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Re: To Ainge, doctor's system is a real brainstorm



At 01:23 PM 5/20/2003 -0700, you wrote:
Kestas, so I take it(from the above bashing) that this
guy has ABSOLUTELY no scientifically valid data to
provide to perspective talent evaluators?  I was
wondering, coming from your background, how this kind
of science is treated...as it seems, at least from the
article, that this sort of science is experimental at
best, but not sufficiently proven either way.  Have
there ever been any long-term experiments concerning
brain types and their effect on overall life success?
There is no science in this BS whatsoever. First, there is no such thing as a "brain type", let alone an "inborn brain type" (Niednagel's terminology from his website). The term itself gives him away as a know-nothing con artist. Just to be sure, I checked MEDLINE and PsychINFO, and neither search revealed any trace of scientific work by anyone named Niednagel. He has no credentials or training of any kind; his "science" rests on long-discarded ideas peddled by a quack psychologist Carl Jung nearly a century ago. Niednagel's credibility derives from puff pieces in sports magazines by equally know-nothing scribes, and from testimonials by a bunch of naive ex-jocks and other sports personalities, among them - ahem - Danny Ainge. The same brand of "science" is practiced by tarot card readers, palm readers, ESPers, numerologists, and other hucksters of the same ilk, except they invoke supernatural abilities for their incredible (quite literally) insight, not science. We might as well hire Ms. Cleo to advise Danny Ainge on the draft. She's just as good as Niednagel and Wallace, if not better, and would come a lot cheaper.

At the same time, I have no doubt that Niednagel is very skilled at reading his marks.. . err, customers, instantly knowing what they want to hear, taking credit when chance favors him, and artfully evading blame for missed "evaluations" when it doesn't. It's a skill that all great con men have, and judging by the fees he charges, he's a great one. Just like our (hopefully, soon-to-be-erstwhile) GM who, despite being a basement-dwelling drifter, managed to talk his way into several NBA jobs. Things like that make me think that we give far too much credit to people running sports teams. In a lot of cases, it's not what you know, it's who you know and how well you can bullsh*t.
Kestas