The Pro-Cure Thread

Post Reply New Topic

For an interesting read to see what today's cutting edge technology can bring us, heres an interesting article, unfortunatly, its only vaguely related. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-computer_interface

We actually no a great deal about the universe. That doesn't mean there isn't a great deal more to learn, but to compare our knowledge today to cave drawings is just ignorant. And you seem to be oversimplifying genetics. There aren't really specific genes for every little thing. It is VASTLY more complex than that. We are learning more and more every day about how our DNA actually works. And it is not a waste of time, money, or people to do this kind of research. I am sorry if I come off as abrasive or overly critical, but I just can't stand the kinds of attitudes that want to keep humanity in the dark ages. Exploring the differences between people with ASD and those without on a genetic, neurological (brain science) and sociological level is an excellent way to help us to understand more about how the brain actually works. There is no magic to it, no soul, no spark, no fairy dust. It is a machine governed by chemical reactions. It can be understood, it just takes time.

Time is the oldest excuse that there is and science has used it since day one since delay in effect gives everybody a chance to absorb new information. Science knows very little little today compared to what remains to be known. At one time scientists though that the universe was vast and complex only to find out that it paled in comparison to the human brain which is about several hundreds of times more complex. 20,000 years from now will our science look more sophisticated than those cave drawings in France?

I too find the statement odd. Human genetic studies, especially those dealing with behavior, are messy. A lot of human conditions are known to be multifactorial, multigenic. Plus certain alleles of other genes may act as modifiers that make the phenotypes very inconsistent. Variable penetrance and expressivity of phenotypes are known problems when studying human behavior. And ultimately that leads to problems with diagnosis. To top it off, AS hasn't even been officially defined for twenty years. Long ago people didn't know what to look for, they just assumed like Michael Savage did that ASD folks are spoiled and just need to get their act together. I for one can trace it through the four extant generations in my family and extended family, enough to create a pedigree. Now I'm not saying that there is absolutely no environmental component to the causation of ASD, and I'm not saying that there are never any de novo cases of ASD arising. However based on all the anecdotal evidence of a genetic component of ASD (which is how all human genetic studies start), we cannot make a claim that we are sure that no such genetic component exists.

I am a geneticist by training.

Discounting where the money comes from, it gets spent on Neurological research, which is first peer reviewed. While it helps to put Autism in the grant application, all funds are spent to advance science over an even front.

The more we learn about the brain the more of standard medical knowledge gets thrown out the window. What it is, how it works, is hard, disproving false beliefs is easy.

Some of the applications of what has been learned are doing good work with our troops, head injury used to be wait and see, it has gotten better.

We are far out numbered by cases of head trama, many have been helped.

I strongly disagree with comparing it to the painting in Chavet Cave of 40,000 years ago, those people were great artists of immense talent, and the first Biologist who left very detailed paintings of species long gone. They were Scientist and Artists, unlike todays clutters of science journals.

They could see and transmit the essence of life, it was not Mammoth steak on the hoof, they caught the Transcendental, the soul of the being, the living Universe that animates matter.

Science that ignores life is dead.

Of course some people nowadays may think of alchemy from the Middle Ages as superstitious nonsense (turning lead into gold!), but from that initial experimentation and observation, basic understanding of chemistry arose. New knowledge begets more questions, it has been that way forever and it will always be that way. To fault science for its current limitations is naive about how science works. And to try to fit science in some huge conspiracy theory is outlandish. Science is neutral. Science is not good or bad, it just is. Scientific research is self-correcting; hypotheses and theories are made, but scientists do not hesitate to rescind those hypotheses and theories should contradictory evidence be confirmed.

To add to that, a lot of scientific fields are descendents of philosophy.

Keep in mind that it wasn't all that long ago that scientists said it was 'impossible' for a human to go more than 300 Mph on land.
They also said that 'hang-gliders' were an impossibility.
They also said that human powered flight was 'impossible'
I can go on as can most of you.
Scientistist generally can't see very far into the future and almost always are wrong in their assumptions about things.

Still, I don't think that they will be able to fix these guys' AS for them. IMO, there is a very good possibility that AS is epigenetic.

No magic pill to make people like you... you just have to learn how to work on yourself to develop yourself.

Even if a modest $1000/year/elementary child diagnosed in the US is spent amounts to roughly 1/3 of a billion dollars. Sure you can say autistic children don't get much helpful support, and I'd generally agree.** But a grand doesn't buy you much of any, especially once you tack on overhead. I'd be quite surprised if that much isn't being spent by the public school system alone, muchless on other privately obtained services (that aren't chelation or other crap like that). In that light $10 mil is small potatoes. Further genetic research is intractably linked with understanding the physiological goings on which in turn tend to be very helpful pointing the way to better teaching and coping methods. This isn't just an "NT conspiracy" thing. There might be people that are have an eradication goal in mind but it's only somewhat related that they are talking about genetics, and ultimately it is extremely unlikely that they are going to find any solution to that end that is going to fly.

Gary, "we know only a fraction of what is going on in the human head" is an EXTREMELY poor excuse for not trying to find out more. THAT is the real caveman speech. :/ The truth is that we do know enough to muddle around a bit and make a real difference. But we sometimes need to work at the situation sideways, indirectly, because we have few tools to really look directly at a low level at exactly what's happening in a functioning mind. That is where genetics can provide some insight. It doesn't give the full picture by itself but it can give some glimpses at what might be happening.


** Between age 3 and age 6 government funding of education and therapy services for my son was roughly 55,000 CDN$/year. This, coupled with the great program we got him into, was very helpful and I think was adequate. I consider ourselves, including my son, one of the fortunate ones. It drops to about 1/2 to 1/3 of that after age 6, and if he's going to a public school that actually goes into a general pool for the school he attends, which means how much is actually spent towards his education is ... variable. :/ He goes to a private school which does receive a good deal of the funding, and we and donations top that off to the tune of another 5 digit chunk.

Last edited by DwightF on 18 Dec 2008, 11:35 pm, edited 6 times in total.

Yes, and some of this "muddling" around includes the making of BCIs such as the brain implants that can be used to hook up a persons brain to a camera and give someone with aquired blindness vision again. So far only a small number of people have these implants that allow them to see through a camera hooked up to their brain... And all of them payed to be a part of a clinical trial.

I would not call it "railing", but if you want to call it that, then fine. All I did was "rail".

Not everyone that makes a claim is constructing a logical argument. The key is that I made no defense of any claim, nor did I elaborate on anything. So in the sense I am not having an argument, you are, hah. All that I have said afterwards were elaborations on my character.



Hah, this is why I did not want to actually get embroiled in an argument. Our thinking is just too different. It would be like a german arguing with a frenchman over what is the best italian dish. They are not even speaking the same language. For example, you compared my poorly written paragraph with "the people who are 'for global warming'...". That's ridiculous. Those "people" are not simply "for global warming". They are scientists, and the suggestion of a for/against dichotomy is fallacious. What you have are the people who do science on climate change, and those who don't. Those who don't are not necessarily for or against anything, but some are. But those who claim fault with scientific conclusions, but are not themselves scientists, nor do they do any science, are creating a false dilemma. "Either you are for or against global warming". There is no such scientific debate. Now what does this have to do with any claim about AS cures? Nothing. I am now merely elaborating on why I am not arguing about AS cures with you.




Now, an issue about your character and style of analysis and debate. If you called that an "explanation", then I don't want to bother hearing your "explanations" in a real debate. I merely elaborated upon an analogy, and with an anecdote no less, lol.



Not that I can't, but rather I was initially hesitant, and now I won't with you. Unwillingness is not inability. I barely said anything, and have not elaborated on anything, and yet this is how I am received. I doubt I will engage in any rational discourse in this thread, so I probably won't bother. As I shan't expect to receive any rational discourse, I shan't give any.

Now about that second part. That borders on a personal attack, and makes unjustified assumptions about me. Greater caution is required when making statements or claims about an individual than one does generically. However, I shan't even argue that point any further. So don't bother.




Should I even bother replying to this? *thinks*....
I think I shall avoid this and not feed into it anymore.
The end.

Been readin around a bit in here...

First Off...y'all (but one of you) seem to think the cavemen were really stupid or something. Most of what we have today is thanks to early civilization. Have you not seen the pyramids (which also contain cave drawings)? Still, most of our math and science is based off discoveries from a very long time ago, and it's possible those ideas weren't invented in Greek times but long before that carried down by word of mouth and drawings on caves.

Also, I should mention, that I do agree that science has a very long way to go to understanding certain things, and I don't always give them the benefit of the doubt, but I'm still trying to absorb the fact that humans invented the cell phone. Seriously, if I didn't talk on one daily or chat online daily, I would swear cell phones and internet were a myth because I just don't see how humans are capable of that kind of science. Seriously, God has got to be impressed.

And, I asked this before in a thread on this forum, and I have yet to receive an answer, and I'm just curious because I'm having a very hard time (for days now) thinking of an actual cure we have. Do we have a cure for anything? We have ways to treat things, prevent things, and surgically remove things, but no actual cure all for an ailment. Although somebody mentioned we can make blind people see with these brain implants, but that doesn't actually cure the blindness right? Or does it?

Anyway, I think if anything, there will be a magic pill invented at some point. I am sure it has more financial benefits to whoever puts it on the market than it will have to the patients. I read early on this thread somebody mentioning the meds he/she takes for ADHD and depression, and I'm here to tell you that ADHD treatments are just an amphetamine cocktail and SSRI's have some aweful side effects that happened to only a small percentage of the people in the clinical trials, so they don't get mentioned as the percentage was small, but the side effects were pretty crazy enough that warrants mentioning. I forget what they were exactly, but they did have some suicides or suicide attempts. Considering also that Psychiatrists were the top, number 1, numeral uno, type of doctors to receive benefits and kick backs from pharmaceutical companies, it's no wonder everyone in the states are ADHD. In fact, since they made ephedrine illegal, I've been seriously considering faking ADHD just to get some amphetamines to give me the energy to keep up with my kids. But, I'm sure they'd rather give them to a four year old than a grown up. Of course, I could at this point walk into any high school and buy them illegally. How much are they now? 5 bucks a pill? The only reason why I won't try it is because it's highly addicting. I don't want to end up in amphetamine rehab. I've seen some meth users go through some sh*t over that. What is the benefit of these psychostimulants? They don't even know what causes ADHD to know if these drugs actually affect it. All they got is clinical trials, which if anyone ever took a statistics course, you wonder how scientific is that method? Every ADHD patient I've met that takes psychostimulants tell me it makes them feel like a zombie, like things are just not real. To the point where I know one prefers smoking weed to taking Ritalin, but of course, Ritalin is the only legal option you got. Coming from this mentality, I am so happy no miracle pill exists for Aspergers. Otherwise, you'd have a bunch of NT's claiming to be us just so their psychiatrist can reap the pharmaceutical benefits and the NT's can abuse another pill or try making money selling them on the streets. We already got strange superbacteria mutated from all the antibiotics that were so freely given. Wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't a superdisability created in oh, 20 years from now, from all these brain meds we dish out so freely. Too bad this world has always got to learn the hard way. Then again, those greedy b@st@rds in the pharmaceutical industry doesn't care anyway. You know the makers of Phen Phen are the ones that do Adderall? You know what it reminds me of? Resident Evil and Catwoman.

I will also say that someone earlier suggested X-Men on the cure it or not situation. I totally see it as that and thought to mention it before. I don't know if I did or not, but either way, it's nice to know I'm not alone on that analogy.

I really do not understand what is wrong with trying to
1. reduce your phisical clumzieness
2. learn to understand other people jestures and facial expressions better
3. trying to understand other peoples concerns better and being less self-centered while interactoin
4. reduce all sorts of things that appeared wierd to others like biting nailes, jerking movements
5. learning to be more organized and learning accepting responsibilities

That said, i really do not believe that there are such things as "going to NT and returning back" . The whole migration speculations sounds really childish, I am sorry to say.

Ok, compared to a "universe of knowledge" - we know very low per cent of it. One does not have to be a genious to conclude that.
The question, however, remains, what is you point, huh?

Wow. Um, I did not read through the whole thread before I posted my above response to ephemerella. But after doing so, I really do not want to contribute to this discussion anymore. Maybe if this thread were in The Haven, I might feel safer about discussing this, but not here.

Enjoy your discussions of holocaust-style genocide and x-men 3, because I am out of here.

PS, I am deleting my initial post here, so as to not reduce my future contribution to this thread. It is not as though I am deleting any record of it, as it has been quoted enough times.