The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) was one of the most influential scientists who ever lived, but Anglophone countries give him practically no credit.
Is it any wonder that many people have difficulty with critical thinking?
Appropo to PC's comment on neurodiveristy, is there another blanket term that refers to intellectual, perceptual or sensory handicaps? Disabilities such as time blindness, aphantasia, hypervigilance, hyperacousia, dysautonomia, such as people with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome have are discernible, if not measurable . Poor motor co-ordination and sense of balance has a global effect upon the relationship one has with their environment and has serious downstream effects upon relationships with others and the capacity to make friends.
Having dyslexia, dyscaculia make engagement with others difficult to say the least, let alone prospects for employment. These factors may manifest as anxiety withdrawal or even dissociation under duress, but beneath them, these are actual handicaps that are developmental in origin. Teachers may not recognise them, let alone know how to help people so affected to develop work arounds and assist with social scaffolding, or if they do understand the hierarchy of mental building blocks required to adapt and compensate.
If we take a systems view of human experience and that a stable state is on the edge of chaos, having most of our sensory, perceptual and cognitive apparatus in good working order puts us at a better starting point than if components in the system don't work that well or go off line.
These functions are in the biological domain, which may flex , strengthen or atrophy. Neuroplasticity is a lifelong phenomenon.
Reconciling lived experience with pseudoscience is an ongoing project.
Article was paywalled but presume it was suggesting people ascribe a supernatural cause (Satan in this case) to events.
The problem with neurodiversity is that is provides no explanation for the diagnoses (which basically includes everything) it assumes it can explain.
Using the term socially as a cultural shorthand is understandable. Terms such as dyslexia and dyscalculia we already understand as having difficulty with spelling and numbers (I realise there is more to them than that) and they are worth using especially in the education as help can be provided. Additionally, these are conditions where drugs are not prescribed to “cure” as far as I know.
However, there must be cut off point between real autism and the autism enforced neurodiversity which to me is just masquerading as personality or prejudice which people want to disguise as conditions (for obvious reasons, not least financial).
Obviously, this a small analysis but is time blindness a condition with a neurological origin? My time keeping was very poor in prior years compared to now. Does this mean my time blindness condition improved in a neurological sense or did I just get better at time keeping over the years? And, if I have an ostensible neurological condition called time blindness, does this suggest I have condition which can’t be “cured” as it’s a biological defect and I will always be bad at time keeping which of course I can blame on my condition.
I met someone who claimed they had aphantasia which can’t really be proved. Another person claimed she had a condition (I can’t remember the name but was a “dys” or “phasia”) which involved her getting annoyed at the sound of someone else’s chewing (her fathers in fact) so she could not bear to be in the same room as him.
Perhaps someone else does not like the sound of a different language-is this a new condition which must be investigated to understand its neural correlates? If enough psychologists believe you, then you’re off to the races (why should they have this power to whimsically decide things).
Psychologists turn these, as I see them, prejudices or dislikes into biological conditions which we must find the “neural correlates” for so then they can…..do what? A neurosurgeon would just laugh if asked to medially act on such “findings”.
This is how I see psychology works, lurching from fad to fad (EMDR, Power Posing, Resillience) which they must find the neural correlates for (basically meaning we must give someone a lucrative career in doing nothing of lasting value except to indulge their own career/narcissism).
When I'm referring to time blindness, I'm not referring to someone who can't keep to a schedule or gets distracted a la "ADHD", but someone who for example has no concept of how long it has been since they last ate or drank, so can't anticipate when they need to eat again; who only knows what time it is by looking at a digital watch and who is unable to estimate how long they have been engaged in a task and who, if they are going somewhere can't estimate how long it will take there. As a consequence it becomes a big deal to anticipate doing more than one thing in a day. Meeting them you would never guess this to be the case.
People can have disabilities which are much like those that a person has after a stroke, The right and left brain may either not co-operate or one side scarcely operates or has never have developed properly. .Things may not operating optimally in any or all of the brainstem, mid brain or cortex.
There are people who have an underdeveloped corpus callosum so they may, for example, know the names of things but have trouble inferring meaning. People have face blindness because particular brain centres don't "work properly". Executive function can be discerned to be working adequately or not.
Poor visuo-spatial awareness, perhaps compounded by amblyopia, or poor ability to estimate depth of field incur a constant cognitive load that is fatiguing. Not everyone can conjure vivid imagery of things and places that they know of. It might be possible to convey features verbally that act as cues to recognition but they can't, for example, picture the hue of paintwork from a picture in their head. They might know a place that you are referring to but can't explain the route you would take to get there.
These kinds of disabilities aren't always evident at a young age, but often interpreted as being present with the benefit of hindsight, which is the reason that I think you are pointing to the possibility for spurious diagnoses.and potential for overdiagnosis.
I agree that medicating children for ADHD is highly contentious. I suspect that these neurological "quirks", if I can call them that, are probably widely distributed amongst the middle of a hypothetical bell curve that might purport to describe neurotype. Once upon a time, people were simply labelled at either end of the ends as either feeble minded or off the charts brilliant while everyone else could be regarded "normal".
When we rely upon medical models of disease to describe human conditions, we are ignoring the vast array of individual variations that language is ill equipped to describe.
I dread the thought of attempting to introduce sensory processing disorders into the DSM. Bureaucracies insist on labels, but I don't think it's helpful to think of them as disorders.
The conditions I am discussing here are best not thought of as pathologies and definitely should not be pathologised.
A cynical view of schools is that they are a cultural device for crowd control rather than institutional environments in which all children can develop and flourish. That children should have to mortgage their future as the price of entry into adulthood is an abomination. We have had schooling designed to equip people to become "useful contributors" to the labour market for many generations, rather than being designed to create citizens capable of critical thinking and independent learning. Putting child rearing into the hands of corporations isn’t improving matters. This is one more facet of the cult of neoliberalism.
Possibly the cohort in the US that believes in the existence of Satan is much the same one that didn't read one book last year (I think the figure was 40% in 2024 or 2025).
Schools and the community can potentially help ameliorate the impacts of disabilities so that kids learn work-arounds and find dignity in their niche. If psychologists and occupational therapists are struggling to get a handle on the neuroscience of disability, the medical profession is probably even further behind. Understanding the biology of disability is only part of the picture.
If you look at psychology closely enough, to me it seems like psychiatry by any other name.
Psychology supports psychiatry with enthymemes (e.g., neurodiversity), neuroscientific “tools” to support biological reductionism (FMRI, TDCS), and therapeutic fads such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
Despite having two “sciences of the mind” (which we don’t have for any other science such as physics/biology) there has been no breakthrough development in either of them.
An interesting survey result.
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/october_2025/46_see_satan_at_work_in_the_world.
Is it any wonder that many people have difficulty with critical thinking?
Appropo to PC's comment on neurodiveristy, is there another blanket term that refers to intellectual, perceptual or sensory handicaps? Disabilities such as time blindness, aphantasia, hypervigilance, hyperacousia, dysautonomia, such as people with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome have are discernible, if not measurable . Poor motor co-ordination and sense of balance has a global effect upon the relationship one has with their environment and has serious downstream effects upon relationships with others and the capacity to make friends.
Having dyslexia, dyscaculia make engagement with others difficult to say the least, let alone prospects for employment. These factors may manifest as anxiety withdrawal or even dissociation under duress, but beneath them, these are actual handicaps that are developmental in origin. Teachers may not recognise them, let alone know how to help people so affected to develop work arounds and assist with social scaffolding, or if they do understand the hierarchy of mental building blocks required to adapt and compensate.
If we take a systems view of human experience and that a stable state is on the edge of chaos, having most of our sensory, perceptual and cognitive apparatus in good working order puts us at a better starting point than if components in the system don't work that well or go off line.
These functions are in the biological domain, which may flex , strengthen or atrophy. Neuroplasticity is a lifelong phenomenon.
Reconciling lived experience with pseudoscience is an ongoing project.
Article was paywalled but presume it was suggesting people ascribe a supernatural cause (Satan in this case) to events.
The problem with neurodiversity is that is provides no explanation for the diagnoses (which basically includes everything) it assumes it can explain.
Using the term socially as a cultural shorthand is understandable. Terms such as dyslexia and dyscalculia we already understand as having difficulty with spelling and numbers (I realise there is more to them than that) and they are worth using especially in the education as help can be provided. Additionally, these are conditions where drugs are not prescribed to “cure” as far as I know.
However, there must be cut off point between real autism and the autism enforced neurodiversity which to me is just masquerading as personality or prejudice which people want to disguise as conditions (for obvious reasons, not least financial).
Obviously, this a small analysis but is time blindness a condition with a neurological origin? My time keeping was very poor in prior years compared to now. Does this mean my time blindness condition improved in a neurological sense or did I just get better at time keeping over the years? And, if I have an ostensible neurological condition called time blindness, does this suggest I have condition which can’t be “cured” as it’s a biological defect and I will always be bad at time keeping which of course I can blame on my condition.
I met someone who claimed they had aphantasia which can’t really be proved. Another person claimed she had a condition (I can’t remember the name but was a “dys” or “phasia”) which involved her getting annoyed at the sound of someone else’s chewing (her fathers in fact) so she could not bear to be in the same room as him.
Perhaps someone else does not like the sound of a different language-is this a new condition which must be investigated to understand its neural correlates? If enough psychologists believe you, then you’re off to the races (why should they have this power to whimsically decide things).
Psychologists turn these, as I see them, prejudices or dislikes into biological conditions which we must find the “neural correlates” for so then they can…..do what? A neurosurgeon would just laugh if asked to medially act on such “findings”.
This is how I see psychology works, lurching from fad to fad (EMDR, Power Posing, Resillience) which they must find the neural correlates for (basically meaning we must give someone a lucrative career in doing nothing of lasting value except to indulge their own career/narcissism).
Thank you for your comments
When I'm referring to time blindness, I'm not referring to someone who can't keep to a schedule or gets distracted a la "ADHD", but someone who for example has no concept of how long it has been since they last ate or drank, so can't anticipate when they need to eat again; who only knows what time it is by looking at a digital watch and who is unable to estimate how long they have been engaged in a task and who, if they are going somewhere can't estimate how long it will take there. As a consequence it becomes a big deal to anticipate doing more than one thing in a day. Meeting them you would never guess this to be the case.
People can have disabilities which are much like those that a person has after a stroke, The right and left brain may either not co-operate or one side scarcely operates or has never have developed properly. .Things may not operating optimally in any or all of the brainstem, mid brain or cortex.
There are people who have an underdeveloped corpus callosum so they may, for example, know the names of things but have trouble inferring meaning. People have face blindness because particular brain centres don't "work properly". Executive function can be discerned to be working adequately or not.
Poor visuo-spatial awareness, perhaps compounded by amblyopia, or poor ability to estimate depth of field incur a constant cognitive load that is fatiguing. Not everyone can conjure vivid imagery of things and places that they know of. It might be possible to convey features verbally that act as cues to recognition but they can't, for example, picture the hue of paintwork from a picture in their head. They might know a place that you are referring to but can't explain the route you would take to get there.
These kinds of disabilities aren't always evident at a young age, but often interpreted as being present with the benefit of hindsight, which is the reason that I think you are pointing to the possibility for spurious diagnoses.and potential for overdiagnosis.
I agree that medicating children for ADHD is highly contentious. I suspect that these neurological "quirks", if I can call them that, are probably widely distributed amongst the middle of a hypothetical bell curve that might purport to describe neurotype. Once upon a time, people were simply labelled at either end of the ends as either feeble minded or off the charts brilliant while everyone else could be regarded "normal".
When we rely upon medical models of disease to describe human conditions, we are ignoring the vast array of individual variations that language is ill equipped to describe.
I dread the thought of attempting to introduce sensory processing disorders into the DSM. Bureaucracies insist on labels, but I don't think it's helpful to think of them as disorders.
The conditions I am discussing here are best not thought of as pathologies and definitely should not be pathologised.
A cynical view of schools is that they are a cultural device for crowd control rather than institutional environments in which all children can develop and flourish. That children should have to mortgage their future as the price of entry into adulthood is an abomination. We have had schooling designed to equip people to become "useful contributors" to the labour market for many generations, rather than being designed to create citizens capable of critical thinking and independent learning. Putting child rearing into the hands of corporations isn’t improving matters. This is one more facet of the cult of neoliberalism.
Possibly the cohort in the US that believes in the existence of Satan is much the same one that didn't read one book last year (I think the figure was 40% in 2024 or 2025).
Schools and the community can potentially help ameliorate the impacts of disabilities so that kids learn work-arounds and find dignity in their niche. If psychologists and occupational therapists are struggling to get a handle on the neuroscience of disability, the medical profession is probably even further behind. Understanding the biology of disability is only part of the picture.
If you look at psychology closely enough, to me it seems like psychiatry by any other name.
Psychology supports psychiatry with enthymemes (e.g., neurodiversity), neuroscientific “tools” to support biological reductionism (FMRI, TDCS), and therapeutic fads such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
Despite having two “sciences of the mind” (which we don’t have for any other science such as physics/biology) there has been no breakthrough development in either of them.
That's because they're pseudosciences. The next "breakthrough" will be when they are replaced by a valid scientific model of mind.
Pleased to hear you are not impressed by EMDR. Just another racket.