[extropy-chat] Reverse Evolution ?

[Ian Goddard]

--- Pete Bertine <pkbertine at hotmail.com> wrote:

> English researchers found the subjects in Turkey to
> be far smarter than Dr Tan did, raising question as 
> to whether they were actually retarded.

 Good observation. Uner Tan says they have "severe
mental retardation" [1] but the other description
doesn't fit such a harsh assessment. I'd think of
severe retardation as hardly able to communicate; yet
it seems these folks communicated reasonably well and
also understand social context. The Hutterite victims
of disequilibrium syndrome were described as having
"mild to moderate mental retardation," [2] which may
be comparable to the so-called "UnerTan Syndrome"
folks such that the two syndromes sound very similar
to me.



> The British Group's comments seem to convey that 
> they met a group of 5 people with some serious 
> problems, not 5 throwbacks in the chain of human 
> evolution.

 Right! The best that could hopefully come from all
this is that these people get caring attention and
help to learn to walk upright (assuming they want to)
rather than being reduced to de facto specimens of
"ape people." Imagine the horrendous impact such a
conceptual paradigm could have on them and others with
congenital ambulatory disabilities. ~Ian

_____________________________________________________
[1]
http://www.neuroquantology.com/2005/04/250.255.html
[2] http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=4061489
& http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=7246619


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