11 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
WWW Makes the Improbable Normal
Cops, emergency room doctors, and insurance actuarists all know it. They realize how many crazy impossible things happen all the time. A burglar gets stuck in a chimney, a truck driver in a head on collision is thrown out the front window and lands on his feet, walks away; a wild antelope knocks a man off his bike; a candle at a wedding sets the bride's hair on fire; someone fishing off a backyard dock catches a huge man-size shark. In former times these unlikely events would be private, know...
1 YouTube and other videos capture the many unusual occurrences happening all over the world out of sheer statistical probability, making them seem average.
29 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
The Cultural Bias of the "Growth Curve"
A more flexible construct of normality also has practical applications. As all parents in Western culture know, there is a "normal growth curve" against which all infants are compared when they are brought in for visits to the pediatrician. This standard is used to evaluate babies' growth, and if die baby falls drastically below die curve, pediatricians recommend intervention. But pediatrician Glen Flores, who codirects the Pediatric Latino Clinic at the Boston University School of Medicine, ... 1 
notes
notesInfants are compared to a growth average, but this average is based on on white, Western infants, other breeds of humans fall beneath or above the curve, resulting in their being considered "abnormal" when they are not.
29 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
The Invention of "Insufficient Milk Syndrom"
Even when women do decide to breast-feed, they sometimes feel they are thwarted by their own bodies. "Insufficient milk" is cited as a major reason women in the West terminate breast-feeding after a few days or weeks. The syndrome is fascinating because it is a clear example of a disease being "invented," defined, and then perpetuated by culture at large. In only about 5 percent of the cases is there something making it physically impossible for a woman to breast-feed. Before bottle-feeding c...
1 A problem that did not exist before the introduction of bottle-feeding.
02 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
One Who Can See in the Country of the Blind
"Why did you not come when I called you?" said the blind man. "Must you be led like a child? Cannot you hear the path as you walk?"
Nunez laughed. "I can see it," he said.
"There is no such word as see," said the blind man, after a pause. "Cease this folly and follow the sound of my feet."
Nunez followed, a little annoyed.
"My time will come," he said.
"You'll learn," the blind man answered. "There is much to learn in the world."
"Has no one told you, 'In the Country of the Blind the On...The protagonist in HG Wells story can see, but that just means the society of blind people he encounters think him mad.
