

I just tried the peripheral vision thing, competing against both my parents. Mine is better than theirs.

Who'da thunk it?

I realized I have this backwards--they need the center spread out so they can see it more, and the peripheral gets shoved even smaller because they can already see it great.

I figured I read that wrong... Thanks for the correction.

I expect medicine of all disciplines will become increasingly specialized to the unique properties of individuals, and, I hope, to tailor an educational environment which zeroes in on each person's strongest use of their personal abilities and the skillset inherent to their makeup.

I wish I would have realized, before my 30s, that there is a condition called Asperger's, which is basically a super-power.

My son has Aspergers and yes it is a super power! He is awesome. Teachers though, I could talk for hours about a minority of teachers who do not understand what the fuck is going on.

I read some where that ADHD knows the rules, can't help breaking them, whereas Asperger's literally doesn't know the rules. Like, naïve to social cues. My wife has to tell me when girls are hitting on me. I just think people are being nice!

Oh, hai. How you doin'? Listen, do you have the time? 'Cause I got the place.

I'm just being nice. :lol:

Ha! ding ding ding... I have no clue either.

But you also have no wife.....

Significant other. After 6 years... pretty close.

LOL you guys. Yea, my boy does not get many social cues. Smart as a whip, mature in many, many ways but totally misses the bus on some things. He's fine with himself and he knows he doesn't get what he doesn't get. He is honest as the day is long, loves structure, has a heart of gold. I wouldn't trade him for all the gold in the world.

A LOT of things that are dismissed as a "dis"order are only negative in the context of the demands of our present society.

Attention deficit Hyperactivity disorder is loaded with judgement. Why not "shorter attention span, higher activity" (SASHA)? Must we drug them into conformity?

It makes sense for a species and especially for a society to have diversity. That enables specialisation, and that is the foundation of the success of our species.

Mind you, some varieties, such as sociopaths and psychopaths, are a problem for the rest of us. Mere difference alone is not a problem, but some kinds of difference are.

But the anti-social types are useful when you need to invade another tribe's territory.

My days are spent helping kids to acclimate to the expectation of conformity our the Prussian American education system desires. I have very mixed feelings about it. If I don't help them develop their self control they will surely fail but it isn't fair at all that this is the system we use to teach kids. Modern society does not have reasonable expectations for us apes. We're expected to conform with non-family groups without a reasonable amount of exercise and play while digesting noxious foods. People are hyper-active, angry, depressed? Can't see why...

I agree, Griff. And Zen. Escpecially as this conforming skill really isn't as necessary as people seemsto think it is in the adult world.

Here's another one... but this one will eventually go in the waste basket.

Boston Globe
Deborah Kotz
August 23, 2012

Do men have biological clocks as new autism finding suggests?
And the connection with autism is... ???
... sale of stock in their DNA-sequencing company, and
... $ for U.S. grants in the pipeline for autism

People love to say shit like this (or better yet, that parents are seeking a diagnosis because then they get "access" to all this magical school funding that doesn't exist,) and it is completely wrong. From Autism Speaks:

Meanwhile, private giving is a drop in the bucket as well:

Meanwhile, when you add up the costs of all those individuals who cannot live independently...


But nonetheless, you are right that this study actually has very little to do with autism, because autism is primarily environmental, not genetic. See multiple quotes from the pediatric neurologist in the article. The only "connection" is that many researchers are still desperate to prove otherwise.

Re Aspergers:
Tiger understands most social rules under normal circumstances.
But if you disrupt a pattern which is important to him, he will react with according distress.

That person who pushed you out of the way and took your money from the ATM? That's Tiger's version of a child that came over and took a toy to play with when he had just settled them all into a sequence. He is justified in shouting and trying to snatch it back, so to shout at him in return is just confusing. Imagine a policeman seeing the theft and making out you were in the wrong. It's not making excuses or molly-coddling, there is logic in the reaction.

All autistic people are different. The above is just an example of why an autistic child might need an advocate in school. Although educated teachers help enormously.

Come on, Clod...
Parents don't get $ from NIH research grants, and my post did not say anything like that.

We fully realize that parents of kids with any particular disease
feel that there is never enough research on their child's disease.
Unfortunately, they try to pit one disease against another.
Of course, then the parents of all the "other diseases" feel abused
that "their" disease is not getting enough, let alone a fair share.

"Only 0.6% of total NIH funding." is great preaching to the choir
in the autism community, but it doesn't carry weight within the medical research community,
and they are the ones that determine how $ is allocated among new research proposals.

By "pipeline", I'm referring to the increase in funding of research on autism that is occurring in NIH.
Here is a quote from NIMH (NIH) that shows what is happening with funding for autism research...

I haven't looked, but I seriously doubt that any other disease
has seen such a percent increase over such a short time period,
let alone expectations of further increase in the near future.

Research funding through NIH is based on the current status
or existing progress of new findings in the research community.
That progress must be scientifically valid, not wishful thinking,
for there to be new $ allocated to grants in the coming years.

That's the main reason I question the connection between
autism and the results of the study from Iceland.

Nor has any disease seen such an incidence increase over such a short period of time, which still far outstrips the money increase.

But many people will continue believing the lie that there is tons of research money (a whole pipeline's worth, even) just flooding in trying to solve this problem. It may not be nice to pit one disease against another, but that's exactly what the NIH budget is supposed to do. You give more money to the bigger (or more expensive) problems, but that's not what's happening here. It's poor fiscal management, as demonstrated by the amount of money the country is spending on people who already have the disease.

Yes, I do get your point. I just believe it's wrong. If Icelandic researchers are looking for easy money grants, they'd be more successful looking elsewhere.

As someone who is interested in what is scientifically valid, and not wishful thinking, you may find this article to be of interest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/op...m.html?_r=1&hp

Yes, I had already read it and thinking about posting about it... maybe later.

It certainly does belong in this thread. :rolleyes:

And really, if you spend enough time wading through the science, Dr. Parker’s idea — an ecosystem restoration project, essentially — not only fails to seem outrageous, but also seems inevitable.

Since time immemorial, a very specific community of organisms — microbes, parasites, some viruses — has aggregated to form the human superorganism. Mounds of evidence suggest that our immune system anticipates these inputs and that, when they go missing, the organism comes unhinged.

[tangent] This is a familiar pattern in modernity from agriculture through health care. I saw a TED Talk on fish farming in Spain where the "farm" was an enormous restored wetland the health of which is monitored by the health of the predatory flamingo and purity of the out-flowing water. Other fish farms feed waste proteins (mmmm... chicken parts) and pollute the water they use. The imbalance of modern life is killing us. [/tangent]

Do you know any parents going the hookworm route? I'm eating more raw/live foods and if my recent blood work is any indication my body prefers it.

I know some who have done it, but only on national boards, not locally or in person. Which is to say, I know them about as well as I know most of the people here. I also know a couple who have done a fecal transplant themselves (without physician oversight,) for that matter, to restore an appropriate flora when diet plus full-strength probiotics and antibiotics just haven't been able to get the job done.

As I moved through my career, one of my jobs took me into management training.
Some of this training included "role playing" exercises and small group dynamics.
Some of it was fun and silly, but I felt I learned a fair amount.
But then some of it would fit well into this thread about "faux science"

Here is an article today that intrigued me, and I'm curious how other Dwellars respond to it.

NY Times
ADAM GRANT
7/20/13

Why Men Need Women
WHAT makes some men miserly and others generous?

Here is the "experiment" that reminded me of my management training classes...
[I've snipped and re-arranged some parts to make it more readable here]
You'll have to read the article for the results... ;)
But here is some more of the article.

I found the article interesting, despite the use of Bill Gates as the lead example. :rolleyes:

4802

My bullshitometer is ringing like a mother fucker.

Since China killed off so many girl babies, they bear watching.

It's not so bad. Lamp's intro here, limited by space, doesn't reveal that the author has a generally healthy perspective on the notions he presents. He's just bringing into the limelight that generosity, when done strategically, can be good business often resulting in higher yields than the "I got mine, you get yours" approach. He speculates about gender relationships (especially familial, he has a wife and two daughters) influencing the acceptability of that strategy. Other influences are beyond the scope of this focused piece.

If you want to get inside the author's head, there's more insight into him here.

Ah, dat splain it. It would be nice to think he's part of a new wave of good guys about to wash over society, but I doubt it. He's right about being helpful is it's own reward, but I know people who have tried and been burnt, making them very bitter. I think people have to discover their level of comfort getting involved with other peoples troubles.