Science and faux-science

[Lamplighter]

Usually, I detest the way the media reports events in science to the general public, particularly medicine.
Most often, such reports strike me as "faux science" or the interpretation is far beyond justification.
But then every once in a while, an article in the news that strikes me as being important.
Time will say whether a given article is "for real" or is only "faux-science"

Here is one article I expect will turn out to be eventually real and significant...

NY Times (opinion)
By ANNIE MURPHY PAUL
Published: February 4, 2012

The Upside of Dyslexia

<snip>
Dyslexia is a complex disorder, and there is much that is still not understood about it.
But a series of ingenious experiments have shown that many people with dyslexia
possess distinctive perceptual abilities.

For example, scientists have produced a growing body of evidence that people
with the condition have sharper peripheral vision than others.
Gadi Geiger and Jerome Lettvin, cognitive scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
used a mechanical shutter, called a tachistoscope, to briefly flash a
row of letters extending from the center of a subject’s field of vision out to its perimeter.
Typical readers identified the letters in the middle of the row with greater accuracy.
Those with dyslexia triumphed, however, when asked to identify letters located in the row’s outer reaches.

Mr. Geiger and Mr. Lettvin’s findings, which have been confirmed in several subsequent studies,
provide a striking demonstration of the fact that the brain separately processes information
that streams from the central and the peripheral areas of the visual field.
Moreover, these capacities appear to trade off: if you’re adept at focusing on details
located in the center of the visual field, which is key to reading,
you’re likely to be less proficient at recognizing features and patterns in the broad regions of the periphery.
<snip>

Whatever special abilities dyslexia may bestow, difficulty with reading still imposes a handicap.
Glib talk about appreciating dyslexia as a “gift” is unhelpful at best and patronizing at worst.
But identifying the distinctive aptitudes of those with dyslexia will permit us
to understand this condition more completely, and perhaps orient their education
in a direction that not only remediates weaknesses,
but builds on strengths.