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Male Brains Explained

How about people with No Brains?


Submitted by Edwin on Thu, 06/19/2003 - 12:22am.



In 1980 Professor John Lorber, a neurosurgeon from the University of Sheffield announced that he had found a man who had a first class math degree and an IQ of 126, but whose skull did not contain a brain.

The man was an adult example of the neurological disorder known as hydranencephalus. This is a disorder whereby the skull fills with fluid so that the brain never develops. This man (Roger) had 95% of his brain missing, yet was normal in all other respects.

Many scientists accused Lorber of faulty analysis or being overdramatic. He did have support from Professor Patrick Wall of University College London, who had seen many autopsy reports of people with missing brains (e.g. a New York janitor whose autopsy had revealed his skull to be empty).

Lorbers conclusion was guarded, he said that there must be a tremendous amount of redundancy in the human brain (is this where the "humans only use 10% of their brains come from?). Others believed that it showed there was a separation between thinking and the brain. Christian groups have taken Lorbers work to be proof that human consciousness can survive death.

Lorber died in 1996, since when , research into this field has all but dried up. However,in 2002 Sharon Parker was discovered to have nearly 90% of her brain missing. She is normal in all other respects. Initial testing seems to indicate that her brain is working through a little understood form of rerouting and job sharing between those parts that remain.

Anybody have any thoughts about this?
 
Seeeeeeee? The scarecrow really never NEEDED a brain...now DID he?!:D

Very fascinating, seriously. I suppose we could ask Google something like "brainless people". I think I'll try this. Hmmmm. This could be better than Mike the headless chicken. (from 1945 lore)
 
Ask Google, "No brain necessary"...and that will get you into sites that describe this/case studies.
 
I've encountered many people in my life with no brains.

For some reason I keep marrying them.
 
For anyone who wants to google this I dropped a few search terms in the above post:

Professor John Lorber
Professor Patrick Wall
anencepahlus
anencephalopathy
hydro and hydra anencephalus and
anenceophalopathy


Also doing early work in this area are
Wilder Penfield, Karl Lashley (Yerkes Primate Lab of Yale) and his student
Karl Pribam. Lashley removed the brains of rats and found they still retained memories ... not the brains, the rats
all proving there is hope yet for people with no brains.

But getting back to the original question, if there are males and females with no brains, how can their brains (which they dont have) be different? Exceptions to every rule I guess.
 
Steve,

That's not what I asked. I didn't ask for a Google-search. I already did that: I was not able to find anything about this particular case. So, please enlighten us: Show your references. Of this particular case. Not anything else. No huge lists from Google. Just your references.

Do not tell people to search Google. Do not tell us that you only have an anonymous poster's opinion of this. Do not think anyone will fall for this. And do not claim that this is a huge conspiracy to silence you.

Just present your references, please.
 
John Lorber was a pediatrician, not a neurosurgeon.

He made some outlandish claims on British television in the 1980s, and really misrepresented his intriguing findings.

The patients he profiled were adolescents of apparent normal social functioning, although some doctors reviewing his claims suspect that he exaggerated their cognitive and social functioning for dramatic effect. He provocatively named his program, "Is Your Brain Really Necessary?"

The patients he profiled had late onset hydrochephalus, or water on the brain. This occurs when the cerebrospinal fluid which circulates becomes dammed up in the brain and causes pressure and compaction of the brain against the skull. It usually leads to severe mental retardation and death (My father was a pediatrician, and I remember such a diagnosis was always grave and devastating to the patient's family).

Lorber's patients profiled in the TV program had brain hemispheres that were compressed such that some were only one centimeter in width. Thus, the volume of their brains had been diminished, but the mass was still there. Thus, it is misleading to say they only had 5-10% of their brains left.

Anway, clearly the brain is necessary, and clearly these patients were not "normal."

Here's a link discussing the Lorber cases in a brief section beginning at Page 14 of this Word document.

Exploding the 10 Percent Myth

Happy reading.

AS

[Edited to comment re: link. Sorry, apparently the link address I copied into this doesn't get you there. I can't seem to get at the address directly, because it asks me if I want to open the document with Microsoft Word and I say yes. Claus, I hate to give you more search terms, but I can tell you exactly how I got the link.

Google and enter these terms: "John Lorber" neurosurgeon Sheffield without brain man

Choose the Matching Result Number 3. It should ask if you want to open with Microsoft Word. It's a 23 page document. Not bad reading, and it's a pretty trustworthy source.]
 
Like the dissapearing or compressed brain matter, this link had a redirection to an empty file.

Given the other accounts for anyone researching the subject, at the key words given, I would've liked to read this explosion. Lashley was deifnitely a neurosurgeon and he definitely excised huge chunks of his test animals brains yet their memories seemed to survive intact.

Got anything better? Thanks.
 
Lorber died in 1996, since when , research into this field has all but dried up. However,in 2002 Sharon Parker was discovered to have nearly 90% of her brain missing. She is normal in all other respects. Initial testing seems to indicate that her brain is working through a little understood form of rerouting and job sharing between those parts that remain.
Click to expand...

I betcha she's a p-zombie.

~~ Paul
 
There was a very recent news item about this, I'm sure I remember reading about a boy with an IQ of 125 with hydrocephalus who had only a small amount of brain visible on MRI scan.

But it was a news report, and it's possible to scam journalists I guess.

Anyone know what I'm talking about, 'cos I can't remember where I read it.

Rolfe.
 
SteveGrenard said:
Like the dissapearing or compressed brain matter, this link had a redirection to an empty file.

Given the other accounts for anyone researching the subject, at the key words given, I would've liked to read this explosion. Lashley was deifnitely a neurosurgeon and he definitely excised huge chunks of his test animals brains yet their memories seemed to survive intact.

Got anything better? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Steve,

Try reading the "Edit" comment in [ ] at the bottom of my above post. I explain about the link. You can find it with my instructions, but I don't know how to point to it directly. It's not an exhaustive explanation of the story, but it does provide some credible commentary.

AS
 
Not to further derail the OP, but...

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0493.html?printable=1
I find it remarkable that Dembski cites the case of John Lorber’s reportedly brainless patient as evidence that human intellectual functioning is the result of “extra-material factors.” First of all, we need to take this strange report with a grain of salt. Many commentators have pointed out that Lorber’s conclusion that his patient’s brain was only 1 millimeter thick was flawed. As just one of many such critics, neurosurgeon Kenneth Till commented on the case of Lorber’s patient: “Interpreting brain scans can be very tricky. There can be a great deal more brain tissue in the cranium than is immediately apparent.”

It may be true that this patient’s brain was smaller than normal, but that would not necessarily be reflected in obviously degraded capabilities. In commenting on the Lorber case, University of Indiana Professor Paul Pietsch writes, “How could this [the Lorber case] possibly be? If the way the brain functions is similar to the way a hologram functions, that [diminished brain size] might suffice. Certain holograms can be smashed to bits, and each remaining piece can reproduce the whole message. A tiny fragment of this page, in contrast, tells little about the whole story.”

Even Lorber himself does not resort to “extra-material factors” to explain his observations. Lorber concludes that “there must be a tremendous amount of redundancy or spare capacity in the brain, just as there is with kidney and liver.” Few commentators on this case resort to Dembski’s “extra-material factors” to explain it.
Click to expand...

And some very interesting comments on Till, Lorber and this whole issue on this page of ARN's (Discovery Institute) BBS.
http://www.arn.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-1-t-000707.html
 
I should mention also that the critique I tried to link to points out that the technique Lorber used to measure the brains of his featured patients is prone to underestimating substantially the size of the objects measured. If true, this would call into question his claims that the hemispheres of some of the patients was a mere one centimeter thick.

It sounds as if Lorber may have been something of a charlatan.

AS
 
I was intrigued by this passage in an article in the June 1995 issue of National Geographic:

Matt stands beside his mother as we chat on the porch. He can see that I am feeling the New Mexico heat. "Would you like a glass of water?" he asks. It is the last day of second grade, and Matt is proud of his report card. It shows respectable grades, good behavior, and steady improvement. Two years ago surgeons removed nearly half of Matt's brain.
 
CFLarsen said:
How about some references for this?
Click to expand...
Here ya go!

I remember reading something about the very same subject on the boards a while back (I searched and I couldnt find the thread), the story I read was the same scenario (guy with above average IQ doesnt have a brain) but different name and location. It turns out the story was the creation of some guy who wrote a webpage called "Bad Science". Bad Science featured lots and lots of bad theories such as "The core of the sun is actually cold", "The inside of the moon could be hollow", and "Is your brain really necessary" (this reflected on that annoying "people only use 10% of their brain" cliche). Its just drunken insanity, probably a spoof, probably an unsual joke, most likely an urban legend, nothing worth investing your time in.
 
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