I have a different take on all of this. I know nothing of any of the
players except what I have read in the media. I see postpartum psychosis
and infanticide as evolved traits to successfully deal with severe metabolic
stress in the postpartum period. I don't know if that is what happened in
this case, but I suspect so.
I have been working on a blog on the physiology behind this for some time now, and it is now at 30 pages. I hope to put it up there soon.
My focus is more on trying to prevent such things from happening in the future. If my hypothesis of metabolic stress is correct, then harsh punishment will have zero
deterrent effect. Harsh treatment of women in the postpartum period will
increase the incidence of postpartum psychosis and infanticide.
From my vantage point, I object to the notion of "justice", as if
a bad act requires some sort of retribution to counteract it. Two wrongs
don't make a right. If the conditions that women with small children find
themselves in are so harsh that the only thing that prevents infanticide is the
mother's concern of harsh punishment, then society is broken, the mother/child
unit has been destroyed and infanticide is one of the least of the problems
society will be facing.
It is his blog and he can control the content on it in any way he likes. I object to his characterization of my comment as "self serving, self aggrandising crap".
The notion that "justice" requires the finding of blame and the punishment of those who are guilty when ever something bad happens, is precisely what is causing the Mercury Malacia to blame and want to punish and destroy the pharmaceutical industry. That is what caused the burning of witches in times past.
I will post at least part of my infanticide blog today. The section on prevention is less complete, I will post that later.
1 comment:
Unfortunate, but not a surprising response. Personally, I think your theories are fascinating (though I can't pretend to have more than a rudimentary understanding of the physiology). I am very interested in evolutionary psychology myself, but I find few people very receptive to such discussions. I do find it interesting that people are willing to blame a single element such as mercury for the complicated condition of autism without real evidence, but are unwilling to consider your well-reasoned scientific argument for postpartum psychosis.
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