Selected Significant Events and Documents for the West Archive
Updated Listing for History of Medicine, NLM, NIH
Draft, in Process -- November 8, 2020
From 1991 to 2020, Thomas G. West has given hundreds of presentations in the U.S. and 19 countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Over time, West has come to measure the success of these efforts by the extent to which the simple but powerful ideas he learned from two prescient neurologists (using the National Library of Medicine History of Medicine collections) have been received and accepted by those interested in the strengths and talents of individuals with dyslexia and other learning differences -- as well as related aspects of visual thinking and emerging visual technologies.
This list of selected events and documents, with brief descriptions, is intended to show some evidence of the development and effectiveness of these efforts -- and provide researchers and advocates with models for future efforts in this direction.
West is the author of three books, In the Mind’s Eye (1991, 1997, 2009, 2020), Thinking Like Einstein (2004) and Seeing What Others Cannot See (2017).
The first book, In the Mind’s Eye, was awarded a gold seal and selected as one of the “best of the best” for the year (out of about 6000 reviewed books) by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association.
The book has been translated into Japanese, Chinese and Korean -- and West has provided presentations for scientific, medical, art, design, computer and business groups. The interest in these topics, across these many different fields and disciplines, has been an indicator, much to West’s surprise and delight, of the timeliness and broad impact of his research findings and publications -- largely based on the original work by the neurologists Drs. Samuel Torrey Orton in the 1920s and Norman Gechwind in the 1980s.
The second edition of In the Mind’s Eye includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said “In the Mind's Eyebrings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. In the Mind's Eye is just such a book.”
A broad and enduring interest is further indicated by the reissue in July 2020 of a Third Edition, in paperback, of West’s first book, In The Mind’s Eye. With 29 years in print, the book continues to be what they call in the trade an “evergreen” -- a book that never stops selling. The two previous revised and expanded editions (Updated edition and Second edition) each contain some 40-50 pages of new material.
Another indicator of continuing interest is that in recent weeks, West has been asked to join a global network based in Stockholm, Sweden, of professionals and advocates with high interest in the strengths and talents of dyslexic children and adults. This network includes researchers and academics from Oxford, Cambridge and Sheffield universities in the UK as well as individuals associated with the Nobel Prize Foundation and a former advisor to the Swedish Royal Family (where three of five are dyslexic). The 4th meeting of the group was held (via Zoom) on November 2, 2020 -- including network members from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the US. This network provides evidence that the interest in dyslexic strengths is global and continues to be a main focus of many researchers and practitioners (although these views continue to be debated by certain groups).
West has given additional talks (via Zoom and related technologies, recorded and live) in October 2020 for groups based in Amsterdam, Holland, Cairo, Egypt, and at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia -- as well as the upcoming International Dyslexia Association annual conference in later November (now virtual, it was formerly scheduled for Denver, Colorado). Participation is expected in symposia arranged for the British Dyslexia Association in May 2021.
On June 9, 2020, West gave the commencement address (via Zoom) for graduates of Siena School, a high school for college-bound dyslexic students. (A copy of this address will be provided separately.)
Over the years, West’s investigations have led him to look beyond dyslexia to a wider range of learning differences. In his third book, Seeing What Others Cannot See, West investigates how different kinds of brains and different ways of thinking can help to make discoveries and solve problems in innovative and unexpected ways -- ways of thinking quite different from conventionally trained experts. West focuses on what he has learned over some 30 years from a group of extraordinarily creative, intelligent and interesting people -- strong visual thinkers and those with dyslexia, Asperger’s syndrome, or other different ways of thinking, learning and working.
The numbered sections below provide a selected listing of some of the more significant presentations, events and publications -- showing the broad range of institutions and organizations that have become increasingly interested in understanding the creative and innovative styles of thinking exhibited by dyslexics and other different thinkers. An additional section with selected reviews and comments is also provided following.
Accordingly, this listing serves as a brief introduction and checklist of some of the associated materials not to be missed in the boxes and binders donated to the History of Medicine permanent archive during recent mouths. In each case, the related documents might include drafts of talks and research papers, printed programs with topic descriptions, speaker bios, newspaper clippings and other publicity, conference proceedings, associated books, drafts, chapters, journal articles and other materials.
Related websites, videos, blogs, audio recordings, photographs, overheads, 35 mm film slides and Power Point slides have been (or will be) provided separately. It has been reported that the West blog (inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com) has already been incorporated into the NLM-HOM digital archive system, with over 90 articles and commentaries to date. (Additional information is to be provided from time to time for the numbered events below where only a name or description is currently listed.)
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(1) The Northern California Branch of the International Dyslexia Association and Schwab Learning presented a program with two talks -- Martha Bridge Denckla, MD, “Reading and ADHD: The Reciprocal Inter-Active Effects Uncovered,” and, Thomas G. West, “Dyslexics at the Leading Edge: The Visual Talents of Dyslexics are On-target for New Knowledge in the Visual Computer Age,” March 16, 2002, 9 am to 4:30 pm, South San Francisco Convention Center. With headquarters in San Mateo, California, Schwab Learning was a service of the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, “dedicated to helping kids with learning differences be successful in learning and life.” At the time, Dr. Denckla, now retired, was Director of the Developmental Cognitive Neurology Clinic at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Dr. Denckla was a cum laude graduate of Harvard Medical School, and trained with Dr. Norman Geschwind in Behavioral Neurology. She is past President of the International Neuropsychology Society and also of the Behavioral Neurology Society. Her previous positions included Director of the Learning Disabilities Clinic at the Boston Children’s Hospital and Chief of the Section on Autism and Related Disorders at the NINCDS.
(2) An annual meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany. See chapter in the book compiled for the proceedings of this conference: West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking,” Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, edited and translated by P. Wittenberg and T. Plesser. Göttingen, Germany, November 1993. Published as a book in 1994, in German: “Ruckkehr zum visuellen Denken, Forschung und Wissenschftliches Rechnen: Beitrage anlasslich des 10. EGV-Benutzertreffens der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Göttingen, November 1993.” Invitation initially based on a short article by West in Computers and Physics. (The short article in English and the German language proceedings volume have already been donated to the archive collection.)
(3) The New York Branch of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Twentieth Anniversary Conference, Language & Medical Symposia on Dyslexia, March 18-20, 1993. As our economy moves from a primarily verbal orientation to one that is visual-spatial, the talents of dyslexics will be needed as various visual technologies are adopted. Presentation title: “Dyslexic Talents in a Changing Technological Context.” Speaker: Thomas G. West, MA. Chair: Anne Ford, Chairman of the Board, National Center for Learning Disabilities, New York, N.Y. It is noteworthy that West was invited to give this talk only two years after his first book was published in 1991 -- and that he was introduced by the Board Chair of NCLD, a major organization in the field. At this time, the conference of the New York Branch was often as big as or bigger than the annual conference of the Orton Society (that later became the International Dyslexia Association). Virtually all the major figures in the field spoke at this three-day meeting. This included Patience Thomson, Principle, Fairley House School, London, England -- who West and his wife later came to know quite well through several conferences and visits in the US and the UK. Patience Bragg Thomson is daughter of the famous Sir Lawrence Bragg, who received the Nobel Prize, with his father, for their work with x-ray crystallography -- and who later was the boss for Watson and Crick when they discovered the structure of DNA using his techniques (both of whom also received the Nobel Prize). The Bragg Thomson family over five generations includes many visual thinkers, many dyslexics and four winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Other speakers at the New York meeting were: Martha B. Denckla, Bennett Shaywitz, Albert Galaburda, Frank B. Wood, Roger Saunders, Edward Hallowell, Wilson Anderson, Barbara Wilson, Drake D. Duane and Diana Hanbury King.
(4) Invited speaker. The Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam: “Doors of Perception,” October 30-31, 1993, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, organized by The Netherlands Design Institute and Mediamatic magazine. Program description: “DoP is a ground breaking conference for which leading thinkers from the fields of graphic and industrial design, architects, information technology, philosophy, computer science, business and media will assemble . . . to consider the cultural and economic challenges of interactivity + the role of design in turning information into knowledge, for example through the visualization of complex scientific data. . . .” Other speakers included Louis Rossetto, the founding editor and publisher of the first Wired magazine (in Europe well before moving to the US). West was recruited to speak at this first conference of the newly formed Netherlands Design Institute based on a talk he had given at the ACM SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in Los Angeles only two months earlier. (This is the only time West observed an unusual Dutch practice: He was paid his speaker’s fee in cash, using crisp US bills of $100.) Please see a letter (to be provided separately) from a designer met at this Amsterdam conference. An excerpt: “It was a pleasure to have met you at the ‘Doors of Perception’ seminar in the Netherlands. I enjoyed listening to your talk on visual thinking. It was inspiring and was very appropriate in that particular forum. I found your talk of particular relevance to my work with LEGO. . . . I work for LEGO in a capacity as a designer visualizer. I’m sure you understand how your talk and book was a great inspiration. In the Minds Eye is a real eye opener. Your book has given me a detailed insight into the way my mind works and why it behaves the way it does. The book is well researched and it is edited in such a way that it becomes a useful reference book. In the Minds Eye should be read by teachers and parents alike who have children in their care that show traits of dyslexia. It will enlighten them all about the gift of dyslexia and its many advantages that it can provide the individual and possibly society. As we discussed during our meeting in the Netherlands, the Vice President of my research department at LEGO . . . is a cofounder of a school for dyslexics in Brande, Jutland. It is the first school of its type in Denmark and has a campus of 50 students.” K.B., Lyngby, Denmark, 21st April, 1994.
(5) Invited to be main speaker at first “Diversity Day” conference (June 2006) for the staff of GCHQ, the code-making and code-breaking descendants of Bletchley Park (World War II code breakers and the source of “Ultra” for secret intelligence for Winston Churchill), in Cheltenham, England. See section on GCHQ, pp. 147-150, in Seeing What Others Cannot See, West, 2017: “Seeing the Puzzle with Only Two Pieces -- Learning Differences at GCHQ.” According to one employee at GCHQ, “while people with neuro-diversity may be viewed as ‘odd or weird’ they are ‘fully accepted’ at GCHQ,” p. 150.
(6) Scientists and artists at Green College within the University of Oxford, England [More information to be provided, here and for the named-only listings below. -- TGW]
(7) The Royal College of Art in London
(8) The Glasgow School of Art in Scotland
(9) A conference at the University of Uppsala before the Queen of Sweden
(10) The University of California at Berkeley
(11) An education conference sponsored by Harvard and MIT
(12) A small, high-level, visualization, science and technology conference at MIT. Program description: “IM: Image and Meaning Conference, MIT, June 2001, Envisioning and Communicating Science and Technology. Who We Are: In late spring of 2001 we have come together at MIT to consider images in science to learn from each other to add something of our own, We are shown here in name and image.” Attendance was by invitation only. Each attendee was asked to provide an image that represented their work -- to be worn as part of their nametag -- to be discussed with other attendees. The conference handout (to be provided separately for the archive) includes 210 images with names and organizations. Speakers and attendee/participants included Benoit Mandelbrot (his image was the famous “Mandelbrot Set”), E.O. Wilson (an image of a tree) and Victor Spitzer (an image from the Visible Human Project), one of the developers of the Visible Human Project for NLM. The image for West was the first x-ray crystallographic image produced by Sir William Lawrence Bragg, used to discover Bragg’s Law, which is basic for the determination of crystal structure, and later, DNA. (Image supplied to West by Bragg’s daughter, Patience Bragg Thomson, former head of a school for dyslexic students in London. This family includes (as noted above), over five generations, many with visual occupations, many dyslexics and four winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics.) West had several conversations with Dr. Mandelbrot. He talked about the hostility he encountered from most conventional mathematicians, especially at Harvard University, where he had been teaching at the time. He had moved on to Yale University where they showed respect for Mandelbrot’s highly innovative approach to mathematics. West mentioned his own interest in highly talented visual thinkers and dyslexics and asked whether Dr. Mandelbrot had ever encountered any dyslexics among his work associates. He laughed and said: “If you ask my wife, she is convinced that I am dyslexic myself.” Later, West heard of several additional reports from others where Mandelbrot had spoken elsewhere of his own dyslexia. West was not surprised by this revelation because Dr. Mandelbrot’s work is extremely visual in nature and extremely original in orientation and approach, successfully employing the most modern computer graphics technologies (starting with the most primitive early forms, well before others). These aspects are all signature indictors of the work of a classic visually-oriented dyslexic approach.
(13) Invited to participate in a (second) invitational meeting of visualization scientists and artists sponsored by MIT, this time with the Getty Museum at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, June 2005. Program description: “IM2 -- Image and Meaning Workshop: MIT.GETTY 06.23.05. Discovering new visual expressions for science and technology: a participatory forum. Who we are: In June 2005 we came together, as we first did in June 2001, to consider the visual expression of science, to learn from each others, and to add something of our own.” Supported by: MIT School of Science and Office of Research, the National Science Foundation, Harvard University in Innovative Computing, Dupont and Apple. By invitation only. Total of 167 attendees and institutions, including: Larry Gonick (The Cartoon History of the Universe), Antonio Damasio (Descartes Error, U. Iowa), Donna Cox (NCSA, SIGGRAPH), Ellen Winner (Gifted Children, Boston College), George Whitesides (Harvard U.), Scott Kim (Shufflebrain), Michael Johnson (Pixar), Roy Gould (Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics), Shawn Lani (Exploratorium), Carol Strohecker (Media Lab Europe). John Sullivan (Technische Universitat Berlin), Jana Brenning (Scientific American), and Thomas G. West (In the Mind’s Eye, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University).
(14) The Arts Dyslexia Trust in London, various sites and dates -- in England, Scotland and Wales. Sometimes, as many as eight talks in were scheduled for a single UK trip. There were many visits and many talks scheduled over the years by Sue Parkinson, head of the ADT.
(15) The Learning Disability Association of Taiwan. Three day-long presentations in three different cities. Three different translators -- from English into Mandarin Chinese language, alternating. One formal professor served as the last of the three translators. She seemed initially reserved about the content of the talks. However, in time, she warmed to the topic and began to elaborate and provided her own related examples and commentary along with the Mandarin translation. During a break, the organizer requested that the professor stay within the translations alone. (West, however, was greatly pleased to see the new interest and support from this previously rather reserved professor.) Travel to Taiwan was linked to a prior conference in Hong Kong conducted in English and Cantonese (item 17 below). (The organizer of the Taiwan talks, Wei-Pi Hung, over 12 months, translated West’s book, In the Mind’s Eye, into Chinese. This book is to be provided to the archive along with the Japanese and Korean translations.)
(16) The international conference of computer graphic artists and technologists (ACM-SIGGRAPH) in Vancouver, BC, Canada. One of many conferences over some 12 years where West often was asked to give talks or join panels. West had been recruited earlier to write regular quarterly columns for the in-house professional magazine over several years. The editor of these columns, Gordon Cameron, worked at Pixar; originally from Scotland, he was technical director and cultural advisor on the Pixar feature film “Brave,” featuring a young Scottish girl in a Medieval fantasy animation. At the request of West’s publisher, Prometheus Books, these SIGGRAPH columns were later revised, edited and collected together for the book Thinking Like Einstein (2004).
(17) The International Symposium on Dyslexia in the Chinese Language organized by the Society of Child Neurology and Developmental Pediatrics in Hong Kong. (See item 15 above. See also the Hong Kong journal article, provided separately; publication had been delayed for 12 months because the Hong Kong doctors were successfully dealing with SARS.)
(18) The U.S. National Library of Medicine, Board of Regents. West was invited by the NLM Director, Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, to be the after dinner speaker for the BOR meeting. [Four other events were associated in various ways with Dr. Lindberg, and his special interest in the connections between dyslexia, visual thinking, visual technologies and important original scientific discoveries. To be provided, with available program information. -- TGW.]
(19) Presentation for the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. Many staff members said that they agreed with points raised in West’s talk. But they pointed out that the ETS felt that it had to protect itself from any possible threats to their “cash cow,” the SAT. (Recently, in late 2020, many universities, after many years of debate, have announced that they are discontinuing the use of the SAT and related standardized aptitude tests for college admissions.)
(20) Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. Five visits, two talks. Of course, Pixar is full of tech-savvy artists, programmers and visual thinkers -- a common profile associated with dyslexia. (See Gordon Cameron, item 16 above.)
(21) Scientists, researchers and advocates at Oxford University, England. Two talks. One at Green College (as part of a program arranged by the Arts Dyslexia Trust) and a later one at Magdalen College (arranged by Professor John Stein).
(22) In November 2014, West was invited to give five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore as part of a nation-wide effort to take advantage of the distinctive talents exhibited by dyslexic children and adults. Long a leader in technological and commercial innovation, Singapore planned and plans to lead the world with this effort as well. Several publications and web videos are available -- or have already been donated to the West NLM-HOM permanent archive.
(23) Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion, September 17-19, 1998, Arizona Biltmore Resort and Villas. Speakers included: Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, NLM; Gerald M. Edelman, Scripps Research Institute (Nobel Prize winner); Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education (MacArthur Prize winner); and Thomas G. West, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University. Markle Scholars (provided with a cash award) were identified as the best medical school professors in the US and Canada during several decades after WWII. Dr. Lindberg suggested that West provide a brief proposal for a talk at the gathering. Indeed, the organizers were interested. In his talk, West spoke primarily of visual thinking among creative scientists and recent developments in visual technologies and computer graphics. But West also spoke of how visual thinking and associated innovation were sometimes linked to dyslexia and other related learning differences. Remarkably, during the course of the three-day conference, roughly one half of the attendees and their spouses spoke to West about their own dyslexia (two surgeons from Johns Hopkins, for example) or told stories of dyslexia among their coworkers or the more creative and innovative members of their own families. (See a highly supportive letter from a Canadian physician, to be provided.)
(24) “In The Mind’s Eye: Where Dyslexia May be an Advantage?” The Arts Dyslexia Trust, April 12 to 24, 1994, The Mall Galleries, London, UK. Major art exhibition at major gallery on the Mall located between Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace. Many paintings and sculpture by dyslexic artists, including a donated scale model by the famous dyslexic architect, now Lord Richard Rogers. West was asked to give three informal gallery talks to small invited groups, one group including a famous UK film director. This was the first major high-profile event for the new Arts Dyslexia Trust, well designed to gain high-level interest in the UK and elsewhere in the talents of dyslexics. The ADT sponsored West for many subsequent UK trips and talks for art, business and scientific groups over the following years. West was made honorary founding member of the ADT. For 5 years the Chairman of the ADT was Lord (Charles) Hindlip, head of Christie’s Auction House, London. Dyslexic himself, Lord Hindlip has 5 children, 4 of whom are also dyslexic. A high-quality handmade leather-bound fundraising book for ADT, Art Works, had two introductions -- one by Lord Hindlip and one by Thomas West. The ADT had a great influence in the UK and elsewhere in promoting a better understanding of the varied and distinctive talents exhibited by many dyslexics in the arts, science, medicine and entrepreneurial business. During this same period, the UK TV group “Channel Four” produced a series of three programs on dyslexia partly influenced by the ADT; one of the three programs, “Dyslexic Genius,” featured businessman Richard Branson, filmmaker Guy Ritchie and Thomas West (including footage of West filmed by a UK production crew at the US National Library of Medicine one weekend).
(25) Dyslexia and Creativity Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, June 3, 2019. Organized by Susanna Cederquist, Then advisor on Dyslexia to the Swedish Royal Family. Attended by the son of the King of Sweden, Prince Carl Phillip. Three of five in Swedish Royal Family are dyslexic. Speakers included Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide (Dyslexic Advantage), Thomas West and an historian from the Nobel Prize Foundation who noted that all the Nobel Prize winners who were dyslexic saw that their dyslexia was a great advantage, not a disadvantage. (More information is to be provided about this conference.)
(26) “The Global Summit, Made By Dyslexia, Programme: 15th October, 2018, BAFTA, London, UK.” Sponsored by Microsoft and others. Admission by invitation only. Speakers included founders, Richard Branson and Kate Griggs; Robert Hannigan, Former Director of GCHQ; The Rt. Hon. Matt Hancock, MP, Secretary of State for Heath and Social Care. Links: MadeByDyslexia.org and #MadeByDyslexia. At this conference West met Susanna Cederquist, author, in Swedish, of Dyslexi + Styrkor = SANT (Dyslexia plus Talent equals Truth). Cederquist’s book quotes extensively from books by Thomas West (46 endnotes) and Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide (79 endnotes). This meeting partly led to the conference in Stockholm, Sweden, June 3, 2019 (item number 25 above).
(27) National Dyslexia Research Foundation, The Extraordinary Brain Series, Hawaii, June 27-July 2, 1998. Thomas West and Maryanne Wolf (Tufts University) spoke on “The Abilities of Those with Reading disabilities.” Other speakers included Glenn D. Rosen, PhD, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston; Drake D. Duane, MD, Institute for Behavioral Neurology, Scottsdale, AZ; Daniel Geschwind MD, PhD, UCLA School of Medicine; Sally Shaywitz, MD, Bennett Shaywitz, MD, Yale University Medical School; and Frank B. Wood, PhD, Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The conference talks were collected into a book: Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates, Drake D. Duane, MD, editor, York Press, 1999. West’s talk is Chapter 11, “Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.”
(28) To be provided, information on five conferences and talks arranged by and/or participated in by Donald A. B. Lindberg, MD, Director of the National Library of Medicine -- In Aspen, Colorado; in San Francisco, California; and in the Board of Regents Room of the NLM (attendees included William J. Dreyer of Caltech and Alvy Ray Smith of Pixar and Microsoft). See full audio tape recordings by NLM already provided in a box donated to the NLM archive (to be confirmed). The tape recordings should provide a rich resource for future researchers. (Note: These analog tapes should be digitized in the near future.)
(29) The Confederation of British Industry, Centre Point, at 103 New Oxford Street, London. “A Future of Reversals: The Changing Skills Needs of Business.” February 28, 1995. Visit included a brief talk the following evening at a The House of Lords reception. See BDA letters and newspaper clipping from the Financial Times (to be provided). Arranged by Paul Cann, Director, the British Dyslexia Association (BDA), and by Lord (Harry) Renwick, Vice President of the BDA, a long time supporter of understanding the talents of individuals with dyslexia. In 1958, Harry Renwick explained to West, his father was the recipient of the last hereditary peerage for his major contributions to the war work during World War II. It is noteworthy that his father is said to have avoided reading and writing, all communications were entirely oral.
(30) Stories about dyslexia and innovation have appeared in varied media. The story below was posted on West’s Facebook page in March 2020 -- also intended for West’s blog:
“Dyslexic Physician Discovers ARDS”
I have always carefully avoided talking about current events or politics on my two blogs or my Facebook page. There is plenty of coverage elsewhere -- and I did not want to create a distraction from our main areas of interest.
However, in the last few days, and the last week especially, the coronavirus (Covid-19) has begun to dominate all other topics and considerations.
I did re-post recently on Facebook a piece involving Nobel Prize winner Joshua Lederberg and a fictional story of a world plague that was ended by a computer graphic artist. At the time, that story seemed relevant but still appeared remote. However, things have changed. Now all the elements seem to be merging together and the threat is now all around us -- even recognized by those who were in complete denial only a short time ago. . . .
As I have tried to inform myself (as a former medical corpsman for the USAF long ago), I have noted that we are told when coronavirus patients die, the cause is often a condition called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). As it happens, years ago I met and recorded an interview with the dyslexic physician who first identified and named ARDS. It is worth telling the story of how this came to be.
The story also indicates that when you seek the origins of a major, highly innovative discovery in medicine, science or elsewhere, you should not be surprised to find a dyslexic. You should also not be surprised to find that the discoverer often encounters stiff resistance when conventional beliefs are challenged by some major innovation or discovery -- challenged by a really new and different way of seeing things.
ARDS Discovery Rejected by Three US Medical Journals
Years ago, I was attending a conference of the International Dyslexia Association in Denver, Colorado. There I met a physician named Gary Huber, MD, the former head of the pulmonary (lung) unit of Harvard Medical School.
He was buying a copy my book, In The Mind’s Eye. As I signed the book, he noted that there were several dyslexics among his work colleagues, friends and family members -- and how my positive approach and stories of highly successful dyslexics had been helpful to him and others.
Indeed, Dr. Huber noted that one of the top people in his own field of pulmonary medicine, Dr. Tom Petty, also dyslexic himself, happened to live and work in the Denver area. He offered to contact Dr. Petty to suggest an interview -- which was arranged for the next day. I was not expecting to do an interview so I went to the bookstore of the University of Colorado in Boulder for a small recorder.
During the interview, Dr. Petty told me the story of how he and his team first recognized the syndrome now called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). To their surprise their paper on the topic was rejected by three major US medical journals.
Later, they sent their paper to the British medical journal, The Lancet. This article was then read by American Army doctors in Viet Nam -- and, as Dr. Petty explained, the American doctors realized the importance of the newly discovered syndrome and its treatment: “This is what is killing our troops.” The details of this story are provided below in an excerpt from an article on the life of Dr. Petty --
“Drs. Ashbaugh and Petty, along with 2 of Dr. Petty’s fellows, prepared a manuscript describing this new syndrome, which they termed “acute respiratory distress in adults,” acknowledging its similarities to the previously described infant respiratory distress syndrome. They submitted their paper summarizing the clinical features and management of the initial 12 patients to the New England Journal of Medicine, which promptly rejected it as documentation of inappropriate and dangerous ventilator management. A revision submitted to the Journal of the American Medical Association was similarly rejected, as was a subsequent version sent to the American Journal of Surgery. Somewhat in desperation, the authors finally submitted the manuscript to The Lancet. There, it was quickly accepted for publication and appeared as a lead article in the summer of 1967. Subsequent decades have shown this paper to be one of the seminal contributions to all of critical care medicine. It is certainly one of the most referenced, having been cited by other indexed articles 1,630 times as of April 11, 2014.” -- “Thomas L Petty’s Lessons for the Respiratory Care Clinician of Today,” David J. Pierson, MD, FAARC. Respiratory Care, August 2014, vol. 59, no. 8, p. 1293.
See also a book given to West by Thomas L. Petty, MD. (To be provided separately.) Frontline Update in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Co-editors, James T. Good, Jr., MD, Thomas L. Petty, MD. 2004, Snowdrift Pulmonary Conference, 899 Logan Street, Denver, Colorado 80203.
(31) Japanese TV film crew (NHK) traveling with West visited Jack Horner during field dig in north central Montana, near the Canadian border. See video interview filmed by NHK where West asks Horner what he would do with the schools. Horner responded that he tries to teach his 19 graduate students to “think like a dyslexic.” To observe what they see in nature -- and “not think of other peoples’ thoughts” -- by not quoting the articles that they had read and studied. (Noted, so different from conventional graduate school education.)
(32) Forgotten Letters: An Anthology of Literature by Dyslexic Writers, 2011, publisher: RASP. Edited by Naomi Folb. West was asked to provide the Foreword on why some of the best writers are dyslexic. West was also asked to provide an excerpt from the second edition of In The Mind’s Eye titled “Amazing Shortcomings, Amazing Gifts.” The inside cover of this book has this lone quotation from West:
“The truth-talking commentator who is not caught up in the race.
“They have felt the otherness from the start.”
(33) The Italian Dyslexia Association in Rome. First talk on dyslexia ever given in Rome. Other talks in Italy had been provided only in the university city of Bologna. Continuous sequential translation into Italian of West’s talk was provided by an Italian physician married to a dyslexic graphic designer. The conference was focused mostly for teachers. The organizers kindly provided a translator for West and his wife to follow the whole conference proceedings, all of which were in Italian. After the conference, West was told that the conference had been moved from a major university to a minor university because the Minister of Health for Rome was a Freudian and therefore did not believe that dyslexia exists.
(34) The Orton Dyslexia Society, 47th Annual Conference, Boston, Mass., November 6-9, 1996. West was selected as one of four symposium speakers along with Albert M. Galaburda, MD, and Gordon Sherman, PhD, both of Harvard Medical School. The tile of West’s talk: “ ‘Strephs,’ Tumbling Symbols and Technological Change: The Implications of Dyslexia Research in a World Turned Upside Down.”
The program for this Boston conference included an article by West reprinted with permission from Computer Graphics, August 1996 issue: “IMAGES AND REVERSALS, Talking Less, Drawing More.” This article was introduced by: “Editor’s Note: the following article was prepared by Thomas G West as part of the series of articles requested by the editor of Computer Graphics magazine, a publication of the International Society of Computer Graphics Professionals, ACM SIGGRAPH. Mr. West says that he sees himself as often serving as a bridge between worlds that know virtually nothing of each other -- such as those dealing with the brain and dyslexia on one side -- and those dealing with advanced computers, film animation, scientific data visualization and technological change on the other. This particular article addresses the possible great changes in education and work that might be expected from the spread of new computer graphic technologies. However, you will note that Mr. West introduces to this technological audience the ideas of nonverbal talent and dyslexic gifts by referring to quotations from the German poet Goethe and the modern British science writer Nigel Calder. He says that he meets many individuals with dyslexia within the highly creative computer graphics community. Perhaps we can help our students with dyslexia have a more positive attitude about their own talents and future prospects through the ideas presented here in this column.”
[An excerpt:] “We should talk less and draw more. I personally would like to renounce speech altogether, and, and like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say in sketches.” These are indeed strange and remarkable words to be coming from a famous writer -- the great German poet and author of Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe’s words are quoted by the essayist Stephen Jay Gould, who explains it is quite notable that words occupy such an important place in human culture, in spite of the fact that we are highly visual by nature.
“ ‘Primates are visual animals,’ explains Gould. ‘No other group of mammals relies so strongly on sight. Our attraction to images as the source of understanding is both primal and pervasive. Writing with its linear sequencing of ideas, is an historical afterthought in the history of human cognition.”
“ ‘Yet traditional scholarship has lost this route to our past. Most research is reported by text alone, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Pictures, if included it all, a poorly reproduced gathered in the center section divorced from relevant text, and treated as little more than decoration.’ (Eight Little Piggies, Norton, 1993).”
”Gould touches on a matter that I expect will become more and more important in the near term and the long term. It seems inevitable, as new visualization tools are applied effectively in more and more fields, that visual talents and skills will have greater and greater value in the economic marketplace, as well as the scientific laboratory. However, during the transition, I would expect a lot of debate about the proper roles of visual versus verbal ways of thinking.” [End of excerpt.]
(35) Wadsworth Center, Albany, New York, May 31, 2018. West gave talk titled: “Seeing What Others Cannot See -- Visual Thinking, Different Thinkers and Scientific Discovery.” For the sate of New York, the Wadsworth Center is similar to the Federal Center for Disease Control. Indeed, it was established long before the Federal level CDC and has a similar broad range of responsibilities and missions. (Details to be provided.) West was invited to speak by the Head of the Center, a virologist, who he met at a function of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine. The visit included an extensive tour of the Center facilities, programs and mission -- along with several Q&A discussions with Center staff.
(36) “Disabled New Students: Special Talents in a Not-So-New Population,” Keynote Address, February 18, 1994, National Forum on Disabled New Students, National Resource Center for the Freshman Year Experience, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC. From the summary Statement: “In my experience, most professors would believe that smart students and learning disabled or dyslexic students are two entirely different groups -- with no overlap. I hope that what I will have to say this morning will persuade you that these two groups overlap quite often. Moreover, if you do not need persuasion that this is often the case, I hope my talk and writings will provide you with ammunition to persuade others on your home campuses.”
(37) “Using Images to Think: Visual Thinkers and Information Visualization.” One of two invited presentations, August 2003, at the Chautauqua Institution, Lake Chautauqua, New York. (See CD of this talk, to be provided.) To come: the story of how two speakers during the same week had the name ‘Thomas G. West.’ ”
(38) Director's Colloquium for scientists and staff of NASA Ames Research Center (at Moffett Field in California’s Silicon Valley). Standing room only, at sides and back of large lecture theater, at this large organization with many, many visually-oriented scientists, technologists, mathematicians and engineers. As part of our associated visitor tour, we were shown massive wind tunnels and many scientific exhibits -- including new raw data on a large wall of flat screen TVs indicating possible planets orbiting hundreds of stars fresh from the Kepler satellite. When asked whether there might be life on other planets, we were treated to wave after wave of stars and planets washing across on the large wall of TV screens -- so, hundreds and thousands of possibilities (and these were only the planets that happened to be “in front” of the star at the time of observation).
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Selected Reviews and Comments with Biographical Sketch -- T. G. West
Foreword to the Second Edition of In the Mind’s Eye
by Oliver Sacks, M.D.
“Although, as a neurologist, I sometimes see cases of alexia—the loss of a previously existing ability to read, usually caused by a stroke in the visual areas of the brain— congenital difficulties in reading, dyslexias, are not something I often encounter, especially with a mostly geriatric practice such as my own. Thus I have been particularly fascinated—sometimes astonished—by the wide range of considerations which Thomas G. West has brought together in this seminal investigation of dyslexia, In the Mind's Eye.
“People with dyslexia are often regarded as defective, as missing something—a facility in reading or linguistic thinking—which the rest of us have. But those of us who are predominantly verbal or ‘lexical’ thinkers could just as well be thought of as ‘avisuals.’ There may indeed be a sort of reciprocity between lexical and visual powers, and West makes a convincing argument that a substantial section of the population, often highly intelligent, may combine reading problems with heightened visual powers, and are often adept at compensating for their problems in one way or another—even though they may suffer greatly at school, where so much is based on reading. Some of our greatest scientists and artists would probably be diagnosed today as dyslexic, as West shows in his profiles of Einstein, Edison, da Vinci, Yeats, and others. West himself is dyslexic — this, no doubt, has strongly influenced his life and research interests, but it also gives him a uniquely sympathetic understanding of dyslexia from the inside as well as the outside.
“My own experience seems to be in the opposite camp—I learned to read very early, and my own thinking is largely in terms of concepts and words. I am rather deficient in visual imagery, and have a great deal of difficulty recognizing places and even people. When I met Temple Grandin, the autistic animal psychologist who is clearly a visual thinker (one of her books is titled Thinking in Pictures), she was taken aback when I said I could hardly visualize anything: ‘How do you think?’ she asked. Grandin herself has very heightened spatial and visual imagination, and thinks in very concrete images.
“The idea of compensation for various neurological ‘deficits’ is well supported by neuroscientific studies, which have shown, for instance, that people blind from birth have heightened tactile, auditory, and musical powers, or that congenitally deaf people who use sign language have heightened visual and spatial capacities, and perhaps a special attunement to facial expression. People with dyslexia, similarly, may develop various strategies to compensate for difficulties in reading. They are often very highly skilled at auditory comprehension or memorization, at pattern recognition, complex spatial reasoning or visual imagination. Such visual thinkers, indeed, may be especially gifted and vital to many fields; among them may well be the next generation of creative geniuses in computer modeling and graphics.
“In the Mind's Eye brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. Its accent is not so much on pathology as on how much human minds vary. It stands alongside Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”
Oliver Sacks, M.D., January 2, 2009. Dr. Sacks, a British neurologist residing in the US, is most widely known for his book Awakenings (1973) that was made into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Also well known are his books An Anthropologist from Mars (1995), Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf (1989) and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985). His most recent book is titled The Mind’s Eye(2010). The late Dr. Sacks was professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and maintained a private practice in New York City. Sacks considered that his literary style followed the tradition of 19th-century “clinical anecdotes,” a style that focuses on informal case histories, following the writings of Alexander Luria. One commentator noted that Sack’s work has been featured in a “broader range of media than those of any other contemporary medical author.” The New York Times said that Sacks “has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine.”
Selected Reviews and Comments -- In the Mind’s Eye
“I would like to thank you for the copy of your book . . . which I read with considerable interest. I wasn’t aware, and I am enormously proud that I share my learning problems with such distinguished characters as Albert Einstein, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Sir Winston Churchill, Gen. George Patton and William Butler Yeats. I found your detailed analysis of the various deficiencies very informative and I think your book is a real contribution to the field.”
Baruj Benacerraf, M.D., letter of August 5, 1994. The late Dr. Benacerraf was Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School and was past President of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston. A Nobel laureate for discoveries in immunology (1980 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine), Dr. Benacerraf was recognized as a distinguished dyslexic in 1988, receiving the Margaret Byrd Rawson Award from the National Institute of Dyslexia. Together with his life-long difficulties with reading, writing and spelling, he observed that he (along with other family members) has a special facility with visualizing space and time--an ability that he believes contributed greatly to his scientific research and discoveries.
“Since he first published In the Mind's Eye 18 years ago, Thomas G. West has been at the forefront of a growing number of experts who recognize that the ‘dys’ in dyslexia is often far less important to those who have it than the often remarkable abilities in reasoning, visualization, and pattern recognition that frequently accompany this condition. The impact of this now classic work upon the dyslexic families and individuals that we have the privilege to work with--the encouragement and insight it has provided--is incalculable . . . . Everyone who is dyslexic, has a child with dyslexia, or works with such individuals will be encouraged and enlightened by this marvelous book. For those tired of an educational system that too often treats dyslexic children like ugly ducklings, it is a field guide to the glories of the swan. We cannot possibly recommend it highly enough."
Brock Eide, MD, MA, and Fernette Eide, MD, email of August 2008. The Eides are founders of the Eide Neurolearning Clinic in Edmonds, Washington, and are authors of The Mislabeled Child (Hyperion, 2006) and The Dyslexic Advantage (Hudson Street Press, 2011).
“Interestingly, dyslexia is found to be often associated with talent. . . . It’s not unusual for children with perceived general learning disabilities to display an exceptional ability that results in their placement in programs for the specially gifted. . . . Perhaps no one has championed the association between dyslexia and talent more than Thomas G. West, author of In the Mind’s Eye. . . . West’s research focuses on the correlation of very high success with the prevalence of dyslexia, a relationship that will likely be the focus of more research in the years ahead.”
Jim Romeo, New York Academy of Sciences, Update Magazine, April/May 2004, “Getting Scientific about Why Johnny Can’t Read--Understanding Dyslexia.”
“Dyslexia and other learning differences are commonly seen as disabilities, but they must also be seen as distinctive abilities, different (and often superior) modes of perceiving and understanding the world. As Thomas West shows, some of our greatest minds, from Einstein and Edison to Churchill and da Vinci, have been visual thinkers who today might be labeled ‘learning disabled.’ In the Mind’s Eye makes a powerful case that the dyslexic-visual mind may be full of creative human potential, and is as crucial a part of our cognitive heritage as any other.” -- Oliver Sacks, MD
Blurb above sent to Thomas G. West by Dr. Oliver Sacks for use with the second edition of In the Mind’s Eye, October 23, 2008.
“Unfortunately, I did not discover this wonderful book [In the Mind’s Eye by Thomas G. West] before I wrote Thinking in Pictures several years ago. I recommend it to teachers, parents and education policymakers. West profiles people with dyslexia who are visual thinkers, and his conclusions on the link between visual thinking and creativity are similar to mine.”
Temple Grandin, “The List,” The Week magazine, March 3, 2006, describing why she has included In the Mind’s Eyeon her list of six favorite books.
“Dear Tom: Thanks for sending me your epilogue [to the second edition of In the Mind’s Eye]. It was wonderful. I think that visual thinking in both autism/Asperger and dyslexia are very similar. Your descriptions match the descriptions I get from people on the autism spectrum. I share your concern that educators do not understand the creative visual thinking mind. I give talks to parents and teachers all the time and I emphasize that they need to develop a child's strengths. I am really pleased that you are going to use my quote. I love the Oliver Sacks foreword. Sincerely, Temple Grandin”
Email of August 17, 2009. Dr. Grandin is a professor of animal science and is author of the memoir Thinking in Pictures (dealing with her life with autism) and the best-selling book Animals in Translation. An HBO cable TV film based on Grandin’s life debuted February 6, 2010, starring Claire Danes. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews--being nominated for 15 Emmy Awards and winning seven.
“Thomas West brings to life the fascinating capacities and syndromes that arise from our visual-spatial imagination. His book proves beyond doubt that we are not all points on a single bell curve of intelligence.”
Howard Gardner, PhD, letter of October 15, 1996. Dr. Gardner is author of many books, including Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (BasicBooks, 1983) and Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (Basic Books, 1999). A MacArthur Prize Fellow, he is affiliated with Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center.
Additional Reviews and Comments -- In the Mind’s Eye
“The computer is the most malleable tool we’ve ever invented. The Turing revolution, which brought it to us, has proceeded over its 60-year history to absorb field after field of human endeavor. First was simple number crunching. Then text processing, table making, pie charting, data basing, and a host of other, more sophisticated, fields have gone digital with the new tool as human brain amplifier. Visualization is the latest domain to become “ordinary” this way. Tom West argues that the legitimacy of visualization as a first-order attack on problem solving is therefore being established after generations of quiet use by only some creators--and some of the best at that. He claims that visualization is not only a legitimate way to solve problems, it is a superior way: the best minds have used it. West urges us to join the dyslexics of the world and use pictures instead of words. In the process we get fascinating glimpses of how other minds have worked--minds that have changed the world.”
-- Alvy Ray Smith, electronic mail message of November 20, 1996. Dr. Smith was co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, former Director of Computer Graphics at Lucasfilm, Ltd., and Graphics Fellow, Advanced Technology, Microsoft Corporation. At Pixar, he formed the team that proceeded to create Tin Toy, the first 3-dimensional computer animation ever to win an Academy Award. This team later produced the first completely computer-generated motion picture, Toy Story. At Microsoft, he designed the multimedia authoring infrastructure for Microsoft third party developers and content producers. While he was a Regent for the National Library of Medicine, he was instrumental in inaugurating the Visible Human Project.
“In the Mind’s Eye . . . [is] scholarly, encyclopedic and endlessly fascinating. . . . [It] is a great public service and one long overdue. Every family concerned about a learning problem--or even the usual problems of dealing with a teenage student--should have it in the house. . . . If I were dictator, every teacher everywhere would have to pass a test on it.”
-- Loren Pope, “The Learning Disabled of Today Will Be the Gifted of Tomorrow,” in Colleges That Change Lives(Penguin, New York, 2000 and 2006).
“. . . I entirely agree with [Dr. Doris Kelly] when she says that [In the Mind’s Eye] is ‘about 20 years ahead of current educational thinking.’ Many of us have spent long hours considering all the things that dyslexics are supposed to be weak at. What Tom West reminds us of is that we need also to consider dyslexics’ strengths. . . . At present, so he implies, education is in the hands of those who possess all the traditional skills; and since, not surprisingly, they assume that others are like themselves, the needs of some very gifted thinkers whose brain organization is different are not being adequately met. I very much hope that both teachers and educational planners will read this book and take its message seriously.”
-- T.R. Miles, Ph.D., in Dyslexia Contact, June 1993, pp. 14-15. Dr. Miles, Professor Emeritus, University College of North Wales, and Vice President of the British Dyslexia Association.
“I want you to know that reading your book and the conversations we had at the SIGGRAPH conference were pivotal in the history of our project. We rewrote much of our material based on insights gained from your book. Previously, we had not realized fully how central the role of visualization was to what we were trying to do. We were already on the right path without really knowing it. . . . In our project CALCULUS& Mathematica, we have learned the effectiveness of teaching the concepts visually using graphic software prior to verbal explanations. Our students have gained a deeper understanding of the subject and they can recall and apply the material long afterward, which is rare for students taught with conventional methods.”
-- Dr. J. Jerry Uhl, Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, telephone conversation of September 29, 1993. Dr. Uhl was active in the National Science Foundation-sponsored reform of calculus teaching at the university level. With W. Davis and H. Porta, he was author of the interactive courseware, CALCULUS&Mathematica (Addison-Wesley, 1994), using high-level, general-purpose mathematics software along with graphic computers. Initially viewed as radical, the innovative approaches used in this courseware have been widely adopted and are now in use by many modern calculus courses and textbooks.
“Thanks so much for sending the material. . . . There is a lot of overlap in points we have both been making for years. I have often argued in my public talks that the graduate education process that produces physicists is totally skewed to selecting those with analytic skills and rejecting those with visual or holistic skills. I have claimed that with the rise of scientific visualization as a new mode of scientific discovery, a new class of minds will arise as scientists. In my own life, my ‘guru’ in computational science was a dyslexic and he certainly saw the world in a different and much more effective manner than his colleagues. . . .”
-- Larry L. Smarr, Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Illinois, electronic mail message of August 6, 1994. With W.J. Kaufmann, Dr. Smarr is author of Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science, Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1993.
“There is a great deal in this book which is pertinent to the study of the highly able. The author points out that this century’s focus on what is normal, and pushing children towards those norms, may have obscured an understanding of the high degree of individual differences, masking many forms of giftedness which then may go undetected. He urges us to cultivate these awkward individuals for their unusual gifts to improve creativity in the sciences as well as the arts. West’s weave of case studies and ideas to promote his arguments is intriguing and convincing. If what he says is true, then the waste of high ability is very much worse than we might have thought. But using his reasoning, if we were to change our educational outlook to a more positive and humane one, then millions more children would be enabled to develop into creative, productive, and fulfilled adults.”
-- Review by Joan Freeman, European Journal for High Ability, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993.
“Tom West argues convincingly that brains which learn differently may contribute a unique set of talents to the world. Although these brains may present a variety of educational challenges, this book stresses the importance of individual differences and biological variation for adaptation to future environmental challenges. We should consider the design of educational environments within this context.”
-- Gordon F. Sherman, Ph.D., former Director, Dyslexia Research Laboratory, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School; past President, the International Dyslexia Association. Electronic mail message of December 3, 1996. Head, Newgrange School and Educational Outreach Center, Princeton, NJ.
“At last, here is a book that can be whole-heartedly and enthusiastically recommended to all our readers. Thoroughly researched, clearly and delightfully written, it says many of the important things about visual thinking that we have long been waiting to hear . . . . Arguably, it represents the most significant turning point in educational thought this century. Everyone with concern for the future of education in this country, and particularly those involved with the education of dyslexics, should read it -- now.”
-- Susan Parkinson, editor, newsletter of The Arts Dyslexia Trust (United Kingdom), November 1992.
“If you accept [Thomas West’s] arguments, then the period of the domination of Western scientific thought by printed papers and mathematical formulae may be just another transitory period, perhaps akin to that of the introverted and argumentative world of medieval scholasticism before the new vision of the Renaissance and the practical empiricism of the Enlightenment.”
-- Lord Renwick, Chairman, European Informatics Market (EURIM), Vice-President, Past Chairman, The British Dyslexia Association. Electronic mail of October 30, 1996.
“The original title is In the Mind’s Eye. The Japanese title Geniuses Who Hated School is a wildly different translation. However, people who are considered geniuses may have great powers of visual thought. . . . There is a possible relationship between the great visual thinker and the poor reader or math student. . . . Many visual thinkers have trouble adjusting to conventional education systems. This is the logic behind the two titles. . . . [The author] raises . . . an important question, asking us to look again at what are fundamental abilities in a time when computers can do the simple work in place of humans and to reconsider the educational system while keeping in mind the variety of human brains that exist.”
-- Review in Kagaku Asahi, the monthly Japanese science magazine, August 1994, p. 92. Review translated by Yoshiko G. Doherty.
“Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one’s thinking upside down. In the Mind’s Eye is just such a book. . . . What is unique about West’s essay is that he weaves . . . disparate areas together to show that technological change is affecting what we value as intelligence.”
-- Roeper Review, Vol. 15, No. 1, September 1992, p. 54.
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More on the American Library Association Award
In January 1999, In the Mind’s Eye by Thomas G. West was selected for the Choice magazine gold seal award as an Outstanding Academic Book, and one of the “best of the best” for 1998 -- along with just 12 other titles in the broad Psychology category (including books on neuroscience, intelligence testing, language impairment, mental health and psychiatry). Choice magazine is the monthly review service published by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association. Each year, the editors of Choice select the “best of the best” from the approximately 6,500 titles reviewed during the previous year. In 1998, 623 titles were selected within 54 academic categories. Titles are selected based on the following criteria: overall excellence in presentation and scholarship; importance relative to other literature in the field; distinction as a first treatment of a given subject; originality or uniqueness of treatment; importance in building library collections. (Choice, Jan. 1999, p. 801.)
Other books receiving the Choice gold seal award for “best of the best” in 1998 included: Lynn Margulis, Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth (Freeman); Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (Norton); Richard Mabey, Flora Britannica (Chatto and Windus); Richard Feynman, The Meaning of It All (Addison-Wesley); Martin Gardner, The Last Recreations: Hydras, Eggs, and Other Mathematical Mystifications (Copernicus, Springer-Verlag); Per F. Dahl, Flash of the Cathode Ray: A History of J.J. Thomson’s Electron (Institute of Physics); Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau, Privacy On Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption (MIT Press); Victor M. Spitzer and David G. Whitlock, Atlas of the Visible Human Male: Reverse Engineering of the Human Body (Jones and Bartlett). (Choice, Jan. 1999, pp. 823-841)
Following is the full text of the original review of In the Mind’s Eye as it appeared in the April 1998 issue of Choice(p. 1458): “West, Thomas G. In the mind’s eye: visual thinkers, gifted people with dyslexia and other learning difficulties, computer images and the ironies of creativity. Updated ed. Prometheus Books, 1997. 397p bibl index afp ISBN 1-57392-155-6, $27.95. West’s outstanding book examines the play between the visual strengths and verbal weaknesses of 11 gifted individuals, including such persons as da Vinci, Faraday, Einstein, Edison, Churchill and Yeats. These case studies demonstrate that, in the past, those who were able to make their genius known in spite of verbal shortcomings were the exception rather than the norm and succeeded only through extraordinary resourcefulness, perseverance and good luck. In a society that has traditionally been centered on the word, persons with such deficiencies have often found themselves marginalized. The author’s thesis is that the hegemony of the word is being contested by a growing visual culture and society is undergoing profound changes as a result. These changes are being led by a new generation of visual thinkers (many of whom have had difficulty with verbal skills) who employ the television screen, computer graphics, virtual reality, and other relatively inexpensive tools of digital technology. West’s thesis is skillfully argued and illustrated with an abundance of examples. Impressive bibliography and resource list (complete with Web sites); will appeal to a wide audience. General readers; upper-division undergraduates through professionals. -- R. M. Davis 35-4810 BF426 97-19570 CIP”
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Videos and Contact Information
Videos: Several videos are available on the web which deal with visual thinking, visual technologies, the talents of dyslexics and other different thinkers -- together with the books and articles by Thomas G. West -- [Several more videos are to be listed here with additional information. An up-to-date listing can be found on Google by entering the words: “Thomas G. West dyslexia.” This wording avoids confusion with several others with the same name, Thomas G. West. One writes on politics, another in an art historian. -- TGW]
(1) On YouTube, “Dyslexia: An Unwrapped Gift.” Shot in “The Chained Library” of Hereford Cathedral in England, this video features Thomas West (with other experts and advocates) along with several dyslexic British teenagers who were filmed when they were coming to understand their own special areas of talent. Silva Productions, 1999, a classic film still popular and often shown in UK education circles. Still widely believed to be the best documentary for capturing the attention of dyslexic teens -- as well as suggesting the new world of visual technologies where many dyslexics currently thrive. Provided on YouTube in two parts, about 9 minutes each.
(2) In December 2010, West was asked to travel to New York to be filmed as part of a new author series developed for the website called “AT&T Tech Channel” -- Science & Technology Author Series, “Thinking Like Einstein.” About 17 minutes. Other than West’s two books, generally, the books discussed on this site are very technical.
(3) “A New World Shaped By Dysexics.” Video of one of five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS), November 2014.
(4) “The Power of Dyslexic Visual thinkers with Computer Data Visuaization.” DAS, Singapore, November 2014.
(5) “Dyslexia Spells Suceess: with Mr. Thomas West, Interview 3.” Centre for Dyslexia, New Delhi, India. Filmed at the IDA conference, Portland, Oregon, November 2019. Topics mentioned during the brief interview of about 8 minutes: In West’s personal experience, the early role of the kindly reading teacher when dyslexia is unknown; no diagnosis as dyslexic until he was 41 years old; late blooming pattern until late high school and early college; early memorization education was hard, higher concept-based education becomes increasingly easy (also, early school is hard, adult work is comparatively easy); noted that the major feature film by star actor Amir Khan led to widespread understanding of dyslexia in India in recent years; paradox that dyslexics can make the best writers with clear and simple writing of substance; that it is now recognized that time is on the side of dyslexics, that their strengths are more valued by employers for creativity and big picture thinking while low level reading and clerical tasks are being done extremely fast and extremely cheaply by newest powerful computer systems, “deep learning” and AI.
Thomas G. West, author of In the Mind's Eye, Thinking Like Einstein and Seeing What Others Cannot See. Blog: http://inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com.
Emails: thomasgwest@gmail.com and thomasgwest@aol.com.
Revised and updated, November 8, 2020.
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