24 April, 2017: While talking with a colleague recently, we discussed ‘medically unexplained symptoms’, also known as MUS.  Many doctors believe that MUS is a mental disorder, with all of the stigma that that entails (as if the brain is somehow not a part of the physical body).  All diseases used to be medically unexplained, including infectious diseases.  The germ theory of infectious disease was a relatively recent development in medical history, for example.  There are conditions, such as fibromyalgia, which are recognizable but that still remain medically unexplained.  And mental disorders, the more that is known about them, are increasingly found to be glitches in physical functioning.  The real problem here is that many people, including many doctors, conflate medically unexplained with medically unexplainable.  This conflation relies on a version of the logical fallacy of assuming that an absence of evidence is evidence of absence.  Making important and relevant distinctions–a critical aspect of critical aspect of clear thinking.

Long Ago: In defense of freedom of speech and thought: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/13/mute-button

• Squidge: my suggestion for the sound made when one pulls one’s feet out of mud.
• Sex differences in language

(Photo credits: my brother)

Quick–which of these was written for a primarily male audience and which for a primarily female audience?  How do you know?