hollywood science
May. 9th, 2009 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wytchcroftSo i'm watching CSI - and i love CSI ok, but... (growls slightly) season 2; the episode titled Caged...
This is a story about an Autistic man (superbly performed by the actor) and it's written by one of the main writers for the show.
Interestingly, she says in commentary; this is very personal to me, my son is autistic...
even as every single one of her body language elements suggests that in fact the writer herself has autism.
But either way, it is very clear that the intention was to provide an educational as well as emotional story - Rain Man comparisons are dismissed early on for example as Grissom explains what Autism actually 'is'.
This is all very commendable...
except - we get lines such as 'He is an autistic man with high functioning right brain activity'', which is, y'know, um, from a neuroscience point of view - that is to say, uh, FACTUALLY, utter bollocks.
"Huh."
Wytch is irritated.
So my questions are - is my memory bad at measuring time? Only surely CSI 2 isn't that old and the neuroscience not so recent....? But that's the only possible excuse.
The meaty question being - are they still teaching this ‘superior right brain’ crap NOW across the USA? Else how come did the sincere, and no doubt well informed (or convinced they are anyway,) writer make such a neurologically laughable script? There are LOADS of real howlers, and this - if you have any personal connection to the subject or are a geek – is very bloody annoying.
This is a story about an Autistic man (superbly performed by the actor) and it's written by one of the main writers for the show.
Interestingly, she says in commentary; this is very personal to me, my son is autistic...
even as every single one of her body language elements suggests that in fact the writer herself has autism.
But either way, it is very clear that the intention was to provide an educational as well as emotional story - Rain Man comparisons are dismissed early on for example as Grissom explains what Autism actually 'is'.
This is all very commendable...
except - we get lines such as 'He is an autistic man with high functioning right brain activity'', which is, y'know, um, from a neuroscience point of view - that is to say, uh, FACTUALLY, utter bollocks.
"Huh."
Wytch is irritated.
So my questions are - is my memory bad at measuring time? Only surely CSI 2 isn't that old and the neuroscience not so recent....? But that's the only possible excuse.
The meaty question being - are they still teaching this ‘superior right brain’ crap NOW across the USA? Else how come did the sincere, and no doubt well informed (or convinced they are anyway,) writer make such a neurologically laughable script? There are LOADS of real howlers, and this - if you have any personal connection to the subject or are a geek – is very bloody annoying.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 03:08 am (UTC)I have to say I know near to zero about autistium. What I've been lead to believe by the media is it technically makes you a lot smarter in some areas, yet unable to often function properly socially? hmmm. I'm careful not to just believe everything I'm told though (always keep an open mind). So is that stuff wrong or half wrong, right or um very wrong? lol
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 03:38 am (UTC)oh and CSI is a great show, sometmes stiff and sometmes silly but it really tries hard, the acting is good and the cast play well off each other. Grissom is an interesting lead, he's full of quirks and the detection/deduction stuff is excellent (even though the police procedures and timing are, uh, dramatically enhanced shall we say!) - but i have pathologist friends so... a little bias in my enthusiasm maybe!
and i love the sara sidle character (in the photo).
as for Autism - well, it isn't a THING, it's not concrete, it's an umbrella term* covering so many potential traits, reactions and behaviours that may or may not be present in an individual. But the idea of 'Autistics' having 'Superior right brain functioning' is just - well 1) it makes them 'different' = they have different wired brains to us! (yeah right). but 2) 'superior' = 'special' which is another way of distancing and objectifying people. and lastly the idea that the brain functions in a simplistic polarised left/right fashion is, as i delight in repeating, utter bollocks. The sensory input and neural reaction/communications systems of the brain are a heck of a lot more complex than that. And really all we KNOW is that we don't know.
slightly o.t. (feel free to slink away now while i just waffle on!) but it was hilarious some years back (early 90s, earlier maybe) when the left/right thing was first being touted a Japanese Professor became quite famous for analysis proving that Japanese men listen with the left sde of their brain, whilst Westerners use their right side. This is why oriental musc and theatre can seem so bizarre and atonal to non-Japanese.
Until another Japanese Professor pointed out that this was a cunning way of saying 'See we're different than you - we have better brains!' and very thoroughly (ie with transparent and well validitated methods) debunked the whole thing. Much egg on the face of Prof 1 and certain western journalists who had been reported the 'alien nature' of the oriental mind-set.
so, you have to laugh.
yes there is a left and right to the brain but it's more like a football pitch, the players can change ends and the teams can change formation. patients recovering from major head trauma and/or brain injury have been shown to be able to therapautically utilise very unexpected areas of the brain to compensate and adapt.
so it's not so simple as the left brain does THIS and the left brain does THAT. Abouthe most useful thing we know is that there the two sides can work independentally and that if you don't keep both stimulated then you can get very fatigued.
*part of a crude spectrum running roughly from dyslexia through aspergers, through autism and eventually ADD (more especially Adult ADD - bt covering a plethora of other elements and none of these labels is likely to remain fixed as research develops.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 04:02 am (UTC)as far as I know there is still quite a little known about what causes this state in a baby and what exactly is a difference (despite it is obvious).
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 04:20 am (UTC)and as for the episode, the acting really was excellent!
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 05:06 pm (UTC)And Grissim rocks. TieHie
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 07:23 pm (UTC)Didn't know that was a theory behind Autism.
Though, I would almost say that is a case with Aspies, (Aspergers), because my brother who has it certainly is a right brain thinker, (and maybe a lefty to...which might be more of the cause of why he's a right brain thinker, lol). But he is the creative sort, leaves even me behind sometimes.
Well, when he isn't hanging on my chair, moaning about how he's bored, and how I'm boring, and can't we do something FUN! (He's thirteen, LOL)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-09 07:25 pm (UTC)ps
Date: 2009-05-09 07:30 pm (UTC)i do enjoy CSI a whole lot; Grissom and Sidle are great! - and so is Warwick.
Re: ps
Date: 2009-05-09 07:32 pm (UTC)Perhaps it's something with the angsty longing, I loved West Wing too, and there was a lot of that same tension between several characters, especially Josh and Donna.