House of Eratosthenes

This is like the “other side” of the 4-A debate, because some of the people running around with the strongest opinions about Autism, Aspergers, AD(H)D and allergies don’t even understand there is a debate going on. They don’t understand how little of this is proven to have any physical cause. This is the loyal dissent, and in my opinion it should be required listening for anybody who seeks to contribute to any meaningful decision about a child’s future with regard to these supposed maladies.

Like the 4A Cheerleaders, Penguins Use Bad Logic I’m not a big fan of these interviews by Dr. Savage. If you listen to an infomercial in the middle of the night, and then twelve hours later you listen to one of these softball interviews Savage does, you’ll notice they sound exactly the same. I don’t like that. I never did like it. But I’ve been following Dr. Breggin’s work for awhile now, and his side of the story is one that needs to get out. He is not overstating the financial relationships at work here, so far as I know — contrasted with that, a lot of our “4A cheerleaders” base their opinions on the unfounded premise that all the professionals involved have pristine motives. You see them, often, abruptly ending their presentation of an argument and “resting the case” after quoting a professional. There, He Said It! That settles it! Argumentum ad Verecundiam writ large. This works for them…even though said 4A cheerleaders are receiving services, or are pushing their opinions onto other people who are receiving services, that are free.

People need to think more critically about this stuff. If services are provided, and they’re free, then money has to be sloshing around somewhere. And that raises the potential for a system to be abused. That needs to be checked out. People should look into this and they should presume shenanigans are goin’ down until the opposite is demonstrated. That is the very least that should be happening. The very least.

I would point out one other thing about this: Since Dr. Savage got started on this tempest in a teapot, a recurring defense I’ve been hearing of this tidal wave of autism diagnoses with regard to borderline cases, the children who could probably succeed fine without the specialized instruction they’re receiving is this: “Since the diagnosis was made and little Johnny started receiving these services, it has done him so much good.”

That is not the litmus test. It’s exactly like saying “Since little Johnny started eating more food than all the other kids, he’s gotten so fat.”

Abnormal kids benefit from specialized instruction; normal kids benefit from specialized instruction. Kids do better with specialized instruction.

That doesn’t mean that everyone who’s received it, under mistaken or fraudulent pretenses, should keep it. It certainly does nothing to address the central question of whether those pretenses were indeed mistaken or fraudulent. In short, it’s a very poor argument for justifying the status quo.

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Michael Savage Interviews Peter BregginThursday, July 31st, 2008

Michael Savage Interviews Peter Breggin
Thursday, July 31st, 2008