> This article is junk science. The author opens by suggesting that Russians have discovered and use a different set of chemical elements than the ones we use in the United States, going so far as to suggest that one of them is a room temperature superconductor in ways that American scientists are uninterested in.
Either I completely failed to see sarcasm in your comment, or you completely failed in Reading Comprehention 101. If it's not the former, please re-read the article carefully before criticizing things author is not saying.
There must be some ambiguity in the article, because GP's reading looks plausible to me. For example,
"You can’t have one set of elements in Russia and another in the US, everyone would work together and compare notes. At the very least one side would have the common decency to at least steal from the other. No way anything like this could possibly go on.
But as far as I can tell this is exactly the state of modern psychopharmacology."
It's not obvious whether the author really thinks that the Russians have found some new elements, or is just using the term 'element' to mean 'chemical', but either is erroneous.
I agree with TeMPOraL, the first sentence sets up the example:
> Imagine if a chemist told you offhandedly that the Russians had different chemical elements than we did.
Make it clear that different elements being used in Russia is a hypothetical. He then uses it to show the absurd state of the state of psychopharmacology.
Look at the first sentence of the post. Or the beginning of the paragraph you just quoted. Elements being different in different countries is clearly marked as an absurd example.
It's things like this that point out that the author a) can't write effectively and b) doesn't know anything about pharmacology/medicinal chemistry. Why are people going nuts about an article written about a very advanced subject that's written by a non-expert?
If someone working at a hospital, doing psychiatry for a living and known for reading tons of research papers is a "non-expert" then I don't know who to read anymore. By this standard you shouldn't listen to anyone here about anything related to programming or startups.
I sometimes wonder why people make these egregious reading comprehension mistakes. It sometimes seem to come from reading stuff too literally. Are the people who do this really smart but simply too analytically inclined to comprehend normal prose?
Yes, it's associated with Asperger's syndrome. Some people do not automatically recognize non-literal communication forms like metaphor, hyperbole, analogy, satire, irony, and so on. Those who are clever and aware of their deficit can often compensate by recognizing the patterns analytically. Those who are clever but prideful assume everyone else is wrong, and become indistinguishable from trolls or cranks.
I don't know. My natural reaction when reading something that clearly makes no sense is to assume that maybe I misread something, go back a bit and read more carefully.
Maybe it's because some people have the default assumption of "they must be wrong", and others "I might be wrong", and this determines how their knee-jerk reactions look like?
> really smart but simply too analytically inclined to comprehend normal prose?
I can not connect this type of comprehension problem to the analytical trait/skill/etc. I have definitely see similar comprehension mistakes in non-analytical people.
I think it is unlikely that If you saw some one you thought was not smart make the same mistake would you claim it was because they were too analytical.
Coming to conclusions quickly and acting on them is viable useful strategy on many occasions. It makes sense that it would be used at most levels of intelligence. Taken to far it can be jumping to conclusions and can have heavy consequences.
What part of the first sentence "imagine if a chemist told you offhandedly that the Russians had different chemical elements than we did" you both fail to understand?
The OP seems to have read something completely different than I (or somehow skipped every other paragraph). At this point it doesn't matter what the text is or who wrote it. It's a failure of reading.
That is how author began the article, but that's just shitty writing. The author goes on to say:
> If a chemist told you this, you would think they were crazy. Science, you would say, is science everywhere. You can’t have one set of elements in Russia and another in the US, everyone would work together and compare notes. At the very least one side would have the common decency to at least steal from the other. No way anything like this could possibly go on.
> But as far as I can tell this is exactly the state of modern psychopharmacology.
Which is telling us that the peculiar elements stuff was some weird hyperbolic example to make us realise just how strange it is that we ignore Russian pharmacology.
(I downvoted you for your needlessly aggressive tone.)
Either I completely failed to see sarcasm in your comment, or you completely failed in Reading Comprehention 101. If it's not the former, please re-read the article carefully before criticizing things author is not saying.