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Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

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Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#221

Post by dang »

komali2 wrote: post #217
dang wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please not post like this to HN? You may have a point about jargon but it's lost in a bucket of bile. That's exactly how we shouldn't be reacting to people who come to our community to share knowledge with us. Especially because the #1 rule of commenting in this forum is "Be civil": https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=148135…

I fail to see how I'm not being civil, and am happy to receive feedback on a better way to have expressed frustration at what I see as excessive jargon.

I believe you that you didn't mean to be uncivil, but I think maybe some calibration is needed to adjust to how this site is intended. Previous comments of yours have also crossed into sharp-elbow territory. If you could make that adjustment and fix this, we'd be genuinely grateful. (Btw, I had to make such an adjustment myself. Many of us have.)

Pejorative phrases like "Come on, whoever you are", "You're seriously going to?", "drop words on us", "have even the slightest clue", etc., add no information and are the equivalent of sharp elbows. This is uncivil. Piling on half a dozen of them is nasty. If we take all of those out, there's almost nothing left.

You could have simply said, "I don't understand some of these words, like 'infarction', 'edema', etc.". But you could just as easily have been grateful that so substantive a comment got posted to HN and trivially Googled those words for yourself.

In any case, given that another user had already helpfully supplied definitions, I don't see that your post had any positive purpose. Lashing out at a fellow commenter is definitely not what you should be posting here.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#222

Post by agumonkey »

dumbneurologist wrote: post #210
agumonkey wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- do not apologize for spreading more information - this is hacker news I hope people are in it for some sort of rigor, not just for wow effect I forgot the 66min case, but that brings me to something I heard recently. Some paramedics said they managed to sustain some kid under cardiac arrest for 18 minutes (he had a nice if not full recovery). The average rule is that if heart has not restarted after 6 minutes, brai…

I can't speak intelligently to your questions, because I have no relevant first-hand experience or knowledge of CPR literature. My only point regarding > The average rule is that if heart has not restarted after 6 minutes, brain damage is irreversible is that it doesn't mean it's worthless to continue CPR. Different people have different preferences about how grievous an injury they would want to survive. Whether to…

I just don't know the physics of CPR blood flow, I hoped that with enough man power you have to sustain CPR as long as possible because it means oxygenation. Although I remember MD on reddit saying the amount of oxygenation is so low it's rarely worth it..

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#223

Post by [deleted] »

mnw21cam wrote: post #61
SmellTheGlove wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it does. Lifeguards will tell you it's part of their training. It may be non-PC, but the statistics say that when you're watching the water, African-American children are more likely to drown. I don't know if it's specifically African American children, or black children (of any origin) in general. I've heard it's socioeconomic - potentially less likely to be able to swim, but I'm not sure honestly. If you're wa…

One of the things I was taught mumble years ago was that black people tend to have more dense fast twitch muscle, while white people tend to have less dense slow twitch muscle. Hence, white people float more easily, and black people dominate the 100m sprint. We did an experiment where we would cannonball the swimming pool and see who floated. Admittedly, the amount of air you have in your lungs affects your buoyancy…

[deleted]

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#224

Post by cookiecaper »

xenadu02 wrote: post #200
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greater bone density of blacks makes it harder to float because they don't displace enough water for their mass. It isn't just social issues that discourage swimming.

This sounds like pseudo-scientific garbage bordering on racism, so citation needed. For almost any statistic you care to break down by gender or ethnicity there is greater variation within the group than between groups. By way of example, there is a greater variation of intelligence within men as a group than between men and women. That makes any statements about the intelligence of men vs women almost completely use…

There is no point in calling something like this "racist". It is either true or false. It makes no subjective judgments or propositions.

Perhaps someone may, at some point, attempt to use such a fact to justify their own subjective value judgment about something, and then you can address any potential racism associated with that.

People should not be discouraged from exploring, sharing, or understanding anatomical realities just because someone somewhere may use those realities to draw unfair conclusions. Address the unfair conclusion instead of trying to stop people from understanding themselves and their world.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#225

Post by aeorgnoieang »

Natsu wrote: post #212
tptacek wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an Internet myth that the credibility of an argument's source is out of bounds in a debate. If and only if the arguer's credibility has no logical connection to their argument, then attacking the arguer is fallacious. Otherwise, as is very much the case here, it is not.

> If and only if the arguer's credibility has no logical connection to their argument, then attacking the arguer is fallacious. The arguer's credibility does not affect the truth value of any statements, so it's always more useful to argue over why someone is wrong. You cannot guarantee that any segment of the population agrees with your credibility assessments. And these assessments should be established via appeals…

> The arguer's credibility does not affect the truth value of any statements

It is evidence which you should weigh in deciding how much credence to give their statements.

> so it's always more useful to argue over why someone is wrong.

It's a tradeoff, so there's no obvious bright line with which everyone will agree. But certainly there are some people for which some arguments or claims can be reasonably dismissed out of hand, relative to the preferences of the person making this decision.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#226

Post by aeorgnoieang »

Karunamon wrote: post #190

It is also completely irrelevant to the correctness or incorrectness of the argument, which is often what gets missed. Authority is a heuristic, nothing more. The evaluation of P -> Q happens independently of the speaker. If you're trying to refute P -> Q by mentioning an attribute of the speaker, you're necessarily answering some other question entirely, while making an excuse to ignore the original question. You ca…

It's not clear what you mean by "logic", but weighing the evidence of a statement conditional on the person that made it is not inherently illogical.

Yes, of course untrustworthy people can make truthful claims! But you would still be wise to discount their claims (sometimes, under some conditions).

Evaluating arguments is, like everything else, subject to opportunity costs, so discussing the credibility of people making 'extreme' claims is certainly valuable.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#227

Post by WhitneyLand »

laythea wrote: post #168
infogulch wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, dumbneurologist for the reality check, and thank you HN commenters for being the most down-to-earth no-bullshit community I've ever found. The breadth of expertise of commenters checking bait articles at the door makes HN an extremely refreshing and clear-headed place to consume news. Everyone has their faults and I'm not saying that HN never gets caught up in hype sometimes, but this is the best place to…

I second that. HN is good for that reason and also the lack of half page ads on another popular website SD.

Sorry, SD? The acronym is not clicking, would like to make sure I'm not missing a site with benefits similar to HN, even if it requires viewing a few half page ads. Thanks,

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#228

Post by wfunction »

> Disclaimer: I am a neurologist

> {informed comments}

A little off-topic but I see this so often I feel like I should mention this at some point:

I think you mean "disclosure" and not "disclaimer" (and most likely it's best if both are omitted and you just mention you're a neurologist).

"Disclaimer" means refusing to accept responsibility, which doesn't make sense when it's a preface to what looks like a comment based on expertise. If, on the other hand, you're really trying to say that you're refusing any responsibility for what you say, then the disclaimer should probably be something more along the lines of "I'm NOT {a qualified lawyer/neurosurgeon/whatever}", and not "I AM {a qualified whatever}".

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#229

Post by WhitneyLand »

nerdponx wrote: post #158
enraged_camel wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, generally speaking, when it comes to scientific reporting, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The fact that the top commenter (as of this writing) sees this as "Star Trek levels of medicine" should clue everyone in.

I mentioned Star Trek precisely because it stretched the limits of believability. Usually I'm pretty skeptical but, yknow what? Sometimes I want to be amazed. I feel a little silly that I took this article for granted, but I sure wish I lived in a world where I could take most articles for granted.

Thank you for providing a honest answer. Well intentioned mistakes combined with self reflective and vulnerable answers do not seem to require much criticism.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#230

Post by Mz »

wfunction wrote: post #228

> Disclaimer: I am a neurologist > {informed comments} A little off-topic but I see this so often I feel like I should mention this at some point: I think you mean "disclosure" and not "disclaimer" (and most likely it's best if both are omitted and you just mention you're a neurologist). "Disclaimer" means refusing to accept responsibility, which doesn't make sense when it's a preface to what looks like a comment bas…

Eh, my read on it was sort of "Sorry for being such a wet blanket, BUT..."

It is kind of a polite apology that indicates "I know people here are excited, but as someone in the know, I don't think it is exciting. And I don't really mean to be a party pooper, but y'all need to calm down, because this is not that exciting. Seriously."

Lots of talented people get used to being hated on for being more knowledgeable than other people. It often fosters verbal ticks to cope with the social and emotional BS.

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