IUBio

Brain clues to attention disorder

orkeltatte at hotmail.com orkeltatte at hotmail.com
Wed Jan 7 03:03:48 EST 2004


"John H." <johnh at faraway.> wrote in message news:<3ffabdb8 at dnews.tpgi.com.au>...
but now gaining acceptance. These are off the top
> 
> 
> I apologise for the tone of my previous post. One of my hobby horses is
> strongly attacking those who in any way to seek to institutionalise the
> search for truth and understanding. Perhaps I misunderstood you, you were
> going after KP Collins. Let me assure you, he is completely immune to
> criticism, he will always stand on what he posts, and I can't recall an
> instance where he has demonstrated a change of position, an evolution of his
> thinking. He does tend to be rather annoying in that regard so perhaps you
> were falling prey to the same frustration that I have previously experienced
> with him. My advice is don't bother, Ken will never change. Ironically he is
> an excellent example of the point I am making here. As you are a
> psychiatrist, please advise on the same. Ken displays 3 distinct
> characteristics:
> 
> hypergraphia
> delusions of grandeur
> religiousity
> 
> I have an idea about that but would appreciate the input of a specialist in
> this matter.

I rarely expresses a professional opinion on people I have not
examined personally, but I have read a posting from Ken that could
indicate a stroke of grandeur ("Finally, I realized that it was just
too far ahead of the field.")
 
> I've read far too many journal articles that appear more like a publication
> to achieve another citation, or secure tenure or funding or commercial
> interest; rather than being aimed at providing new and valuable information.
> There is now a plethora of journals and in my opinion too much being
> published, to the extent now that data overload is a serious problem in the
> Life Sciences. Reductionism with a vengence, perilously close to a type of
> medieval scholasticism.

I agree in that sense that  researchers seldom submittes articles from
their work, where their hypothesis tested wrong , eg "negative"
findings. Negative findings in research does no good on your research
fundings and the chance of getting grants, but are just as important
to publish , and just as important to the scientific community and
overall research work , as "positive" ones.

In my field of expertise I could parallell to Aron Antonovsky´s -
Salutogenese as opposed to the pathogenese. Most of the scientific
work in medicin has been done on the pathogenese , but not until the
last decay or so serious work has been done to answer the question "
How come some individuals , despite substantial environmental
riskfactors, do not come down with sickness or disease?"
 This is the "other side of the coin" , and just as scientifically
signifiquant to elucidate in medicine, as the pathogenese, don´t you
think?

> You have been enlightened and again I suggest that all students of science
> would benefit by familiarising themselves with the history of science. A
> good start might be the famous paper by Peter Medawar, "Is the Scientific
> Paper a Fraud?". I haven't read any of the history in years but read enough
> to realise that scientists are also prone to the same human frailities that
> plague the rest of humanity, albeit generally to a lesser degree.
> 
I totally agree on he signifiquance of history, not only in the field
of science.
 
> PS: for the record, I rely mostly on scientific journals for new ideas and
> insights. I just don't rely on them exclusively.
> John H.

Same here!

Orkeltatte



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