The debate regarding homosexuality reminds me of a larger issue. What do we mean by normality, and do we want everyone to be normal?
For example, some forms of deafness are inherited, and some deaf parents do not want their children “cured”. I do not know how homosexual parents feel about this. (There are gay parents. Some adopt children, and some marry and have children by conventional means.)
Not everyone who deviates from majority traits considers their variation to be a handicap. I come from a family where left-handedness is common. It causes some problems, the most notable of which is with using scissors. I wonder if parents would go for some simple and inexpensive intervention that would guarantee right-handedness. I also have color-blindness in the family, including a nephew who is totally color-blind. There are some benefits to these traits.
I thought it would be fun to make a list of such differences and toss around opinions about whether they are actually detrimental and whether people would readily adopt medical technology that normalized children.
It’s obviously controversial, but I hope we can play nice.
I guess I’m color blind (mildly). It seems to be “deuteranomaly”. I might never have known that I was color blind, had I not been tested. I don’t see I would want that to change.
I guess I’m somewhat of an introvert. And I like it that way, so no need for a change there. And I’m relatively high IQ, and would not want that to change.
I’m all thumbs when it comes to athletics. I never would have made it into a team sport. But I’m not at all bothered by that.
I guess it all depends on what we mean by normal. There’s a bell curve of normality, and some people are near the middle of the bell curve while others are nearer the edges. We are probably all near the middle for some traits and near the edges for others. But we grow up with the way that we are, and in most cases it is probably best to leave it that way.
I do think that deafness and cochlear implants pose a difficult decision for parents. I’m not about to tell them how to decide.
I have trouble accepting unnecessary deafness.
Congenital deafness lowers intelligence and pretty much cuts of communication with hearing people.
I’m becoming a bit twitchy about this, because my hearing is deteriorating. I’m becoming one of those people who ask you to repeat everything.
Hey petrushka, I’m red-green color-blind. What did I win?
Is this really about how much do we want to enforce societal norms?
Yes, I’d say the same. If I had a deaf child, I’d jump at the opportunity for a cochlear implant. But then I am not deaf.
A parent who is deaf, and who has overcome this problem, is in an awkward place. As a deaf person, he has lived in the world of the deaf. To get his child a cochlear implant is to put that child in a different world. It must be a very tough decision. I’m glad I have not been faced with that problem.
One “lives in the world of the deaf” because one has no choice. It limits occupational choice; it limits one’s mastery of language, with all the baggage that implies.
Deliberately limiting a child’s opportunities in life seems a bit medieval, or something like that. We frown on parents who don’t get their kids immunized, or who inculcate them with rigid religious doctrine. I put this in the same category.
walto,
You win a juicy green strawberry.
keiths,
Thanks!
I was actually wondering, though, what petrushka meant by this:
I also have color-blindness in the family, including a nephew who is totally color-blind. There are some benefits to these traits.
walto,
There’s a (possibly apocryphal) story that color-blind bombardiers were sought out during WWII because they could spot camouflaged targets better than their normally-sighted counterparts. Perhaps petrushka had something like that in mind.
My understanding is that in some adrenaline driven situations some information is discarded from the visual system, typically color, so the important elements (the thing that is trying to eat you) can be concentrated on instead.
Hah! You guys are pathetic! (and should stop snickering when one of my socks is dark green and the other is navy…or brown….or, I guess black).
If you google “camouflage colorblind” (without the quotes), you will get many hits on this. There’s nothing apocryphal about it.
keiths:
Neil:
I did google it, and I couldn’t find any evidence that the military had actually sought out color-blind bombardiers during WWII. Do you have a link?
I found some evidence that they were aware of the potential, but no evidence that they actually recruited on that basis.
They would not have needed to recruit. Military service was compulsory at that time, so they could do it with assignment of conscripts.
Neil,
You claim that the story is not apocryphal. Do you have any evidence that color-blind bombardiers were sought out during WWII because they could spot camouflaged targets better than their normally-sighted counterparts?
keiths,
I’m not sure why the reports found via google don’t count as sufficient evidence.
I was a bit young at that time (during WWII). But later, in my high school years, I was required to participate in a military program (something similar to ROTC, but a high school version). This was in Australia. I signed up for the Air Force branch of the program. It was that program that required me to have a color vision test (where I learned of my deuteranomaly). And it was in that program, taught by air force personnel, that I heard of the value of color blindness for detecting camouflage.
That’s sufficient evidence for me. It seems very unlikely that they were making it all up.
You lesser humans can bicker all you want. The point is, I’m better, because I can’t tell one goddam color from another if they’re dark.
Neil Rickert,
I have a friend who is a commercial pilot and is red/green colour-blind. He originally wanted a career in the RAF but was refused the possibility to train as an air force pilot and he wasn’t interested in anything less than flying.
It’s a while since I spoke to him about the issue but I’m sure he told me the decision was borderline and possibly influenced by the fact his father was a career pilot with the same company. But he is currently captaining long-haul 747s so I guess it’s not a handicap.
On-topic!
Who decides? When is a child old enough to decide for herself whether to have a cochlear implant? Should we all not have the maximum amount of freedom to make our own choices within the limit that a choice adversely affects others?
Neil,
The question isn’t whether color blindness aids in the detection of camouflage.
The question is whether color-blind bombardiers were sought out during WWII because they could spot camouflaged targets better than their normally-sighted counterparts.
I have found no evidence that they were, despite the fact that the military was aware of the potential.
That is why I wrote:
Why do you claim that the story is not apocryphal?
I’ll pass on that. But I wonder why you suspect that it is apocryphal.
My superiority is not apocryphal, goddamit. >:-{|}
For those born deaf, the implants need to be done young – basically between ages 1 and 6 – for the person to learn to hear and distinguish speech sounds.
[For adults who became deaf later in life, implants are well-accepted because brains can associate the nerve stimulation from the implant with the sounds the persons had previously known.]
So, we (that is, guardians of deaf infants) cannot wait until the child is old enough to make his/her own informed choice. Waiting deprives the child of the choice to hear and speak understandably among the hearing population. There just is no “wait and see what they want” possibility.
I’m not saying that parents who refuse to expose their deaf child to a potentially-dangerous operation are bad parents refusing their child an approximation of normal hearing. That’s a separate question. But your question about “who decides” for cochlear implants can never have the answer: “the chid”. Sorry, it has to be the adults who make the decision.
Neil,
I explained that already:
That’s a good reason to regard the story as possibly apocryphal.
Why do you claim that it isn’t apocryphal? Your Google search and your ROTC experience don’t show that.
I don’t see that it is. The air force would not publicize that they were doing this, because they would not want to tip off the enemy.
Seriously, Neil? Lacking evidence for a color-blind bombardier policy, we should conclude that it happened, that the government covered it up, and that the truth has not come out 70 years later?
That’s not very rational.
keiths,
Why would you ever expect that would need to get to the level of a government policy? It would be sufficient for it to be a practice be adopted many of the mission planners.
Whether colour-blindness can be advantageous in certain circumstances?
The answer seems to be yes.
Was this officially exploited in WWII?
I can’t find anything.
Can the the story that colourblind combatants in WWII were good at spotting camouflaged positions have some basis in reality?
Seems plausible.
ETA
pdf of original study
I don’t know, it just seems weird to me that, when you’ve actually got one of these super-humans right here in your midst, the bickering here continues about whether we’ve been sufficiently used to save humankind’s ass over the years. I mean, I gave free autographs yesterday and none of y’all came! What the hell!?
Not that I mind the argument: it’d be crucially important (as well as continually amusing)–IF I WEREN’T RIGHT HERE willing to tell stories, have shots taken with your kids, etc.!
But for Christ’s sake.
walto,
OK then!
How good are you at spotting camouflage?
Is there a way for me to post a photo in a comment?
walto,
There must be! I’ll try changing your permissions to allow uploads. It’ll be an experiment! Give me five minutes.
ETA
I find I have to upload the photo to the media library in the dashboard, then copy the link provided to use in the link (just click on the img tag in the edit window.
Like this!
There’s an img tag in the edit window? I don’t see one (could this be a color-vision only thing???)
Should be. When you click on the grey(?) edit button at the top right hand of the comment, the edit window opens and you should see “img” as one of the buttons along the top between “ins” and “unl”. When you click on it you get a request for the image URL which you get from the media library.
Wait–is this it?
OK thanks. My point was–I had a hell of a time seeing that bunny there the other day. Took the picture without being able to see it at all. Seems like everybody else finds it pretty quickly.
Getting back to petrushka’s main point. I would have loved to have this issue fixed when I was still a baby. I was also born with fairly severe supination of my feet (“clubfoot”) which was (kind of) fixed by progressive casting. Dunno if maybe they should have cut the damn tendons. I think they do that more often nowadays. My ankles have sprained really easily since I was a kid, and I haven’t been able to run for over a decade.
I didn’t like wearing orthopedic shoes until I was in junior high school, and I don’t like not being able to tell what colors go with what.
One of my kids had a birth defect that went undetected until she was a teen. It was an ordeal to fix–but we’re all so glad it was possible.
So, yeah, I’d get get cochlear implants for my baby if the docs said it was safe.
walto,
Rotated the picture for you. (There is an edit feature in the media library)
Hmmm. If you are red-green colour-blind, I think the idea is you should be able to see differences in objects of a similar green but on different textures (canvass rather than leaves) i. e. you should see differences that trichromates don’t. Not sure if it applies to brown on brown.
I’m clearly superior, if that’s what you’re saying.
walto,
So you didn’t spot the pink flower then? Mutant! The bunny’s a decoy.
[lampoon] Just wanted to say that evolutionists should want to eliminate minority traits because isn’t that what Natural Selection means? Selfish genes want to kill other selfish genes, and if there are more of them they can gang up. [/lampoon]
PINK FLOWER!!@??!
He’s not kidding. The one in the lower left corner is pink, while the others are yellow.
Allan,
Selfish genes can’t gang up on each other. There’s only one, and it hasn’t been identified yet.
Neil,
Take a look at the bizarre arguments you’ve made in this thread:
1. A Google search on “camouflage colorblind” returns a lot of hits. Therefore the military sought color-blind bombardiers during WWII because they could spot camouflaged targets better than their normally-sighted counterparts.
2. None of the hits confirm that the military sought color-blind bombardiers during WWII, but that’s because it was a secret, and no one has spilled the beans in the 70 years since then.
3. We should believe something for which we have no evidence, because if it were true, then according to you there would be no evidence for it.
I suspect that you recognize the absurdity of these arguments, but would rather embrace them than admit your mistake.
keiths,
Those are all examples of you making stuff up, for the sake of ridicule.
Neil,
It’s all right here in the thread.
keiths:
Neil:
That’s #1:
keiths:
Neil:
That’s #2 and #3:
For the record, I don’t think you actually believe your own arguments. It’s just that given a choice between admitting a mistake and compounding your error, you chose the latter.
keiths,
Okay. So you are capable of taking quotes completely out of context; of reading into them something never intended; and of using that to make bogus accusations.
Why do you even bother?
Really, you should become a YEC. You have already mastered the absurd literalism part of it.
keiths,
I see the pink flower. But it’s really hard for me to see the bunny, and I can’t tell what color the mulch is.
If the story about hunting for color-blind bombers is indeed apocryphal, Dawkins seems to have played a role in spreading it:
He wrote in Unweaving the Rainbow
“…bomber crews in the Second World War liked to include at least one colour-blind member, who could penetrate certain kinds of camouflage on the ground.”