site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2689 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 2, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I've occasionally heard people allude to the idea that "dyslexia" isn't really a discrete medical condition, but rather a sort of cope that parents use to prevent their kid feeling bad about being a bit on the slow side, or lacking in verbal comprehension. For example, Freddie deBoer:

Let’s set aside whether dyslexia is one thing or many things and whether or not it’s simply a term that we came up with to say that some people are poor readers, as a matter of compassion.

Is there anything to this? Is dyslexia a real medical condition, or a contested one? Is it generally sensibly diagnosed by qualified professionals, or is there an epidemic of self-diagnosis muddying the water?

I'm not sure what would be the difference? Some people are, for some reason unique to them, bad at X. Is it a "real medical condition"? It certainly seems to be real, it certainly seems to be a "condition" - as in, describable and identifiable phenomenon, as for whether it's "medical" I'm not sure that's a robust term. Can you take a pill to cure it? Currently probably not, but there are hundreds of problems that have no pill to cure it. Do we know a sufficiently reduced biological or chemical level cause? Probably not again, but again hundreds of problems without known causes reduced to chemistry or cell biology. The distinction sounds like a political question - e.g. "should people with condition X be covered by ADA and subject to reasonable accommodation provisions, or you just can fire them at will if they're bad at X and you need somebody who's good at X" - but those are impossible to answer objectively. So I think "simply a term that we came up with" describes a lot of things that also absolutely real conditions.

Say you have a condition that makes your leg muscles be 20% slower than average, and that makes you suck at running. If we call that "disrunnia", is it a real medical condition or just a cope parents use to make kid not feel bad for coming last in every race?

I guess my question is more along the lines of "is dyslexia distinct in any meaningful way from a lack of skills in verbal reasoning?"

Completely. I've known people with dyslexia for decades and they have normal or better than normal skills in verbal reasoning. They just have a specific dysfunction that causes easily problems with reading and writing that are easy to recognize and have a specific pattern to them.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats