Child With Missing Cerebellum Shows Power of Human Spirit
firstthings.com
firstthings.com
After stumbling across this nugget of insight into the author, I'm not at all surprised that the article is so preachy and attributes the boy's success to the "strength of the human spirit" rather than our own shoddy understanding of how the brain works. The title would be better reformatted as, "boy proves that brain work in ways that we did not previously know," but that's not a title that will fetch you as much ad revenue as it winds it's way through Facebook.
In the bigger picture: where there's life, there's hope. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Nature's imagination is greater than your imagination.
This part of the brain is for X, here is the Y-centre, here is where Z is controlled.
Except, wait, XYZ are missing :-o
Neuroscientists are being descriptive, not proscriptive, when they tell you what areas of the brain are for what. They aren't "deciding" what it means, they are telling you that across a wide range of people, when they see activity X, brain part Y lights up. That the brain might be significantly differently organized if bits of it are missing is hardly a groundbreaking idea, nor even remotely shocking to actual scientists. The brain reconfiguring itself, even in adults, has been repeatedly observed, with vision cortexes replaced by audio processing after becoming blind and so forth. This is interesting, but the "phrenologists" aren't going to be sent into a tizzy because of this one specific case. Your conception of the science might be sent into a tizzy, but that's not the scientist's problem. (Well, at least not directly.)
He's only three. At that age, nobody is "human" in the fullest definition of the word. Full cognitive abilities don't develop for several more years.
The plasticity of the brain, especially young ones, is well documented. It's not surprising to me that functionality could be offloaded to the parts of the brain that are present (although the extremity of this case may be surprising).
I'll be interested to see where he's at when he's 6 years old, and again at puberty.
In my mind, the term you are looking for when you say "human race" is actually homo sapiens. This is a biological term denoting the species.
When I used the word "human", I intended to communicate a more metaphysical idea. Perhaps a better choice of words would be "person", but somehow -- and this seems to be all subjective -- that seemed setting the bar too low. I thought that the word "human" might convey the idea of "person", but also implying a certain level of functioning.
For example, I'd expect more evolved cognitive skills (starting with the persistence of objects, eventually moving through symbolic logic, and so forth) from an entity described as a "human", as well as certain emotional skills, such as empathy.
Back to my original point, none of those attributes I mentioned would be expected at all in a 3-year-old homo sapiens, so this would be a more interesting story in several years when the boy reaches an age at which we'd expect those skills to have developed.
Just like emerging through the "trough of sorrow" doesn't seem essential to a strong business yet still seems to do something like what my dad called "building character", I wonder if these ever-present difficulties contribute, somehow, to making people stronger. And even, perhaps, more caring of each other.
"But there's enough troubles already..." yes, yes, I know. But first, it's not a response to the argument. Second, though: what about when those troubles, and then the ones left after that, are eliminated? I've long liked "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/ in part because it shows what might be wrong with just such a world.
Would Abraham Lincoln still have been who he was if he didn't have Marfan syndrome? Or what if he was never born because of prenatal screening? If we could eliminate manic depression, would we ever have another Emily Dickinson? Would Van Gogh still have show us the world in new ways if he didn't have epilepsy?
Eugenics has promise. It also holds terror beyond simply how it has been practiced in the past. We're already seeing the dangers of monoculture in agribusiness. Could a similar molecular 'cleanup' of the human genome pose similar dangers?
... of course, later, there is often a consolidation phase, after the way to do it is understood, which might not be so egalitarian, and made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
When making a decision it's often a good idea to weigh the benefits(genetic/developmental conditions providing troubles to overcome, character building) versus the costs (the profound difficulties these conditions can place on individuals families). You've touched on some of the benefits but let's make those more explicit. I don't think you have really any idea of the costs.
After carefully considering this issue, if you come to the conclusion that people being born with genetic disorders is a desirable aspect of life then there are immediate ways you can show everyone you aren't full of shit. For example you could adopt several children with severe mental retardation who require 24hr care and will for the rest of their lives. There are many children out there who are desperately in need of loving families and you could make a tremendous impact on their lives _right now_.