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

[Ryan W <ubiquitous_am_i@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Kestas <kkv@dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> 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

I guess if it hasn't been tested, we don't/can't know
one way or the other.  So, there is at least the
possibility that this doctor *could* be on to
something.  Robert Akin's supposedly quack diet turned
out to be *scientifically* verified 35 years after the
fact.  The one thing I know about science is that it
changes it's "truth" every year, setting itself apart
from religion, which at least keeps it's myths
constant.  And while I agree about it usually being a
case of how well one can bullsh*t, don't discount the
faith (i.e. bullsh*t) that science is built on.....  

Ryan.


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com