h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi! I was struck by your posting in the MM thread:



I wondered if you had watched the C4 programme 'Make me normal' as it seemed to fit that scenario very well.

Yep, you got the reference, but I didn't want to turn it into a discussion about autism, since that is only one condition whereby a human being can do something without being able to control it and then feel remorse and regret for having done it, the more so for knowing that they didn't really have much choice in the matter.

I've watched a few of the 'only human' series and have been very impressed with it.

It has helped confirm my feeling that I want to further my education in the areas of psychology and cognitive research.

What did you make of the programme?

That's why I brought my query here! I find psychology & the workings of the brain in general a fascinating subject.

I found the programme rather harrowing viewing - particularly the lad talking from inside the box.

I did realise that autism covers a wide spectrum of problems, but was surprised that none of the youngsters featured were quite what I expected.
Those I've encountered to date have either been milder Aspergers with restricted eye contact & have managed to cope by learning to recognise basic facial expressions, or severe autistics with little or no communication.

(My mathematical son tells the joke about outgoing mathematicians being those who look at your shoes instead of their own.)

It seems sensible that they have to understand that they have a disability before they can learn to live with it. However, their particular disability makes it hard for them to do just that. I'm sure we only got a snapshot, but I was also uncertain that the staff were always using the most productive methods of dealing with them.

You might like this as well:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7470

That's quite spooky in a way. If they can 'build a brain', will it be able to learn & develop a personality?

"Please don't do that, Dave"

Yes, that's what I wondered!

I was thinking about the programme again, and your comment about the lad in the box and so on. i think one of the problems that people with autism (of whatever degree) have is that of other people, people who supposedly *can* emote, placing their values on them. This is not a criticism of you at all, just that I did not find that bit too disturbing.

After all, to person involved, it made perfect sense and he was happy with it. Well, maybe not happy, but, ok with it certainly. i think there is perhaps as much issue with, if I can use general terms here, us understanding them. We need educating as much as anyone. If he finds it OK, and helpful, to do that, then fair enough.

I mean, ok, if someone said to me that they could only talk to me from inside a cupboard, or whatever, then I would assume there was something up. But if you already know that there is something up, then that behaviour is totally understandable. Especially as kids anyway often find enclosed spaces to be comforting.

Not sure where my thoughts are going with this. Hmmm.

Perhaps I wasn't clear what exactly I found harrowing about it.....I didn't find it odd that he wanted to go in the box to talk, it made perfect sense. It just really tugged at my emotions.

In many respects we're just as much at a loss to understand their thought processes as they are ours. Similar in a way to other birth disbilities e.g. sight/hearing loss, inability to walk. If you've never experienced something, you can never quite know exactly what it's like. We can simulate a disability, but we can't simulate never having had the ability.

yes, that's true, and I think we are on the same wavelength there.
Saw the Horizon programme the other night on MMR and the ongoing changing goalposts of the campaign against it. (which is not to say that there may be some issue there). What got me though was the effects on rubella (I think) babies, born blind and deaf (and possible mute, not sure if that was a consequence of the other two though). How do you communicate with an individual who has, presumably, perfectly normal mental abilities, except they cannot communicate or interact with two of the primary human senses. Just thinking about allt he things that sight and hearing give us when combined.

That MMR programme was interesting too. I was expecting to see a balanced debate, but either the producers had chosen which way to slant it, or there really is little other than circumstantial evidence for MMR being harmful.

I've seen a few rubella victims & other deaf/blind (or with severe impairment)as patients - they seem very dependent on hand sign language interpreters. Whether they feel they are leading fulfilled lives or not, I don't know - possibly that's down to innate personality like the rest of us.

What is distressing is when someone who is deaf & relies on signing loses their sight, or a blind person loses hearing. Again, personality plays a part (as with any new disability). Some people philosophically get on with life as best they can, others just retreat into helplessness & depression, or anywhere in between.

I thought the horizon wasn't too bad, compared to other horizon ones recently!
What annoyed me was the attitude of those bringing the accusations againts MMR.
Starting out with irresponsible, unfounded warnings about it and the links, which were disproved by statistical study of disease in populations.
However, once this came about, they changed tack and said 'oh well, it must just be certain kids then', a statistically insignificant number that can't be detected.
Which I don't disagree with, human makeup is complex and there may well be a small percentage who are affected like that (as mentioned elsewhere, my mum is allergic to tetanus jad, the anti allergic tetanus jab and has to have a special sort ordered in when ever she's had to have it).

To my mind they would both have had a lot more respectability if they had said 'we suspect there is some sort of link, lets try and find out if there is or not' instead of heading off and causing a mass panic, which will inevitably end up with kids affected by those diseases.

Totally irresponsible I thought, and a classic cart before the horse scenario.

Luckily, it now seems that the correct research is being done. But I did think the woman who kicked it all off was a) just trying to find something or someone to blame for her sons condition and here rejection of epidemiology (was that the one?) out of hand because it didn't give the answer she wanted showed she wasn;t searching for an answer, but just for something/one to blame.

Yes, I thought she was trying to attribute blame. Perhaps otherwise she'd have to accept that it was her genes at fault?

I've never quite bought the argument against giving the jabs separately, that people wouldn't complete the programme. I think that parents who would request that option are the ones who would be consciencious & go through with it all.

I think there was an undercurrant to the comment about not completing the course. I think the undercurrent was that, if the single vaccine courses were to become the norm, through word of mouth and gossip and so forth, in a community then people would do it 'because someone told them it was safer' rather than through any particular conviction of their own.

I think also, as I recall, that this was thought to be likely (if not was happening) in some of the poorer inner city areas and that people would somehow be less caring of their childrens health than in more affluent educated areas.

Which sounds a tad bigotted to me, but I guess in a community which sees the establishment as seperate rather than part of society this could happen.

Well, to some degrees it has happened, for whatever reason.
I tend to think though that there is a temptation to ignore health issues in some communities because 'it never hurt me or my parents' etc.

It will be interesting, and unfortunate, to see if we do get measles, mumps and rubella outbreaks. Indeed, I believe some uni's already have had problems.

I also thought that the point about immunization being not just for your child, but for those other children who for whatever reason cannot be immunized was a very good one.

That's true, if some people have separate jabs, it does shed doubt on the combined one.

Mumps has been a problem recently, partly because the current uni generation is just pre MMR. My elder son had the MMR when he was about 4, but now they say you need 2 doses, so he had another one when offered at uni.

I wonder if there have been any spontaneous mutations of the virus that will prevent total erradication?

Not sure about mutation. I mean, one thing I do know about the current flu pandemic scare (which isn;t in the news, but has got a lot of immunologists and the WHO scared and worrying, so I think we should be too) is the amount of mutation in the flu virus.
Maybe one for the Science thread?

Why not?

well, that was an interesting diversion! That SEx forum seems to be doing quite well doesn't it?

On another note, did you watch any of 'Being Pamela' last night?

No, I was out. Was it any good?

Hmmm. Sortof. Didn't really explain anything, but did show some of what it is like to be around someone with Disassociative disorder.
Interesting that her behaviour with regard to the other personalities was very different to another programme I saw last year about someone else with multiple personalities. In the previous case, all the interaction was internalised. In this case, it was externalised with her having arguments, and even fights, with herself.
I think the programme may have been done as much for the benefit of her / her sister / her carer as for anything else (which i am not criticising in anyway). If it wasn't done as such, it was quite voyeuristic since there was very little explanatory or educational in it.