| Revision as of 03:38, 13 July 2005 editSlimVirgin (talk | contribs)172,064 edits Hammesfahr | Revision as of 04:01, 13 July 2005 edit undoSlimVirgin (talk | contribs)172,064 editsNo edit summaryNext edit → | ||
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| Finally — and I stress I'm not defending Hammesfahr's diagnosis here — it's perhaps worth remembering that Hammesfahr practises alternative medicine, and such doctors are routinely dismissed as quacks, or accused of wrongdoing, by the medical community for political reasons. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 03:38, July 13, 2005 (UTC) | Finally — and I stress I'm not defending Hammesfahr's diagnosis here — it's perhaps worth remembering that Hammesfahr practises alternative medicine, and such doctors are routinely dismissed as quacks, or accused of wrongdoing, by the medical community for political reasons. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 03:38, July 13, 2005 (UTC) | ||
| :I agree with your comment on my talk page, but (1) we should discuss the controversy over him in the article, but it's no reason to leave him out of the intro; (2) bear in mind that the diagnosis of PVS is itself highly unscientific; and (3), in passing, just because something is scientific doesn't make it right, and just because not, doesn't make it wrong. The autopsy report states you can't see PVS; there is no physical condition that's regarded as constituting PVS. It's an opinion from a doctor about the extent to which a person has an internal, subjective world (and whether that world might one day return). This is an impossible thing to judge - not a difficult thing, but a thing that is ''in principle'' impossible. Sure, when you know the person only has a half a brain, consciousness in any meaningful sense — what we would call a subjective experience or perception of I — becomes increasingly unlikely. But they didn't know she only had half a brain at the time. It was all guesswork, some of it educated and probably right, some of it less so. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 04:01, July 13, 2005 (UTC) | |||
Revision as of 04:01, 13 July 2005
Hammesfahr
I'm not sure where to leave this for you, so I'll leave it here and copy it to Grace Note's talk page.
I've read some of his comments about her, and I agree they seem unlikely, particularly in light of the autopsy report that half her brain seemed to be missing. However, it remains the case that he's a practising neurologist, that he has no charges of unprofessional conduct against him, that he examined her (unlike many of the doctors who have expressed views), and that he offered a dissenting opinion. Therefore, if the diagnoses of the other seven neurologists who examined her are to be mentioned in the introduction, then so must his, and without comment as to his credibility.
However, if you read my intro, I also added the brain size from the autopsy report. I did that in order to make it clear that any diagnosis of reversible minimal consciousness was unlikely to have been correct. In controversial articles like this, and particularly in the intros, the facts have to be allowed to speak for themselves in a subtle way. We can't just not mention people, or mention them but then add commentary that poisons the well.
Finally — and I stress I'm not defending Hammesfahr's diagnosis here — it's perhaps worth remembering that Hammesfahr practises alternative medicine, and such doctors are routinely dismissed as quacks, or accused of wrongdoing, by the medical community for political reasons. SlimVirgin 03:38, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
- I agree with your comment on my talk page, but (1) we should discuss the controversy over him in the article, but it's no reason to leave him out of the intro; (2) bear in mind that the diagnosis of PVS is itself highly unscientific; and (3), in passing, just because something is scientific doesn't make it right, and just because not, doesn't make it wrong. The autopsy report states you can't see PVS; there is no physical condition that's regarded as constituting PVS. It's an opinion from a doctor about the extent to which a person has an internal, subjective world (and whether that world might one day return). This is an impossible thing to judge - not a difficult thing, but a thing that is in principle impossible. Sure, when you know the person only has a half a brain, consciousness in any meaningful sense — what we would call a subjective experience or perception of I — becomes increasingly unlikely. But they didn't know she only had half a brain at the time. It was all guesswork, some of it educated and probably right, some of it less so. SlimVirgin 04:01, July 13, 2005 (UTC)