[ExI] Science or Scientism?

[William Flynn Wallace]

And it's a shame that so few states provide a level of quality education,
with special student Master's level education for the teachers.  No
surprise that life expectancy is better than the 70s.  But many were better
off in an institution.  Most people can't realize just how much time and
expertise it takes to raise a mentally retarded person, much less the
costs, and much less having to keep them at home for their lifespan.    Few
could be left home alone. Parent can get really frustrated with having a
child, in effect, living in their home all their lives.  Parents who do
this are saints, devoting most of their time to this.

When presented with these facts, many parents choose to abort after the
amniocentesis shows Down's.  Extremely controversial issue, of course.

Privacy laws went into effect long ago.  In my time you could stroll
through a hospital for the MR and peruse the hydrocephalics and all.  In
fact, I think the average person would be stunned.  George Wallace's wife,
then governor, went to Partlow (in Tuscaloosa) and came out crying on TV
and vowed to go to Montgomery and put through bills for a lot more money
for the MR and mentally ill, but with George Wallace pulling the strings,
it never happened. I'll bet most people would come out like Lurleen Wallace
did and have great compassion for the people who had to live and work in
those environments.  But whoever ran a political campaign mentioning money
for these people and the staffs?   Expert help is needed, but rarely
provided.  When I worked in the Mississippi state mental hospital (for $200
a month plus room and board, cooked by the inmates) you could get a job
there with a 2nd grade education.  Seriously.

Keep in mind that the MR make up more than 3% of the overall population,
and mental patients add much more to that, and you can see the level of
money needed to provide adequate care.  Given how many people are affected
by having these people in their families, one would think that there would
be effective lobbies.

 bill w

On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 6:01 PM SR Ballard <sen.otaku at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Nov 12, 2018, at 5:08 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I have no idea.  But I can tell you this:  I taught MR for several years
> in the 70s, and 25 was what was listed in the texts.  I have strong doubts
> that those afflicted are any better now than they were then.  It has really
> stuck in my mind, because, for one thing, that was the average, meaning
> about half were lower.  Trisomy really screws up your body.  Most -
> percentage unknown - die fairly young.  For one hint, averages are NEVER
> reported as ranges, only as single points, so whoever did that is a
> statistical moron.  Do you have a particular interest in this?
>
> bill w
>
>
> Well, perhaps things have actually changed somewhat, due to
> de-institutionalization. As a side effect of being raised in a supportive
> family environment, the life expectancy of those with Downs seems to have
> increased somewhat dramatically. And, due to changes in educational law
> (mandating public school accommodation) it seems that more are receiving
> education to a higher level than before— what the standard grade equivalent
> is, I’m not so sure.
>
> And no, I had no particular interest in it before this conversation, but
> considering how common it is, I was surprised that it isn’t better ... that
> there isn’t more straightforward information to the answers to my questions
> readily available online? Which, of course, piques my interest. I love
> learning things which have absolutely no practical application in my life.
> It’s a hobby that makes me quite good at trivia, but quite a bore at
> parties.
>
> I’m quite aware that averages are reported as a single number, just as you
> should be aware that most texts intended for a lay audience will instead
> list them as a range if they are not a pretty number, as decimals and “odd”
> numbers bother people. The only exception I can think of is body
> temperature in Fahrenheit.
>
> SR Ballard
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20181112/c6c8dd98/attachment.html>