From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Newsgroups: tx.politics
Subject: Re: Brainwaves & John Haugh II
Keywords: foetus brainwave Gray
Date: 10 Sep 92 15:33:27 GMT
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc

In <1992Sep09.223919.35905@watson.ibm.com> john@johniac.austin.ibm.com (John Iacoletti) writes:

>In article <1992Sep9.135219.6967@mksol.dseg.ti.com>, mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>|> According to Gray's Anatomy, the median section of human foetal brain
>|> DURING THE THIRD MONTH shows the brain divided into 5 ventricles; not
>|> yet formed are the cerebrum, cerebellum and pons.  Perhaps John would
>|> like to enlighten us as to how a foetal brain can show READABLE HUMAN
>|> BRAINWAVES at 40 days (5-6 weeks) WHEN THE PARTS THAT MAKE A HUMAN
>|> BEING DON'T EVEN EXIST YET.
>   ^^^^^
>I assume you meant to write "BRAIN" and not "BEING".

No, I meant "BEING".  If you remove the cerebrum and the cerebellum,
what you have left may contain human DNA and have arms and legs, but
it's not human.  

>|> All the higher parts of the brain don't even
>|> exist yet, so how can human brainwaves?
>|> . . .
>|> And yet, John would have us believe that
>|> only FIVE DAYS AFTER NEURAL DIFFERENTIATION THERE ARE READABLE HUMAN
>|> BRAINWAVES.
>|> . . .
>|>                                    That says that the parts aren't
>|> even all there until around 126 days into gestation, and yet John
>|> Haugh would have us believe that readable human brainwaves exist IN
>|> MUCH LESS THAN HALF THAT TIME.
>|>. . . 
>|> In other words, the claims of John's sources that there are "readable
>|> human brainwaves" occurring at around 40 days gestational age are
>|> untrue.

>You haven't shown this at all.  Until we know what brain development
>is necessary to produce "readable human brainwaves" (whatever that
>means), all you are doing is speculating.  I'd be interested in
>knowing the reasoning behind your pathologist friend's "hogwash"
>remark though.  You sure seem to have a lot of buddies who like to
>make terse assertions.  They are going to have to support their
>arguments too--"experts" though they may be.

John, this is rather like my opening the hood of a car, showing you
that there are no spark plugs, no fuel system, no air system, and no
engine controls, and then you saying I haven't proven that the car
won't run.  Well, perhaps not, but with that much stuff missing, what
would YOU think?

I thought it was obvious that a good part of HUMAN brainwaves come
from the higher centers of the brain.  Those are the parts that simply
aren't there at this point.  Hell, at 40 days, we're talking about a
brain that can't even sustain autonomic nervous function yet, much
less human brainwave function.  Electrical activity, perhaps, but
READABLE HUMAN BRAINWAVES (what John Haugh asserted)?  Not hardly.
And that explain's Michael's "terse assertion".  It's simply something
that's so obviously false that he can't imagine why anyone would
believe it.

Now, you may elect to not consider all this as 'proof', but it seems
pretty obvious to me that you can't get readable brainwaves from brain
parts that aren't even there yet.  And that's what you would have to
do to get readable human brainwaves from a foetus at 40 days.  


-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
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