Re: virus: Memes and Genes (tangential)

Vicki Rosenzweig (rosenzweig@hq.acm.org)
Wed, 16 Oct 96 14:02:00 PDT


Kenneth,

I'm skeptical enough that "this is in the literature"
doesn't strike me as sufficient information. Can you please
give us citations on the correlation you mentioned between
resistance to thyroid hormone, duplicated Henschle's gyri
and Sylvian fissures, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Also, is the correlation between all three, or between each of
the first two and the third? That is, is there a correlation between
resistance to thyroid hormone and duplicated Henschle's gyri
and Sylvian fissures? Also, I gather that either you or the
researchers are unclear on what resistance to thyroid hormone
means; this does not increase my confidence in the results.

In any case, I believe there are drugs that can be
useful for people with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder,
which may make the activities in question possible despite
the underlying difficulty. I think it's useful to distinguish between
"this person cannot do X now" (but will acquire or regain this
ability given time), "this person cannot do X without
medical assistance," "this person cannot do X, even with what
current medical technology allows," and "this person cannot do
X and will never be able to do it." (The last may be an empty set;
betting on what technology won't be able to accomplish is risky
at best.) Hyperactivity seems to be somewhere between the
second and third categories.

I'm sorry: I thought this was going to lead somewhere obvious and
useful in terms of memetics, but it hasn't. I'm sending it anyway, in
the hope that someone will find it useful.

Vicki
rosenzweig@acm.org
----------
From: owner-virus
To: virus
Subject: Re: virus: Memes and Genes
Date: Wednesday, October 16, 1996 11:21AM

On Wed, 16 Oct 1996, Martin Traynor wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
> On 15 Oct 96 at 21:35, Reed Konsler wrote:
>
> > I assert: For the vast majority of people (95%) genetics plays little
or
> > no role in memetic development.
>
> Except possibly where the physical structure of the brain has an
> effect on its content, but this would apply more to the memetic
> development of a species rather than its individual members.

No, definitely:

This is in the literature:

There is a high correlation between the following:
Resistance to thyroid hormone [whatever that is; it's a single
recessive allele. This must be prenatal to be effective.]
Duplicated Henschle's gyri and Sylvian fissures
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

The last has major effects on memetic content, since the usual
implementation is to make it physically impossible to stay on-task! This
completely changes the organization techniques required to function in
daily life, let alone at work.

That is: (some of) the physiological alterations at stage 2 reflect
functional changes in ADHD, which physically render a typical mental skill
IMPOSSIBLE. Just as a quadriplegic cannot walk for physical reasons, so
an ADHD person cannot stay on-task for physical reasons. And all of this
is driven by a single duplicated recessive allele. Stage 1 may be
biasing, but if the Stage 2 effects are physiological, Stage 3 becomes
almost unavoidable.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/ Towards the conversion of data into information....
/
/ Kenneth Boyd
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