Cryonics and mental illness...
2001-09-15 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
archershipsDoug Skrecky, a frequent poster to Cryonet, a mailing list devoted to cryonics, made the following observation after one of the frequent bouts of sniping between members of rival cryonics organizations.
"...after seeing and evaluating the behaviour of a number of people involved in
cryonics, I've reluctantly concluded that a number are mentally ill.
A possibly relevant study was done on creativity and psychopathology in
291 world-famous men (British Journal of Psychiatry 165: 22-34
1994). Guess which profession was associated with the highest incidence of
psychopathology? No, it wasn't politicians, of which 17.8% suffered from
severe illness, including Hitler, Woodrow Wilson and Lincoln. The group
that scored the worst was writers. one is reminded of the saying: genius
is next to insanity. The breakdown for writers was as follows:
Unfortunately, my own observations tend to support Skreky's contention. (Present company excepted, of course...:>)
"...after seeing and evaluating the behaviour of a number of people involved in
cryonics, I've reluctantly concluded that a number are mentally ill.
A possibly relevant study was done on creativity and psychopathology in
291 world-famous men (British Journal of Psychiatry 165: 22-34
1994). Guess which profession was associated with the highest incidence of
psychopathology? No, it wasn't politicians, of which 17.8% suffered from
severe illness, including Hitler, Woodrow Wilson and Lincoln. The group
that scored the worst was writers. one is reminded of the saying: genius
is next to insanity. The breakdown for writers was as follows:
Degree of Psychopathology
None Mild Marked Severe
2% 10% 42% 46%
_____________________________________
Maupassant Chekov Balzac Conrad
France Bennett Dostoevsky
Hauptmann Brecht Faulkner
Melville Camus Gide
Orwell Dickens Gogol
Dumas(pere) Hemingway
Flaubert Hesse
Galsworthy Ibsen
Gorky Joyce
Hardy Kafka
Hugo Kipling
Huxley (A) Lawrence
James (H) Mann (T)
Maugham (S) Manzoni
Pasternak Proust
Pirandello Sartre
Shaw Scott Fitzgerald
Thackeray Stendhal
Trollope Strindberg
Turgenev Tolstoy
Zola Waugh (E)
Wells
Wilde
Unfortunately, my own observations tend to support Skreky's contention. (Present company excepted, of course...:>)