tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32342170804064752672024-03-19T04:48:20.010-04:00In the Mind's Eye, Dyslexic RenaissanceVisual thinking, visual thinkers, visual technologies, visual giftedness, dyslexia, learning difficulties, brain diversity, creativity, scientific discovery, scientific visualization, computer graphics, entrepreneurial business, art and design, history of science, visual aspects of cultural and economic historyThomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.comBlogger111125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-67514355590999920322024-03-11T10:14:00.002-04:002024-03-11T10:18:44.874-04:00Diversity in Time of Need<p><span style="font-family: times;"> <span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some ideas from my third book,<i> Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, that seem remarkably appropriate for today -- </span></span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">DIVERSITY IN TIME OF NEED </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Throughout this book, we have been dealing with diversity and mixed talents in many different forms. However, there are some deep questions that seem to lie under all of our considerations. We want superiority. So why do we need diversity? </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a>Perhaps the simplest answer is that we need many kinds of superiority—and that we cannot have it all at once. It seems that we should encourage diversity not only to be civil, not only to be respectful, not only to be humane, not only to be just—but also because we have a particular stake in diversity that is rarely, if ever, fully articulated. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">We want there to be people who have abilities we do not yet know that we need, abilities that we have not ever tried to measure, because we do not know that we needed them—abilities that may be in no way associated with the conventional abilities and talents that we now measure by formal or informal means. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">As we have seen, adapting to change has been a major feature in human survival, as with all of life. We have made the point that as technology and other factors in the environment change, they sometimes substantially redefine the kinds of talents and abilities (and passions) that are wanted. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">The theory of multiple intelligences is very important in this discussion. If there is only one kind of intelligence (as many have been taught to believe), then you have only more of it or less of it. But if there are in fact many forms of intelligence, then the whole discussion is transformed.</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Accordingly, in this context, the main idea is that changes in the environment often occur too quickly for either evolutionary or cultural adaptation to respond. We are capable of learning and adapting in many ways and at many levels, but it takes time. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">What we want, therefore, is to find means to tolerate and cultivate the talents in a wide diversity of individuals—with supportive institutions and organizations, so that when we need a certain set of talents and abilities, it is already out there, ready to be brought into service—sometimes, perhaps often, at the last moment, when finally it is realized that the old leaders or the old ideas are no longer working. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Time is short, and radical, perhaps even frightening, changes must be made, regardless of the risks. . . .</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">THINKING “OUT OF THE BOX” </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">We need to assess the institutional changes required so that dyslexics and different thinkers with markedly mixed talents can still work within established larger institutional structures. We need studies of how this works and does not work. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">For example, as we have seen before, we can look at the relationship that dyslexic paleontologist John R. (Jack) Horner has with the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana. The museum staff modified their procedures to do things in unconventional ways in order to allow Jack and his students to do high-level work, making dramatic discoveries, while designing new and highly innovative museum displays to communicate with the public. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Because of his dyslexia, Horner had flunked out of the University of Montana seven times (as he once reminded me). But he came to be known as one of the two or three most important paleontologists in the world—known as an original and innovative interpreter of the fossil evidence. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Horner says he tries to teach his grad students “to think like a dyslexic” because that is where the “good stuff" comes from—learning to read the book of nature with fresh insight without being distracted by the theories of others. He says the rest is “just memorization.” </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">One of Horner’s dyslexic students, as we noted, made discoveries thought “impossible”—finding red blood cells and flexible blood vessels inside a 68-million-year-old fossil bone. Horner pointed out that this discovery was never made before, because “all the books in the world” would say that it could not be done. Recall, he noted that it is easy for dyslexics “to think outside the box” because “they have never been in the box.” </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Finally, we need to be convinced that it is indeed time for substantial change. It is hard to see that, in a remarkable number of cases, true innovation in using the most advanced information visualization technologies comes, in fact, from those who have struggled most with the oldest technologies: reading and writing.</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">It is becoming increasingly clear that new tools and new ways of seeing and discovering will require new talents and, often, different kinds of brains. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">We need to see the truth of Horner’s observation that dyslexia is “certainly not something that needs to be fixed, or cured, or suppressed!” </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Indeed, we need to see that, as Jack says, “maybe it’s time for a revolution -- or at least -- it may be time to start something.”</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, T.G. West, 2017, pp. 189 - 195.</span></div></div>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-23401637015712662024-02-01T19:14:00.000-05:002024-02-01T19:14:13.849-05:00THINKING LIKE A MARTIAN<p> <span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">STUMBLING TOWARD THE TRUTH—THINKING LIKE A MARTIAN</span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Over and over again we have been focusing on stories about how our verbal culture fails because it is too fragmented, too limited, too specialized—while a visual, big-picture culture is ignored. We could see this as another example of the ancient Greek myth of Cassandra— who could see the future—but no one would believe her. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">With many of those we have looked at, the pattern is clear: the new recognition of some big idea or <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>concept; the battle against that new idea or concept by the conventional experts; the gradual recognition of the value of the key idea or concept—because over time it functions to reorganize lots of information or a whole field—and many apparently unrelated pieces fall into place. Eventually a new generation accepts the new vision as obvious and essential. The old believers fight a rearguard action in the courts and legislatures and (sometimes) universities, but the larger culture moves on, (almost fully) accepting as obvious the truth and usefulness of the new idea or concept. (Rarely, some special people, sometimes, make a reconciliation of the new with the old.) </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">In such times, and especially in our own, it can be quite useful to try to see the bigger picture by standing back a distance. In his book <i>Timescale: An Atlas of the Fourth Dimension</i>, the British science writer Nigel Calder writes of learning “how to be a Martian” –- trying to learn how to see Earth and everything on it as it would be seen by a “dispassionate,” disinterested, and distant being. Calder considers this exercise a way of identifying those things that are really important, the really substantial trends over time, which are often quite different from the presumed “serious business” of “pots, kings, and battles.” </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Calder observes that it is quite difficult to cultivate this disinterested point of view. “Even the most skeptical historians,” he notes, “seem barely able to distance themselves from the assumptions of their culture.” Consequently, nearly “everyone takes it for granted that reading and writing are blessings.” However, our education provides us with little awareness of the “high levels of sophistication” attained by non-literate peoples—who were nonetheless able to understand the stars and deep ocean currents well enough to navigate the broad Pacific, for example. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">“Skill in archery,” he observes, “may have been as important as writing in shaping the course of history.” There is a great danger of seeing pre-literate or non-literate peoples as merely primitive and undeveloped. We are so well trained in the dominant values of our own culture that it is hard to give them due respect for their considerable accomplishments in the things that, after all, truly are most important in the face of great and continuous change and in the long history of human learning and survival. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">We should not be surprised, Calder notes, that there is some self- promotion among the makers and users of books. In their own limited view, he says, schools measure the “worth of young citizens” based on their “facility in the cumbersome information technology displayed on the wafer of wood pulp in your hands.” Our education institutions have given us little awareness that “most humans have lived and died unable to read or write, and some bright individuals are dyslexic.” (This is a truly remarkable observation in passing—within a book that presumably has nothing to do with dyslexia or other learning differences. One wonders whether Calder and his famous father, Lord Ritchie Calder, have any personal experience with dyslexia, near or far. However, in my experience over many years, it is not at all unusual for such remarks to come from those scientists and writers working at very high levels, especially when dealing with big-picture issues.) </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Driving the point home, Calder observes that “new technologies may soon make the art [of reading] as outmoded as oarsmanship for galleys.” Consequently, he observes that the “emphasis laid upon literacy by scholars who earn their living with written words appears self-serving.” In this way, if we take a very long view, then possibly we may begin to see the limitations of what we have been taught. Perhaps we may begin to see how even those who would appear to be the most educated could have special difficulty in seeing the kinds of trends that we are expecting. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Also, they may be so thoroughly entangled in the world of words, so “word bound,” in fact, that they may be unable to perceive major changes just outside the boundary of their familiar world. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">(These prescient observations have greater impact today, when so many of us are now surrounded with small machines that can easily read to us, talk to us, fetch information for us, and translate languages for us—all at comparatively modest cost. This was previously unbelievable, even in science fiction, only a short time ago.) </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The power and effectiveness of words, whether spoken or written, in whatever era or context, is not, of course, being challenged here. However, I do propose that the balance may be shifting (and may need to shift) in fundamental ways—that the important work of the world (the comparative advantage for some) will increasingly involve the sophisticated interpretation of complex images, using the newest technologies. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And, of course, we may very well see that we will have good reason to expect that the development of these new technologies and capabilities will be led by those creative visual thinkers (sometimes, or often, with learning difficulties or differences of some kind) who may have some special talent and experience in these areas. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Consequently, we might anticipate not so much a shift from one style of thinking to another but rather a new balance between the two sides—that is, the restoration of a balance and interdependence between two modes of thought that has generally been rare (except among the most highly gifted)—one visual and one verbal. We might encounter (at a very different level) a new form of uncommon symmetry in thinking styles between the two hemispheres of the brain, which is still a major consideration, although unfashionable in some circles these days. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Thus, it seems clear—taking the longer view—that some of the things that the best educated take for granted as permanent and enduring could actually be changing in fundamental ways. The “new technologies” that Calder talks about could very well be linked to the computer graphics, simulators, and information visualization that we have been talking about. If the trends move in the direction that I have been indicating, then some of the possible outcomes seem clear enough. When a new technology becomes widely available to amplify and extend some important human capacity, we may presume that it is only a matter of time before these potentials manifest in real consequences that will reverberate throughout our economy and culture. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">A NEW CLASS OF MINDS </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Calder’s view is only one among a growing number of observers who have begun to see the deep implications of the coming changes. More individuals working at the edge of these new technological developments, in the sciences as well as in the professions or business, are beginning to recognize the emerging patterns. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">One example is Dr. Larry Smarr, who is an astronomer, a physicist, the former director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and the coauthor of a book called <i>Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science</i>. Over the years, Dr. Smarr came to see the likely impact of computer information visualization technologies and techniques. It is also notable that his observations include his perception of explicit connections between dyslexia and certain forms of creativity and high ability. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">After we met at a computer graphics conference years ago, he sent me the following e-mail: “I have often argued in my public talks that the graduate education process that produces physicists is totally skewed to selecting those with analytic [mathematical] 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. . . .” (<i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, 2017, T.G.West, pages 101 to 105.)</div></div>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-79378662206941605242024-01-30T17:09:00.000-05:002024-01-30T17:09:49.096-05:00<p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">SOLITARY MEALS WITH EINSTEIN</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">For me, the turning point in my story is clear enough—my solitary meals in a grand hotel in Cairo in the summer of 1986. I was working for an international engineering and consulting company and we were managing a large-scale energy project with the Egyptian Electricity Authority funded by USAID. The project director was on vacation, so I was doing his job in Cairo for three weeks while he was away. The hotel was full of mothers and children from Saudi Arabia, wanting to escape the greater heat of Riyadh. The young boys tried to play soccer in the patch of green around the swimming pool. I appeared to be the only Westerner in the entire hotel. I spent my mealtimes reading books about Albert Einstein, especially his own “<i>Autobiographical Notes</i>,” the slender volume in which he explains how his thinking had been shaped from boyhood on. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I had always been fascinated by Einstein—at once almost universally acknowledged as the genius of our age—but also known to be eccentric and to have had trouble in his early schooling and career. I did not know it at the time, but he was to become my main guide throughout my research—introducing me to his own heroes and intellectual mentors— especially James Clerk Maxwell and Michael Faraday. These were names I knew only vaguely. But as I learned more, I saw that these three shared great respect and an extraordinary intellectual rapport across time— largely because they all relied heavily on their visual-spatial talents as the source of their remarkably original (and enduring) insights and discoveries. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Over time, these considerations became the core of my research as I dug through primary sources such as letters and diaries, with one insight leading to another as I reviewed a period of nearly two centuries. I found unfolding a distinctive pattern of thought, innovation, and discovery— one that was useful to a small group long ago—but one that has become ever more pervasive over recent years with the advent of new technologies along with new discoveries in physics, biology, mathematics, and other fields. Visual thinking—once so productive for a few—was now becoming more important for the many—partly because of new approaches to science and mathematics—and partly because of increasingly powerful new tools and technologies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">There is increasing evidence that many highly original and productive thinkers have clearly preferred visual over verbal modes of thought for many tasks. Some argue that visual-spatial abilities should in fact be seen as a special form of intelligence on par with verbal or logical-mathematical forms of intelligence.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 7pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Historically, it is apparent that some of the most original and gifted thinkers in the physical sciences, engineering, mathematics, and other areas relied heavily on visual modes of thought, employing images instead of words or numbers. However, it is notable that some of these same gifted thinkers have shown evidence of a striking range of learning problems, including difficulties with reading, spelling, writing, calculation, speaking, and memory. What is of greatest interest here is not the difficulties themselves but their frequent and varied association with high visual and spatial talents. . . . <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">In the life of Albert Einstein, the importance of visual learning and visual talents in conjunction with verbal difficulties has long been recognized. His poor memory for words and texts made him hate the rote learning methods of his early school years. However, he tended to thrive later at the progressive school in Switzerland, where he prepared to take his university examinations—no doubt, partly because the unconventional school was based largely on visually oriented educational principles. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">There is a debate among biographers and scholars as to whether the young Einstein was a brilliant student or whether he was a dullard. After some time looking at these conflicting points of view, I realized that to some extent he was both—a pattern that is typical of highly gifted visual thinkers with verbal difficulties. Einstein’s sister, Maja, recorded a number of details about his early life, commenting about his late development of speech; his slow answers but deep understanding in mathematics; and his frequent calculation errors even though he had a clear understanding of the main mathematical concepts involved. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">In secondary school, he dropped out of school in Germany (contrary to plan) to follow his parents after they moved to Italy. His reason was that because of his “poor memory,” he preferred to endure all kinds of punishments rather than to have to learn to “gabble by rote.” After he failed his first set of university entrance examinations, Einstein went to a new and unconventional school—one that was based on the highly visually-oriented educational ideas of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. It was at this school that Einstein’s abilities began to blossom and the great theories later published in 1905 began to take their initial shape. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The coexistence in Einstein of visual talents along with verbal difficulties has been noted by several observers. Suggesting the recognition of a general pattern, the physicist and historian of science Gerald Holton has remarked: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt;">“An apparent defect in a particular person may merely indicate an imbalance of our normal expectations. A noted deficiency should alert us to look for a proficiency of a different kind in the exceptional person. The late use of language in childhood, the difficulty in learning foreign languages may indicate a polarization or displacement in some of the skill from the verbal to another area. That other, enhanced area is without a doubt, in Einstein’s case an extraordinary kind of visual imagery that penetrates his very thought processes.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Later, in his own writing, Einstein made clear references to what he saw as two very different modes of thought, especially with regard to his own most creative and productive work. He pointed out that when he did really productive thinking, he always used “more or less clear images” and what he called “combinatory play,” as the “essential feature” in his “productive thought,” as well as of some “visual and some muscular type.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 7pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">But he explains that if he wanted to communicate these thoughts to others, he had to go through a difficult and laborious translation process, proceeding from images to words and numbers that could be understood by others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">It is anticipated that modern visualization technologies and techniques may eventually permit many more ordinary people to do what Einstein did with mental models in his mind’s eye—and permit the communication of sophisticated visual ideas without having to resort to poorly suited verbal and mathematical substitutes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The great power of the visual approach is underscored in one rather surprising account of Albert Einstein’s development as a professional scientist. In his later career, Einstein did become increasingly sophisticated in higher mathematics. However, some have argued that this increased sophistication may have been more of a hindrance than a help in his later creative work. The mathematician David Hilbert made clear, with some exaggeration, that Einstein’s creative scientific accomplishments came from elsewhere than through his mathematical skill. . . . </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Hilbert was not alone. Indeed, Abraham Pais, the author of a scientific biography of Einstein, observes that Einstein’s increasing reliance on mathematics over time also involved a reduced dependency on the visual methods that he used so heavily and so productively in his earlier work. (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">From <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, 2017, T.G.West, pages 54-61.)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-42231647015062319512024-01-27T23:26:00.000-05:002024-01-27T23:26:28.149-05:00<p> <span style="font-family: AmSans, serif;">STORIES AS A BETTER DIAGNOSTIC TOOL</span><span style="font-family: AmSans, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;">Several years ago, after giving a talk in Santa Barbara, I met a child and adolescent psychiatrist who said he had been using <i>In the Mind’s Eye </i>as a diagnostic tool for years. He explained that he had given his clients something like forty or fifty copies so far. He asked them to highlight in yellow all those traits that were like themselves and cross out all those that were unlike themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;">I said, “Oh, you mean the list at the end of the book.” He said, “Oh no, I use the whole book -- it is much more useful than the usual tests and measures. They are all devised by linear thinkers for linear thinkers.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;">Afterward, it occurred to me that the whole book indeed could readily serve as a rambling catalogue of traits -- but that it also would not hurt that these clients would be forced to see in themselves traits shared by important persons who accomplished a great deal, sometimes in spite of their difficulties but more often <i>because </i>of their difficulties and their very different ways of thinking. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;">To succeed with such extremely mixed abilities, as these individuals often do, you need to have a deep reservoir of confidence and fortitude to carry on in-spite-of the judgments of others that you are, in fact, really slow and lazy and stupid.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;">To maintain the required drive, determination, and sense of mission in the face of almost constant early failure and humiliation is often nothing short of miraculous. It would appear that only a comparatively small number survive these early days with enough confidence and drive to press on, against all odds, to find success in some area of special knowledge, deep understanding, and passionate interest. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;">Much of <i>In the Mind’s Eye </i>was an attempt to understand the nature of this kind of success and the remarkable individuals who seem able to find their way around so many obstacles, seeking an area in which they are at home with their work, often performing at very high levels of proficiency and productivity.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;">I have come to believe that those of us who are trying to understand and to help dyslexics (along with others, more or less like them) must come to see that conventional academic remediation is only part of the job—and not the most interesting or important part. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;">We need to seek ways to help dyslexics find and develop their own talents, large or small, so that they cannot be beaten down -- pushed into hiding their talents along with their disabilities. I, for one, believe that one of the best ways -- perhaps the only truly effective way -- to do this is to study the lives and work of highly successful dyslexics (in some detail and in all of their great diversity), so as to allow other dyslexics to see what can be done and to show how it can be done. </span><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 10pt;">(<i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, TGWest, 2017, page 127.]</span><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-73341559500293103482023-09-27T16:00:00.000-04:002023-09-27T16:00:59.439-04:00<p> <span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">Dyslexic Strengths in Times of Adversity 194</span></p><div class="page" title="Page 1"><img alt="page1image27641264" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/ca775dc1-b8ec-456b-9264-a937d7ff71a4" width="420.948000" /> <img alt="page1image27642928" height="70.866000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/272d3849-1fae-421a-a9c0-b95e72cda2f1" width="70.866000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences Vol. 9, No. 2, July 2022, pp. </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">194</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">—</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">203<br /></span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">DOI: 10.3850/S2345734122000121</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 20pt; font-style: italic;">Dyslexic Strengths in Times of Adversity</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 13pt;">Thomas G. West </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 8pt; vertical-align: 6pt;">1*</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">1. Author</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">Editor</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">’</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">s Note: </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">In this invited article following his talk for the UNITE SPLD 2021 conference, Thomas West applies his knowledge of dyslexic strengths in times of adversity, following the COVID pandemic. West</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">’</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">s understanding of dyslexia has always, in my view, been influenced by the framework of Seligman (1990) on learned optimism, which later became incorporated into my colleague Rod Nicolson</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">’</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">s Positive dyslexia movement (Nicolson, 2015).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Abstract</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Months before the world began to realize the full impact of the strange new illness first reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, the author had agreed to give a talk for graduating high school students in June of 2020. As conditions worsened, he was in a quandary, trying to think of what to tell these college bound students with dyslexia, who had completed their studies at The Siena School near Washington, DC. Eventually, he decided to focus on the creativity and resilience that so many dyslexics have exhibited so often, especially in times of change, uncertainty and sometimes great adversity. In this article, based on the talk, the author recalls how certain neurologists and researchers had pointed out that dyslexics have often been responsible for highly original innovations and advances as scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs. Accordingly, he hoped that the dyslexic students would be able see themselves as well suited to deal with their own unfolding trial and test </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">-- </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">displaying the special talents of dyslexics for creative solutions in times of uncertainty and adversity. The following article tells the story of his efforts to make this case </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">-- </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">providing arguments and stories that could be helpful to these students and possibly helpful to a larger audience </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">-- </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">as the world continues to deal with the long</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">-</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">term ups and downs of COVID</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">-</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">19 in its several variants </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">-- </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">while at the same time the world also begins to deal with major changes in the nature of jobs and work in the age of ubiquitous computing, computerized </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">“</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">deep learning</span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">” </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">and artificial intelligence (AI).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Keywords: Dyslexia, Dyslexia Strengths, COVID-19.</span></p></div></div><img alt="page1image27642096" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/56679f82-a6c3-4017-b29d-587f83f65fe6" width="422.864000" /><img alt="page1image27654576" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/9be2ae5d-022b-4594-bc2e-937a3ca8828c" width="422.867000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic;">* Correspondence to:<br />Thomas G. West—Email: thomasgwest@gmail.com</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">© 2022 Dyslexia Association of Singapore Limited www.das.org.sg</span></p></div><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic;">http://inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com/</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences Vol. 9 No. 2 July 2022</span></p></div></div><img alt="page1image27652912" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/93d96be0-88a9-4050-ae65-453917190c11" width="422.848000" /></div><div class="page" title="Page 2"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt;">195 </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">T. G West</span></p></div></div><img alt="page2image27641680" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/ec90daec-f41a-4e9c-9380-0ca2c887c4c8" width="422.038000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">PRESENTATION FOR THE GRADUATING CLASS</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Initially, I puzzled about what I could say to the graduating students. I had promised. But </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">the world had changed. It was to be the first “virtual” commencement </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">-- via a then unfamiliar computer link system. It had only been a few months -- and the whole world was frantically trying to figure out how to deal with the rapid spread of the virus. It was a time of many difficulties and dangers. I realized that I had to fully acknowledge that what the students were seeing -- what was indeed, in so many ways, really The Worst of Times. However, I hoped to somehow be able to show that this, in some ways, could also be seen as The Best of Times -- for each student, for their class, for their school and for their larger community.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">It was The Worst of Times -- it was, indeed, a time for resilience and fortitude, for innovation and survival. They were having to deal with a true global pandemic. They had been locked in, away from school and their friends, having to continue classes virtually, facing an uncertain future. In those early months, all over America a great many had lost their jobs. In recent days there had been protests and demonstrations in Washington and all around the country -- and, indeed, all around the world. After many </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">cases and many deaths, a few places were slowly “reopening” </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">-- but all too soon -- so that this also had many hazards and dangers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">In spite of all of this, I was bold to say that these could be seen also, in some ways, as The Best of Times. I noted that in the long history of human kind, we had been told, dyslexics seem to have had a special role. According to some researchers, dyslexics sometimes seem unusually well suited to deal with major changes -- to being able to<br />see opportunities inside of adversity. They are known to be particularly good at rethinking situations in an original way. They are known to be able to see what others cannot see. They are good at not being stuck with conventional views and conventional solutions. They have trouble reading and memorizing old knowledge -- but they are often really good at creating new knowledge and insights. (Eide & Eide, 2011; Gechwind & Galaburda, 1987; West 2009).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">I told the students that my own story was that I came into the field (as is so often the case) with the testing of our two young sons -- who started having dyslexia-related problems in school in the earliest years of education. I told them how, as a worried parent, I got myself tested. I explained that I could hardly read at all until about the fourth year of primary school -- and that I have always read very, very slowly -- although, as I discovered later, sometimes I could read more deeply than my classmates. I explained how in those early days I had been totally unaware of the larger pattern of dyslexic traits, especially the hidden strengths that often went along with the obvious weaknesses (West, 2017).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">© 2022 Dyslexia Association of Singapore Limited Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences www.das.org.sg Vol. 9 No. 2 July 2022</span></p></div></div><img alt="page2image27640224" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/58d96fc8-39fd-4c5b-a6ba-90beeb874cbd" width="421.998000" /></div><div class="page" title="Page 3"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">Dyslexic Strengths in Times of Adversity 196</span></p></div></div><img alt="page3image27654784" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/8f805e53-9d8f-42a2-9a65-12ad147297e4" width="420.948000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">I further explained to the students how I soon realized that my family included at least three generations of dyslexics -- our sons, myself and my father. My father was a brilliant and highly skilled artist and teacher -- who had won many major prizes -- but who also had many dyslexic traits. My mother was not dyslexic but was also a highly skilled professionally trained artist who also won top prizes (in spite of extensive hearing loss from childhood scarlet fever).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">I had begun to see that it was possibly significant that my mother was from a old Quaker family with many generations of visual thinking occupations -- silver smiths, early mechanics and engineers who had designed, built and operated water powered mills in both England and in America (and much later a few early airplane pilots) -- occupations that are often linked to the visual and hands-on strengths of those with dyslexia. My parents had met in the early 1930s at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Both had high visual talent with high level training in classical artistic skills - - loving to paint portraits of watermen, cooks and dancers, sailboats, a floating theater, old barns and green fields, rural landscapes in the manner of the French Impressionists of the late 19th century.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">I explained to the students that when I began my own serious study of dyslexia -- I immediately looked to the dyslexics who were successful in various fields. I was less </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">interested in “fixing” the problems. Rather, I was much more interested in understanding </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">the areas of distinctive strength and talent. I wanted to look at the fields where dyslexics were successful. I wanted to see what we could learn from them -- how dyslexics could succeed in worlds of changing jobs, skills and technologies. In time, my interest in strengths and talents led me to meet some extraordinarily amazing people and directed me to look into some new and exciting areas of work.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Early on, I realized that many things had been changing in fundamental ways -- many changes that tended to favor dyslexics once again, as they had in the past. I soon realized that all the low-level reading and clerical tasks that dyslexics have difficulty with were becoming less and less important in the world of work. In contrast, the high-level visual thinking talents and skills where dyslexics often excel were becoming more and more important in the world of work once again. Indeed, West noted that some researchers have asserted that the dyslexic brain often seemed to be optimized for innovation and original discovery -- aspects especially useful in times of radical change and uncertain threat. (Eide & Eide, 2011; EY Report, 2018; West, 2009, ).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Looking for talented and successful dyslexics, one of the first places I looked was computer graphics and the organization ACM SIGGRAPH -- a field that includes film animation, video games, data visualization, simulators for airplane pilots and 3-D models and structures for architects, biologists, mathematicians and surgeons. This field often features a remarkable melding of ancient forms of art and story-telling with the newest high-speed computer graphic technologies. I began to attend the annual conferences --</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: -1pt;">© 2022 Dyslexia Association of Singapore Limited </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: -1pt;">www.das.org.sg </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">Vol. 9 No. 2 July 2022</span></p></div></div><img alt="page3image27655408" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/1ad2441c-3cf0-413b-a9c7-45dd0657d4a0" width="422.848000" /></div><div class="page" title="Page 4"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt;">197 </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">T. G West</span></p></div></div><img alt="page4image27641472" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/a5ec723d-f8bc-44a3-bc62-300338ef9de4" width="422.038000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">and there were major technical advances every year. From the outset, the highly visual people I met at these computer graphics conferences explained to me that half the people in the industry were probably dyslexic.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">I met one woman who was responsible for the computer graphics in major films like Titanic and The Fifth Element. She told me that she had assembled a small group of the most talented computer graphic artists and technologists. They dealt with the most difficult problems in the films. She had hired them for their extreme talents based on samples of their work. She had ignored their paper credentials. In time, she discovered that entire team was dyslexic -- one hundred percent. (West, 2017).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">This taught me a lesson: dyslexics can be super stars when they discover their special areas of talent -- and when they find the right industry and position to put their talents to use.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">This also taught me that one of the most important things is to be able to retain one’s </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">spirit -- </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">one’s resilience </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">-- and not be beaten down by many early failures -- and not be </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">convinced by others that you can’t move on to high levels of accomplishment </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">-- sometimes very high levels. (Eide & Eide, 2011; West, 2005 onwards)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Indeed, when I talked to highly creative and successful dyslexic people in the sciences and business and elsewhere, they say the higher up you go in an area of strength, the easier it gets. For example, I found that many high-level scientists are familiar with the mixed talents common among dyslexics. They instantly know what you are talking about. Conventionally trained teachers usually do not understand these things; they are often compelled to focus on memorization and testing rather than insight and discovery (Dreyer, Dreyer & King, 2001-2004; West, 2022).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">A wonderful example of great success after repeated failures is Jack Horner -- the famous paleontologist who has been advisor to Stephen Spielberg for his four Jurassic Park films. I got to know Jack over the years at several conferences and I visited him twice at his digs in northern Montana.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Jack explained to me that he was mostly a failure in lower school and high school. His </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">high school English teacher gave him a grade of “D minus, minus, minus.” The teacher said you passed, barely, but “I never want to see you again.” Jack said he sent this </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">teacher a copy of his first book (written with help from a co-writer, of course). Indeed, Jack says he has written more books than he has read. (Horner, 2007)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Although Jack had failed a lot, he said he never felt a failure. Why? Because when young, he won all the science fair prizes. He built a Tesla coil -- and he also built a rocket. When he first told me this, I just assumed he meant a small model rocket. But he </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">said, “Oh no, it wasn’t a small model rocket. It was 5 feet tall and it blasted to 27,000</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">© 2022 Dyslexia Association of Singapore Limited Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences www.das.org.sg Vol. 9 No. 2 July 2022</span></p></div></div><img alt="page4image27654992" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/87796353-f356-48bb-bfc4-1d4e03c2007d" width="421.998000" /></div><div class="page" title="Page 5"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">Dyslexic Strengths in Times of Adversity 198</span></p></div></div><img alt="page5image27654160" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/41852fca-8513-44c4-869b-f74fa7afb2b3" width="420.948000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">feet.” I said, “Jack, that was dangerous, you could have shot down an airliner!” Jack </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">could not do the low-level work -- but when given the opportunity, he could accomplish things way beyond his classmates.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">In Montana, if you have graduated from high school you could start college. Jack failed in college seven times (as he once reminded me) but he never gave up. He took a low- level job cleaning and preparing fossils. He kept searching the dry wild lands of Montana. He could not get funding from professional grants for his research. But he asked a local beer company and got the funding he needed -- to eventually make important discoveries. In time, his work was respected and he became famous. He designed the dinosaur museum exhibits in Bozeman, received honorary degrees and started teaching paleontology.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">He would have his 19 graduate students write their papers and put them in the computer so Jack could have his computer read the papers to him. He said that his mission was to </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">get these graduate students to “think like a dyslexic.” “I don’t want them to clutter their minds with ‘other people’s thoughts,’” he said. He wanted them to observe nature </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">directly and see what was there in front of them in the fossil evidence. He tried to teach </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">them how to think “out of the box” like a dyslexic. He said that normally dyslexics think “out of the box” </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">-- </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">because “they have never been in the box.” (Horner, 2007).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">I think Jack’s example is a great one because it shows that he is definitely not suited to </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">conventional academic studies. But he was -- and still is -- extremely well suited to understanding nature and science -- seeing clearly what the fossil evidence revealed -- seeing things that other scientists have missed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Another great example is one of Jack’s graduate students, Mary Schweitzer. Mary is also </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">dyslexic. One year, Jack and his team had found a very large set of fossil bones from a Tyrannosaurus Rex at the face of a high cliff in northern Montana. It was in a remote area so it was hard to get people and equipment in and out. They found that the fossil femur (that is, the upper leg bone) of the T Rex (when covered with protective plaster of </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Paris) was so big and heavy that the loaned helicopter couldn’t lift it. So, they had to cut </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">this femur in half.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">They sent one half to Mary. They didn’t treat it with any chemicals as they normally do. </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Mary looked inside and what she saw immediately was a deposit of calcium inside the bone -- like the deposits of calcium found inside bird bones when they are ready to make egg shells. So, Mary knew right away that the T Rex had been a pregnant female.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">But there was more. Inside the bone Mary also found tiny flexible blood vessels and the remnants of red blood cells. Mary and her assistant said they could not sleep for weeks because they thought they would never be believed. She published her findings in Science magazine (Schweitzer, 2006) and indeed she was attacked. The critics said it is not possible for such things to survive for more that 60 million years. Subsequent papers</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: -1pt;">© 2022 Dyslexia Association of Singapore Limited </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: -1pt;">www.das.org.sg </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">Vol. 9 No. 2 July 2022</span></p></div></div><img alt="page5image27653328" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/e62a7288-cf7a-46c7-986d-d337404c5b45" width="422.848000" /></div><div class="page" title="Page 6"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt;">199 </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">T. G West</span></p></div></div><img alt="page6image27653536" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/23788929-92c5-4baa-834a-d5e7f7e13262" width="422.038000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">(Schweitzer, Wittmeyer & Horner, 2007) drew “howls of scepticism.” Some said: “These parts would “not survive tens of millions of years.” Was this “contamination?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">However, later, other scientists repeated her discoveries and admitted that her work was </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">legitimate. “’Milestone’ paper opens door to molecular approach” (Service, 2017). So, Mary Schweitzer, PhD, Jack’s dyslexic grad student, started a whole new subfield of </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">scientific study -- molecular paleontology -- a scientific subfield that all would have believed to be completely impossible. (Horner, 2007; NHK interview, 2017.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Another amazing story is about William J. Dreyer, a dyslexic molecular biologist at the </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, known as “Caltech.” Years ago, Bill </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">contacted me and said he had read my first book and thought that I understood how he </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">thinks. “No one else does,” he said. He suggested, “Next time you’re in the Los Angeles area come and visit. I want to tell you my story.” It turned out that Bill’s story was very </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">interesting indeed. (Dreyer, Dreyer & King, 2001-2004)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Bill started off as a poor student and he was uncertain about what he could and could not do. But he took some tests and realized he had some areas of special ability, especially in visual thinking. He started studying biology and he soon realized that he could understand what was going on in the laboratory better than others. Because he could use his powerful dyslexic imagination to see how the molecules fit together in various ways, he developed a new theory related to the human immune system. (Dreyer, Grey & Hood, 1967; West, 2009, West 2014).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">He told his professors which experiments they should do and what the results would be. They helped him write his papers, based on his new theories. For 12 years, he gave talks about his new theories. Many professionals in the field were angered by these talks; it was all so new that they could not understand what he was talking about; they thought it was heresy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Later, a different scientist, working in Switzerland, doing experiments that were illegal in </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">United States at the time, proved that Bill’s new theories were correct. And this other </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">scientist received a Nobel Prize (Susumu Tonegawa, was awarded the Nobel Prize, Physiology or Medicine, 1987). (Tauber & Podolsky, 1997).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Bill told me, I think honestly, that he was not upset about not receiving the Nobel Prize. He told me that once you receive the prize your life is not your own -- everybody wants a piece of you. (At Caltech, Dreyer was surrounded by a number of Nobel Prize winners.) Bill said that he was happy to be vindicated and to know that his theory was correct and </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">was eventually accepted by everyone in the field. Bill also became the “idea man” to start six “bio tech” companies.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">© 2022 Dyslexia Association of Singapore Limited Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences www.das.org.sg Vol. 9 No. 2 July 2022</span></p></div></div><img alt="page6image27653120" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/14d403bf-c48a-45e7-b5ab-da033c056498" width="421.998000" /></div><div class="page" title="Page 7"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">Dyslexic Strengths in Times of Adversity 200</span></p></div></div><img alt="page7image27653952" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/c4b40c17-0610-4615-a632-439b7ef71bb8" width="420.948000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">But there’s still more to Bill’s story. Bill had a dyslexic grandson named Brandon King. </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Brandon was in high school, flunking courses, fighting with his parents, feeling very low. So, his grandfather asked him to come and visit and help with his research using </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Brandon’s computer skills. Each day Bill talked to Brandon and said: “This is what I want </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">you to do today. Since you are good with computers, I want you to write this little search program -- </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">but before that you need to know this biology. . . . ”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Soon, Brandon started to help in the laboratory at Caltech as a volunteer. Then he was a part-time employee. Eventually he was a full-time employee helping with the computer side of the biology laboratory at the Caltech. In a short time, according to Bill, Brandon </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">was doing “post doc” level work at the laboratory </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">-- </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">and he still hadn’t graduated from </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">high school. (Dreyer, Dreyer & King, 2001-2004; West 2014)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Eventually Brandon went on to college at the famous University of California at Berkeley (because they had the best learning disability support program) and was able to graduate with honors and start his own business. (West, 2009, 2014)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Because of my books and talks, many stories of successful dyslexics have come my way. The field is full of paradoxes and surprises. Great writers who cannot spell. High level </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">mathematicians who don’t know their math facts. A Nobel Prize winning biologist who had been in “special education” and thought she was stupid (Carol Greider, Nobel </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Prize, Physiology or Medicine, 2009).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">It is important for educators and test designers to understand that there are whole areas of talent that they do not know how to measure or comprehend. Many clever students are great with memorization and test taking, but they are not good at developing new ideas or making new discoveries. Rather, often dyslexics seem to be well suited to these tasks.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Over many years, stories of dyslexic entrepreneurs like Richard Branson have been written about in the business press (Branson, 1999). This is not new. However, what is new is that in the last few years there have been formal reports written by major business management consultant firms. A report by one of the big four management consultant companies (EY -- formerly Ernst and Young) states the case that what businesses want in the future are the skills and talents and strengths that are common among dyslexics. (EY Report, 2018).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">With the new powerful computers of today many of the clerical tasks -- the tasks that our traditional educational system trains human beings to do -- are now being done faster and more cheaply by machines -- especially with massive data available in the cloud </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">along with “deep learning” and artificial intelligence (AI).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: -1pt;">© 2022 Dyslexia Association of Singapore Limited </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: -1pt;">www.das.org.sg </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">Vol. 9 No. 2 July 2022</span></p></div></div><img alt="page7image27650416" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/aab2462e-9d62-4e33-afd8-840408c98165" width="422.848000" /></div><div class="page" title="Page 8"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt;">201 </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">T. G West</span></p></div></div><img alt="page8image27650208" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/025488c8-5947-4827-8713-a44c804a47f2" width="422.038000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Businesses realize that what they now need from their human employees is something quite different from the past. They want the innovation, creativity, big picture thinking and other abilities that appear to be common among dyslexics (but seem to be comparatively rare among certain non-dyslexics).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">From the EY report: The Value of Dyslexia: “Our research shows that dyslexic strengths </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">provide a significant opportunity for organizations to harness a different, and widely untapped, pool of talent . . . Dyslexic individuals have differing abilities, with strengths in creative, problem solving and communication skills and challenges with spelling, reading and memorizing facts. Generally, a dyslexic cognitive profile will be uneven. Dyslexic individuals really do think differently. In work . . . these varied cognitive profiles give dyslexic individuals natural abilities to form alternative views and solve problems creatively. Heightened cognitive abilities in certain areas, such as visualization and logical reasoning skills and natural entrepreneurial traits can bring a fresh, often intuitive </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">perspective.” (EY Report, 2018).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">These are the kinds of things that some of us been saying for many years. But it is wonderful indeed to hear these words from established management consulting companies. I told the students that it is important for you, the class of 2020, to acknowledge the many great problems and stresses of our time. But along with all your own difficulties with dyslexia, remember that you have many advantages in ways of thinking that others do not have.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">So, I told them that I wanted them to see that it may be possible to view current problems and difficulties as opportunities -- to show the world -- and to show yourselves -- what you really can do.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">References</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Branson, R. (1999). Dyslexia: Dyslexic Genius, Parts 1 and 2. Documentary, Twenty Twenty Television for UK Channel Four.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Caltech (California Institute of Technology). (1999). Oral History Project, session one, tape 1, side1, interview of February 18, 1999, with Shirley K. Cohen, published by Caltech Archives 2005.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Dreyer, W. J., Gray, W. R., & Hood, L. E. (1967). The Genetic, Molecular, and Cellular Basis of Antibody Formation: Some Facts and a Unifying Hypothesis. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 32:353-36 DOI: 10.1101/SQB.1967.032.01.048</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Dreyer, Dreyer & King, (2001-2004). Multiple conversations with William J. Dreyer, Janet Dreyer and Brandon King, 2001- 2004.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Dreyer, Janet Roman, Ph.D., molecular biologist, second wife and widow of William J. Dreyer. Interview with Thomas G. West, June 28, 2005.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Eide, B. L., & Eide, F. (2011). The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain. New York: Hudson Street Press.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">© 2022 Dyslexia Association of Singapore Limited Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences www.das.org.sg Vol. 9 No. 2 July 2022</span></p></div></div><img alt="page8image27649792" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/1869a005-b932-47ad-a03f-d249494f2884" width="421.998000" /></div><div class="page" title="Page 9"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">Dyslexic Strengths in Times of Adversity 202</span></p></div></div><img alt="page9image27649584" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/98d22ae3-2657-4139-b6d8-3cfda6718ad7" width="420.948000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">EY Report. (2018). The Value of Dyslexia. Dyslexic Capability and Organizations of the Future. In association with MadeByDyslexia, Kate Griggs, Founder and CEO.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Geshwind, N. & Galaburda, A. M. (1987). Cerebral Lateralization: Biological Mechanisms, Associations and Pathology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Horner, J. (2007). Video interview, Thomas G. West and John (Jack) R. Horner, Personal collection, NHK Japan Television DVD, not broadcast, Thomas G. West.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Nicolson, R. I. (2015). Positive dyslexia. Rodin Books. Sheffield<br />Seligman, M. E. P. (1990). Learned optimism. New York: Knopf.<br />Service, R. F. (2017). Researchers close in on ancient dinosaur proteins. Science, pages 441-442 Schweitzer, M. (2006). Science magazine, 10 Nov. 2006, p. 920.<br />Tauber, A. I. & Podolsky S. H. (1997). The Generation of Diversity: Clonal Selection Theory and the</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Rise of Molecular Immunology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.<br />West, T. G. (1996). Playing with Images: A Return to Thinking in Pictures. American Institute of</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Physics. Computers in Physics, Vol. 10, No. 5, September/October 1996.<br />West, T. G. (2004). Thinking Like Einstein: Returning to Our Visual Roots with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information Visualization. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">West, T. G. (2005). The Gifts of Dyslexia: Talents Among Dyslexics and Their Families, Hong Kong Journal of Paediatrics (New Series), 10, 153-158.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">West, T. G. (2009). </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">In the Mind’s Eye: Creative Visual Thinkers, Gifted Dyslexics and the Rise of </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Visual Technologies. Second edition. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. (First edition, 1991; third edition, 2020.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">West, T. G. (2014). Amazing Shortcomings, Amazing Strengths. Beginning to Understand the Hidden Talents of Dyslexics. Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences, 1,(1)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">West, T. G. (2017). Seeing What Others Cannot See. The Hidden Advantages of Visual Thinkers and Differently Wired Brains. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">West, T. G. (2022). Personal Memories of Donald A. B. Lindberg, M. D., Visual Thinker and Medical Visionary. Transforming Biomedical Informatics and Health Information Access. B.L. Humphreys, et al. (Eds.) IOS Press, Amsterdam, NL</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Recommended Readings</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Ballard, R. D. & Drew, C. (2021). Into the Deep: A Memoir from the Man Who Found Titanic. National Geographic, Washington, DC. (See pages 285 - 290; Dr. Ballard discovered his own dyslexia, March 2015, after learning about the book Dyslexic Advantage by Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Broecker, W. (2010). The Great Ocean Conveyor: Discovering the Trigger for Abrupt Climate Change. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Hart C. E., Sharenbroich, L., Bornstein, B. J., Trout, D., King, B., Mjolsness, E. & Wold B. J. (2005). A mathematical and computational framewor</span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">k for quantitative comparison and </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">integration of large-scale gene expression data. Nucleic Acids Research, 33(8), 2580-94. (B. King is the grandson of William J. Dreyer.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Mail Online, July 13, 2013. </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Dyslexia is Britain’s secret weapon in the spy war. </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">http:// www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2362793/Dyslexia-Britains-secret- weapon-spy-war-top- codebreakers-crack-complex-problems-suffer-condition.html</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 10pt;">
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Schneps, M. (2013). Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astro-Physics. Laboratory for Visual Learning. See www.cfa.harvard.edu/dyslexia/LVL/</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: 700;">Schultz, P. (2011). My Dyslexia. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: -1pt;">© 2022 Dyslexia Association of Singapore Limited </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: -1pt;">www.das.org.sg </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">Vol. 9 No. 2 July 2022</span></p></div></div><img alt="page9image27650624" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/8999e861-8601-4c33-8e13-5c454d62899a" width="422.848000" /></div><div class="page" title="Page 10"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt;">203 </span><span style="font-family: Candara; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic;">T. G West </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Biographical Sketch</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Thomas G. West is the author of three books. His first book -- </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">In the Mind’s Eye: Creative </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Visual Thinkers, Gifted Dyslexics and The Rise of Visual Technologies -- was first published in 1991 and was released in a third edition in 2020. The book has been translated into Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Awarded a gold seal by the Research Libraries of the American Library Association, the book was recognized as one of the </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">“best of the best” for the year (in their broad psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">category). Mr. West has been invited to provide presentations for scientific, medical, art, design, computer and business groups in the U.S. and 19 other countries, including groups in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Dubai-UAE, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and twelve European countries.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">West has long been interested in the talents of dyslexic individuals along with the history of visual thinking in making discoveries as well as the way the worlds of education and work are slowly being transformed by powerful computer technologies, many visual and </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">graphical. West’s second book is Thinking Like Einstein: Returning to Our Visual Roots</span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information Visualization (2004). His third book is Seeing What Others Cannot See: The Hidden Advantages of Visual Thinkers and Differently Wired Brains (2017).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">West has given presentations and workshops for organizations such as NASA Ames, MIT and Harvard University in the US, the Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam, the Glasgow School of Art, Oxford University and GCHQ in the UK, the Dyslexia Association </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">of Singapore and a meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany. West’s </span><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">papers and personal blog have been deposited in a permanent archive in the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700;">Blog: inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com. Email: thomasgwest@gmail.com</span></p></div></div><img alt="page10image27528656" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/e726595a-23be-4a1d-af2d-6177bb11f4de" width="422.038000" /><img alt="page10image27525120" height="0.500000" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/da990a23-d29d-4a0f-a7e7-89a9904bff8d" width="421.998000" /><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: NeuzeitGroT; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700;">© 2022 Dyslexia Association of Singapore Limited Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences www.das.org.sg Vol. 9 No. 2 July 2022</span></p></div></div></div>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-73549159687181522812023-08-15T00:41:00.006-04:002023-08-15T00:43:58.100-04:00Preliminary Draft -- July 15, 2023<p> <span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">PRELIMINARY DRAFT -- Note: The following set of 14 pages is part of a short draft intended to provide a few examples, notes, topics and observations providing context (along with four Appendices) from the more extensive archive listings now in preparation. Revised, July 15, 2023. – TGW</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Time of Fundamental Change:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Larger Context of Advanced Visual and AI Technologies<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Return to Visual Thinking and the Strengths of Dyslexics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Reconsidering Different Ways of Learning for New AI Realities<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Brief Excerpts and Samples from Archive Listings<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Having been asked to give talks to many different groups in different countries, remarkably, West noted that the higher up he would go -- among Nobel Prize winning scientists, for example -- the more likely he would find those who readily understood patterns in unexpected weaknesses along with very high-level strengths, frequently featuring strong visual thinking as a major factor. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">He gradually realized that many low-level scientists and professionals mainly know what they have been taught; while for very high-level scientists, it is a great advantage to think differently and to see patterns that others do not see, patterns that are often initially resisted and misunderstood by those with conventional training.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Thomas G. West has been privileged to be given an insider’s view of the sometime relationships between high-level capabilities together with various unexpected weaknesses and learning difficulties. With the newest advances in AI now in the headlines, he finds new relevance of fundamental issues that he has been dealing with in his books and talks for more than 30 years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">With his early books, articles and talks about visual thinking, visual technologies, dyslexic talents and other learning differences, West found that he was quickly swept up in waves of fundamental change in attitudes and approach. Indeed, some indicators came quite early -- for example:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">West’s first book, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, was published in April 1991. Recently, he was going through some old papers and found this note about some early reactions to the book: “October 17, 1991. West attended a meeting at the National Institutes of Health Image Processing Group lecture series this afternoon at the NIH Clinical Center. While there, Margaret (Bonnie) Douglas, who managed the lecture series, mentioned that his book was causing a sensation among her colleagues and associates -- chiefly made up of those programmers working with computer medical imaging, data visualization and related matters. She said their department librarian had never seen such a long waiting list for one book. The book cover had been displayed with new arrivals at the library and a few had heard his talk the previous May, but other than word-of-mouth, Bonnie found it hard to explain how people had learned of the book. ‘It certainly seems to have touched a nerve somewhere; perhaps you will have a cult book on your hands, she remarked.’ ”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Reconsidering Different Ways of Learning: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Recent Advances in AI, Calling for Urgent Action. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">What Can Be Learned for Today’s Education from The Most Successful Visual Thinkers and Dyslexics? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">What Can Humans Do Better Than Machines? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Machines now outperform top students on tests; could visual thinking dyslexics do some things that machines cannot do? </span><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Currently, some educators are asking: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Won’t Students just use ChatbotGPT to Cheat?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Yes, but only if we continue to assess students in the same outdated ways. . . . Soon ChatbotGPT will be as expected and ubiquitous as spell check. Spell check empowers poor spellers by preventing their difficulties from impacting their ability to effectively communicate. In the near-term the same will be true for individuals who have difficulty organizing their ideas through written expression. . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“AI could (SHOULD) Change the Ways We Measure Potential<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“ChatbotGPT4 can outperform the vast majority of people on some of our most consequential standardized exams. It scored 700/800 on the SAT Math section, in the top 10% of the bar exam, in the 85% percentile of the LSAT and a 4 and 5 on the AP Calculus and AP Biology Exams. It even aced the Sommelier exam. Interestingly, it did not fare as well on the AP language exams which require higher levels of creativity and interpretation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“In a world where a computer can outperform the vast majority of humans on these exams, how can they possibly be an accurate prediction of who will be successful? In fact, they would seem to only predict who has the skills that can be better performed by computers. Dyslexic learners stand to be the beneficiaries of this shift in what is important and how we measure it.” (J. Clark, Chair of the International Dyslexia Association, email to IDA group of school heads, April 2023.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Early Warning in 1947</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">As machines have long ago replaced assembly line workers and most bank tellers, we may not have been surprised to see an erosion of opportunities for those with certain clerical skills. But many of us may not have been ready to see that there may be great changes in the highest levels of managerial and professional roles as well. One of the fathers of computing and control systems, Norbert Weiner, in his book <i>Cybernetics</i>, saw it coming from the first. Writing in 1947, he explained,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The first industrial revolution was the devaluation of the human arm by the competition of machinery. The new modern industrial revolution is similarly bound to devalue the human brain, at least in its simpler and more routine decisions. Of course, just as the skilled carpenter, the skilled mechanic, the skilled dressmaker have in some degree survived the first industrial revolution, so the skilled scientist and the skilled administrator may survive the second. However, taking the second revolution is accomplished, the average human being of mediocre attainments or less has nothing to sell that is worth anyone’s money to buy.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">After more than 75 years, this is an especially sobering view. Much has come about that was unexpected since Weiner’s somber analysis, but the basic form and direction of this trend is remained unchanged – recently exploding into everyday life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is clear that not only clerical and other low-level functions are threatened but also many functions formally thought to require high intelligence, many years of study, advanced professional degrees and certification. Clearly, the conventional world of work is being turned upside down and we must begin to change conventional thinking and consider new plans of action. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">However, we may be surprised to see help from unexpected quarters. Indeed, some of those who have had the most trouble in the old educational systems, may soon begin to show the way forward in the new worlds of education and work. Some suggestive examples are provided below. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Short Archive Listing with a few Examples of Significant <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Past Talks, Events, Media and Documents – Related to Visual Thinking, Visual Technologies and Dyslexic Strengths<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 16pt;">“Dyslexia Is Britain’s Secret Weapon in the Spy War”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">(1) In June 2006, Thomas G. West was honored to be invited to be the main speaker at the first ever “Diversity Day” conference in Cheltenham, England, for the staff of GCHQ, the code-breaking descendants of Bletchley Park (the World War II Nazi code breakers and the source of “Ultra,” the extremely secret intelligence source for Winston Churchill, never revealed to the public until the 1970s). According to one employee at GCHQ, “while people with neuro-diversity may be viewed as ‘odd or weird,’ they are ‘fully accepted’ at GCHQ.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">GCHQ officials and cyber experts make it quite clear that their dyslexic employees, among others, are viewed as highly valued workers. As one spokesperson said in an article for the </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 14pt;">Daily Mail</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">, “Dyslexia Is Britain’s Secret Weapon in the Spy War: Top Codebreakers Can Crack Complex Problems Because They Suffer from the Condition. . . . Most people only get to see the jigsaw picture when it’s nearly finished while the dyslexic cryptographists can see what the jigsaw looks like with just two pieces.” (Also see section </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">in West’s third book, <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See, </i>“Seeing the Puzzle with Only Two Pieces -- Learning Differences at GCHQ,” West, 2017, pp. 147-150.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The following Saturday after this first GCHQ diversity conference, there was an informal gathering for several employees and their families -- with a pub lunch and a walk around the nearby village -- where one teen-aged son said, “Now I finally begin to understand my father.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">At one point, after the walk, West found himself sitting with a group of seven at the edge of our host’s garden, gradually discovering that all of those with him had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Among other things, they discussed <i>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time</i> by Mark Haddon and connections with the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze” (involving the significance of “the dog that did not bark”). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is apparent that organizations such as GCHQ (and possibly NSA in the US) are important places to better understand unexpected patterns in extraordinarily high performance and to seek connections between visual thinking, dyslexia, autism and other forms of different thinking. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">This approach is especially important since conventional professional literature and training is often focused exclusively on correcting academic weaknesses and problems without consideration of a range of special talents and capabilities. (More for this archive is to be provided later concerning this important GCHQ meeting and related corporate organization management policies. Full credit to JT and RT at K4L -- TGW.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Invitations to Speak from the Varied Worlds of Visual Thinkers<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">West is the author of three books, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> and <i>Seeing What Other</i>s <i>Cannot See</i>. From 1991 to 2021, he has given hundreds of presentations in the U.S. and 14 countries in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia/Pacific Region. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Early on, West found that he was invited to provide presentations for a variety of high-level institutions and organizations as part of a new awareness of fundamental change with respect to visual thinking and visual technologies -- along with new ways of thinking about the distinctive talents and capabilities of dyslexics and other different thinkers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Real World Perspectives<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">In most cases, the high interest in these topics and trends was from those who were observing these capabilities in actual operation and use “in the real world” of scientific discovery, medical innovation and entrepreneurial business.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">However, during this time many conventional experts, specialist academics and practicing professionals seemed to find it difficult to understand and appreciate these changes in perspective. They had been trained to rely on traditional tests and conventional measures and a conceptual framework that favors conventional verbal and mathematical academic capabilities along with extensive memorization -- instead of visual thinking and “thinking in pictures” -- that is, the manipulation of images or processes of change over time in three-dimensional space, in the imagination -- especially in science, engineering, mathematics, medicine and other fields. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">These experts have long highly valued students who could easily memorize old knowledge -- but they often have very little understanding of those who may be best suited to creating new knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">“A Return to Visual Thinking” as a New Beginning <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">New Views of Knowledge, Ability and Potential <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">50 Max Planck Institutes in 1993</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">These changes in awareness were partly based on the rapidly emerging great power of the new computer graphic and related technologies during this period. However, this new awareness was also based on a renewed recognition of the power of the visual thinking as used by earlier scientists, engineers and inventors, such as Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla and others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Thus, “A Return to Visual Thinking” was the main theme of an annual meeting of European scientists -- and West’s invited presentation for this meeting -- for the 50 Max Planck Institutes in Germany in 1993.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Over time, West noticed that when he spoke about visual talents and learning differences in highly positive ways, with credible positive examples, some of those in his audience felt free, often for the first time, to talk about considerable strengths and hidden dyslexic weaknesses in themselves, their family members and their most talented co-workers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Remarkably, West noted that the higher up he would go -- among Nobel Prize winning scientists, for example -- the more likely he would find those who readily understood these patterns in unexpected weaknesses along with very high-level strengths. (He later realized that a lot of low-level scientists and practitioners mainly know what they have been taught; while for very high-level scientists, it is a great advantage to think differently and to see patterns that others do not see.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">For example, the Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, the Fifty-Year Reunion (item 2, below). In a striking and unexpected example, during the course of the conference, among these highly praised, award-winning physicians and highly regarded medical school professors, roughly half of those attending spoke to West of their own dyslexia, the dyslexia of talented coworkers or the dyslexia of highly creative members of their own families. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Accordingly, the events and documents listed in this archive might serve, in part, as an informal preliminary survey of the development of these fundamental observations in various scientific and technical occupations in various parts of the world over some three decades. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">See the sample items and events listed below for some of the best examples of how these changes in perspective were recognized, adopted and promoted by high-level organizations such as MIT and NASA Ames in the US, GCHQ and some universities in the UK, along with the Max Planck Institutes in Germany and other parts of Europe. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is considered important to preserve these primary source archive materials for further systematic study of the early years of these important trends -- trends that are likely to increase in importance with the continuing rapid growth of computer power and connectedness along with advanced applications of AI (recently more in evidence now than ever before). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Long Predicted, Major Work Transformations Have Arrived<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">As machines increasingly take over low level clerical and professional tasks, the creativity, innovation, visual and big picture thinking often seen among dyslexics, and other different thinkers, should be expected to increase in relative value. (This trend is even more apparent recently as AI programs such as ChatGPT4 are now seen as capable of taking over certain search, analysis and reporting tasks, with amazing speed but not always with the highest levels of accuracy and truthfulness -- since they generally only repeat, without proper fact checking, what is available on the web – most recently producing a flood of news stories and broad speculations.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">However, even before current trends, it is notable that in recent years dyslexia has increasingly come to be viewed as an advantage in many technical, scientific and entrepreneurial business fields. Business management consulting firms like EY have generated reports documenting that many employers are now looking to hire creative and innovative dyslexics. The job search service LinkedIn has introduced a check box for “dyslexic thinking” as a positive trait for job hunting and it is said that more than 10,000 had checked the box in early months. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">In a sense, it may be argued that, at best, well-trained professionals have long struggled to help dyslexics master reading and basic academic work – while few have helped dyslexics to develop the high-level visualization and innovation capabilities that seem to be common, in various forms, among some dyslexics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">These skills that should be in greater demand as the low-level reading, search, report preparation and many conventional academic tasks are increasingly done much faster and more cheaply by machines. This was predicted from the earliest days of computing -- but now it has clearly arrived. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is also expected, remarkably, that the shift to big picture and visual thinking may also serve to highlight the value of some traditional modes of thought found among some indigenous peoples and disadvantaged groups. (See the “Native Voices” references to ancient traditional Polynesian navigation methods mentioned in the section prepared for the National Library of Medicine book on the career of Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, provided here as Appendix A.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Early Recognition, Dyslexic Strengths and a Different Point of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">View </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><i>In the Mind's Eye</i> Seen as “Best of the Best”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">West’s first book, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, was awarded a gold seal and selected as one of the “best of the best” for the year out of some 6000 reviewed books by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association (one of only 12 books in the broad “Psychology” category, including books on “neuroscience, intelligence testing, language impairment, mental health and psychiatry”).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The book has been translated into Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Over some 30 years, West has provided hundreds of presentations for scientific, medical, art, design, computer and business groups in the US and 19 other countries. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The interest in these topics, across many different fields and disciplines, has been an indicator of the timeliness and broad impact of these perspectives and publications -- largely initially based on the remarkably prescient original work by the neurologists Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton in the 1920s and Dr. Norman Geschwind and his students in the 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">A broad and enduring interest in these topics is further indicated by the reissue in July 2020 of a Third Edition of West’s first book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. With over 30 years in print, the book continues to be what they call in the trade an “evergreen” -- a book that never dates and never stops selling. The two previous revised and expanded editions (Updated Edition and Second Edition) each contain Epilogues with some 40 to 50 pages of new material. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Selected Additional Examples of Events and Documents<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">(2) Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion, September 17-19, 1998, Arizona Biltmore Resort. Speakers included, among others: Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, Director, National Library of Medicine; 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Markle Scholars were identified by medical school deans as the best medical school professors and teachers 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, as it turned out, the organizers were interested. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">In his talk, West spoke primarily of visual thinking among creative scientists and recent developments in visual technologies and computer graphics. However, West also spoke of how visual thinking and associated innovation were sometimes linked to dyslexia and other related learning differences. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">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 received later from a Canadian physician, another Markle Scholar; to be provided for the archive. -- TGW) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">(3) 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Attendance was by invitation only. Each attendee was asked to provide an image that represented their work -- to be worn as part of their name tag -- for discussion with other attendees. The conference handout (to be provided separately for inclusion in the archive) includes 210 images with attendee names and organizations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">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; he was one of the developers of the Visible Human Project for NLM). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The image for West was the very early x-ray crystallographic image produced by Sir William Lawrence Bragg, used to discover Bragg’s Law, which is the basis for the determination of crystal atomic and molecular structure, and later, the well-known discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick (while Bragg was their boss). This image was supplied to West by Bragg’s daughter, Patience Bragg Thomson, former head of a school for dyslexic students in London. This family includes, over five generations, many visual occupations, many dyslexics and four winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics, two for the x-ray crystallographic discoveries. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">West was familiar with the book <i>Fractal Geometry of Nature</i> by Benoit Mandelbrot and had been impressed with this very new and innovative form of mathematics. West hoped to be able to speak with Dr. Mandelbrot during the small three-day conference. In fact, as it turned out, West had several conversations with him. Mandelbrot talked about the hostility he had encountered from most conventional mathematicians, especially at Harvard University, where he had been teaching at the time. He then moved on to Yale University where, in contrast, they showed respect for Mandelbrot’s highly innovative approach to mathematics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">West mentioned his own interest in highly talented visual thinkers and dyslexics in science and mathematics 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">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 then most modern computer graphics technologies (actually starting with the most primitive early forms of computer graphics, well before others, because he was working for IBM at the time). These aspects are seen as signature indictors of the creative work of a classic visually-oriented approach as seen among many dyslexics.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">(4) Discovering PCR. In recent years, PCR has been in use everywhere in relation to testing for Covid-19. The following story shows that sometimes you don’t understand what you have been given – because you think it is some sort of error or mistake. Non-dyslexics sometimes miss things because they tend to see things based mainly on what they have been taught to see. In contrast, many dyslexics think in pictures and sometimes they see things that non-dyslexics do not see or cannot see – or, indeed, do not allow themselves to see. It is also worth noting that dyslexia itself is often seen as only a problem – when it can be seen in many situations as a great advantage instead. (</span><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The passage below is quoted from the book <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, by T.G. West, 2017, pages 69-71.)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Many years ago, during a family trip to Colorado, a friend told me a story that provides an inside look at how scientists work. I was just beginning serious research for my first book and we were dis</span><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">cussing creativity and the process of discovery. He was a well-known cancer researcher and taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“He told me he would sometimes prefer to forget this story. I asked if it had ever been written down anywhere. He said no. He and all of his associates found it too upsetting to recall or record -- but he told me it was alright for me to tell the story. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Years ago, one of his friends was a young researcher in a biochemistry laboratory and was performing a procedure intended to destroy DNA, the molecular blueprint for self-replication carried in all living cells. She was annoyed, however, at not being able to make the procedure work as intended. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Each time she measured the results of her work, she came up with more DNA than she started with. The researcher tried again and again. But each time she was disappointed to discover that she had more DNA rather than less once again. Her coworkers were sympathetic and tried to help her. But no solution to the problem could be found. She eventually dropped the project and went on to other tasks. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Some years later, another scientist in a different laboratory successfully developed a new method to create DNA, making many copies— and he subsequently received a Nobel Prize for his discovery. The young researcher and her former colleagues are still asking themselves how it is that they did not recognize what was really going on when her project repeatedly failed.<span style="position: relative; top: -4pt;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The story of the second scientist is now well known in scientific circles. The discoverer was Kary B. Mullis, who shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with another scientist, Michael Smith. Mullis received the prize for his development of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) that makes it possible to rapidly make thousands or millions of copies of specific DNA sequences. The improvements provided by Mullis have made the PCR technique of central importance in molecular biology and biochemistry. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“According to the Nobel Prize presentation at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences: ‘Using this method it is possible to amplify and isolate in a test tube a specific DNA segment within a background of a complex gene pool. In this repetitive process the number of copies of the specific DNA segment doubles during each cycle. In a few hours it is possible to achieve more than 20 cycles, which produces over a million copies.’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Of course, the story is so upsetting because she had the discovery right there in front of her, but she was so focused on her seemingly failed project that she could not see the value of her experiment’s results. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Such stories teach us. Sometimes a gift is seen only as a problem, something that would be quickly wished away had we the power. Sometimes the most important thing is to be able to recognize the gift for what it is, even though it was not requested or desired. For this to be possible, it is helpful (in spite of one’s training) not to be wholly focused on the narrow interests of the moment—no matter how serious the task, no matter how large the grant, no matter how urgent the deadline. One has to be open to new possibilities, to looking at things a different way, to being able to see what you have been given, even when it is not what you asked for. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The role of chance or fortuitous accident is one of several themes that recur repeatedly in the literature of creativity, especially creativity in the sciences. I do not assume that all creativity is necessarily associated with some form of learning disability or learning difference. However, I do believe that a number of traits associated with dyslexia, other learning differences, and especially high visual-spatial talents may tend to predispose some individuals to greater creativity than might exist otherwise. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Being able to do what others want you to do, in the way they want you to do it, is seductive. If you can, you will. But if you cannot, you will have to find another way. It is a form of accidental self-selection. If it is possible to do it in the same way, successfully, often a new way will not be tried. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Thus, if a truly original method is needed, the conventionally successful student or researcher may be the last one to find it. Sometimes only among those who have repeatedly failed is there a high likelihood of success.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is the end of a short 14-page draft providing samples from the archive listings (with the following Appendix A, and others). Selected from some 165 total pages of listings to date. -- Thomas G. West<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Emails:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="mailto:thomasgwest@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">thomasgwest@gmail.com</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="mailto:thomasgwest@aol.com" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">thomasgwest@aol.com</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Blog:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Mobile: </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">202 262 1266<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">______________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX A<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Note: The brief chapter below was requested for the comprehensive book on the Dr. Lindberg’s life and career, with many authors, representing several professional groups, published February 1, 2022, by IOS Press, Amsterdam. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Transforming Biomedical Informatics and Health Information Access B.L. Humphreys et al. (Eds.) © 2021 The authors and IOS Press. This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0). doi:10.3233/SHTI211027 </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 31pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 26.5pt;">Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D., </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 24pt;">Visual Thinker and Medical Visionary</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Thomas G. WEST</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 8pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">1 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Washington D.C. U.S.A.</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Keywords. Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D., visual thinking, computer graphics technology, dyslexia, U.S. National Library of Medicine</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">1. Introduction </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">From the late 1980s until his retirement in 2015, I was privileged to observe the forward-thinking and astonishing depth, range, and liveliness of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) under the direction of Donald A. B. Lindberg M.D. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">As an outsider, I observed from my point of view as an ordinary library researcher. I mainly used NLM’s History of Medicine collections for information about innovative scientists like Michael Faraday and medical pioneers such as Dr. Harvey Cushing. Initially, I used the old paper index catalog cards, microfilm, and the early NLM mainframe computer information systems to research and prepare the manuscript for my first book, In the Mind’s Eye, published in spring 1991 [1]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I first met Dr. Lindberg at a gathering after a lecture in NLM’s Lister Hill Building. He asked about my work. I explained that my research focus concerned the talents of dyslexic individuals - together with visual thinking in the history of medicine and science. I was surprised to discover that Dr. Lindberg also was interested in these topics. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I later learned that these interests were partly a reflection of his personal history. Don’s father was an architect. Don was trained in a highly visual specialty, pathology, and some family members were dyslexic. As is often the case, this kind of personal history helps some to understand and appreciate the puzzling mixed strengths and weaknesses that accompany these life patterns. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I also was fascinated that Don’s interests included then-rapidly developing computer graphic technologies as well as the hidden talents of dyslexics (who often see things differently) to innovate and sometimes make scientific discoveries before conventionally trained experts in some fields. Over time, I began to appreciate that Dr. Lindberg had a remarkable ability to see where things were going and attract highly talented and creative people for his staff, NLM’s Board of Regents, and the Library’s diverse, inventive projects. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Over the years, Dr. Lindberg assumed leadership positions in several major areas - archiving massive amounts of genetic code information (within the National Center for Biomedical Information), providing research information in clinicaltrials.gov, and even leading a federal government-wide effort - the High-Performance Computing and </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><img border="0" height="1" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/a0ba83e4-4c9e-493e-b120-aafc6c87d4b1" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="107" /></span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 8pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 6.5pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">1 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Corresponding author: thomasgwest@gmail.com </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">417 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Communications Program (HPCC). He once remarked to me how difficult it was to deal with 500 HPCC emails a day. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg’s interest in visual thinking and dyslexia was evidenced when he asked me to be the after-dinner speaker at a meeting of NLM’s Board of Regents [2]. He accorded me the honor of describing the ideas I developed during my research and writing. I began my BOR speech with these words: </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">“My talk this evening is about a return to visual thinking. My subtitle ‘new technologies, old talents and reversed expectations,’ encapsulates my main thesis - that as we begin to use the newest technologies in really powerful ways (which we have hardly begun), we will begin to tap into some of our oldest and most “primitive” neurological (visual spatial) talents. In so doing, we will begin to see ourselves and our world with very different eyes – leading, in time, to fundamentally different attitudes towards education and concepts of intelligence, as well as the skills and talents that are considered to be the most valuable. . . .” </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">2. Advanced Applications </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">At NLM in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I witnessed the rapid changes in computer systems happening worldwide. Dr. Lindberg seemed to be simultaneously interested in the newest technologies, and at the same time, he respected the insights and sophisticated knowledge of early researchers and traditional cultures. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">For example, one morning I chanced to attend another lecture in NLM’s Lister Hill Building. The speaker was a sleepy young computer programmer and software engineer. He had been up all night, as he said, releasing to the World Wide Web thousands of copies of a new computer program he and a coworker designed - called a ‘browser.’ </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">As it turned out, it was ‘Mosaic,’ the first web browser of its kind. The young speaker was Marc Andreessen, then working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. Later, he became famous in the computer world for Netscape and the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Of course, these initiatives helped enable access to the Internet. They revolutionized mass communication - and I was privileged to see the very first day - primarily because of NLM and its forward-thinking director. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">3. Thinking Like Einstein on the Hokule’a </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">During his career, Dr. Lindberg became known as a significant innovator in using computers for healthcare research and practice. Under his direction, NLM pioneered broad access to medical information with Medline and PubMed. But Don also promoted a deeper understanding of less well-known groups with programs such as ‘Women in Medicine’ and ‘Native Voices.’ </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">‘Native Voices’ exemplified how Dr. Lindberg promoted the investigation of the traditional forms of medicine, widely ignored previously. In later years, I was thrilled to see that NLM played a significant role in a visit to Washington, D.C., during the round- the-world journey of the traditional Polynesian canoe, the Hokule’a - a double-hulled sailing canoe that enabled the early Polynesian peoples to travel among the islands of the broad Pacific Ocean. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">418 </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I was delighted to see Dr. Lindberg’s interest in this area. Previously, I followed the renewed practice of traditional navigation methods and the significant influence of its rebirth in generating pride and reviving traditional Polynesian culture. Of course, the early traditional navigators used the stars and other natural signs. However, traditional navigators also taught themselves to feel long-distance ocean swells to maintain a heading - and how the absence or ‘shadow’ in these swells could indicate the presence of an island, out of sight, over the horizon. I wrote about these insights in my second book, Thinking Like Einstein [3]. Indeed, the intended full title for the second book was to have been: Thinking Like Einstein on the Hokule’a. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg was well aware of how traditional cultures used visual abilities in highly sophisticated ways - with a minimum of technology and a sophisticated integration of profoundly understood natural forces. I was amazed and delighted when the Hokule'a tied up for several days at the Washington Canoe Club on the Potomac River in the middle of Washington, DC. Nainoa Thompson, the chief traditional navigator, gave a major talk at NLM about traditional navigation methods. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Like Andreessen, NLM provided a stage for an important person (who was not well known outside of Polynesia) to provide fresh perspectives and ideas. In a way, both talks were so typical of Dr. Lindberg’s NLM. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Moreover, I enjoyed several conversations with Nainoa at the Canoe Club, where he confirmed his special visual-spatial skills in traditional navigation probably were linked to his dyslexia. We talked about our everyday dyslexia experiences and the dyslexia of some family members. It all seemed to support the theory from Harvard neurologist and dyslexia researcher Norman Geschwind, M.D., who suggested the visual-spatial abilities often seen among dyslexics yielded an array of socio-cultural benefits [4]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">4. Dr. Lindberg’s Prescient Leadership </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Over time, I beheld how prescient Dr. Lindberg was in providing leadership during an era of enormous change and rapid progress. Don used his broad interests and deep understanding of the potential of computer systems in the service of medical knowledge and practice. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">One especially forward-looking conference was organized in mid-February 2000, at Dr. Lindberg’s direction. The ‘Visualization Research Agenda Meeting - The Impact of Visualization Technologies - Using Vision to Think’ considered how: ‘new visualization technologies are giving us new ways of seeing and understanding: bringing diverse worlds together, transforming the nature of education and work, redefining what we understand is talent and intelligence.’ The meeting focused on the implications of visualization technology for education and professional training, as well as how to build an appropriate research program. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">It was a small but diverse meeting with only 22 attendees. NLM’s participants included Dr. Lindberg, Alexa McCray, Michael Ackerman, and Steve Phillips. Other attendees represented: five institutes at the U.S. National Institutes of Health; two from the Smithsonian Institution; three from computer graphics organizations; and six persons with knowledge and experience regarding dyslexia, giftedness, and the brain’s evolution. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Among those in attendance was Alvy Ray Smith, Ph.D., a strong advocate for the power of computer graphics in many spheres. Dr. Smith was one of the two founders of the Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, CA. Dr. Smith was a member of NLM’s Board of Regents and helped with the Visible Human Project and other related programs. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">419 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Other attendees included William J. Dreyer, Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, who provided a striking example of the power of dyslexic visual thinking in science and medicine. Dr. Dreyer had been a classic dyslexic when young; his reading, spelling, and arithmetic assessment scores were substandard. But having performed well on other tests, Dr. Dreyer went on to study biology - and gradually realized he could tell his professors what experiments to do and what the results would be. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Previously, Dr. Dreyer revealed that his dyslexic imagination enabled him to visualize molecular biology and chemistry processes that led to a new and controversial theory about the human immune system. Dr. Dreyer espoused the theory for 12 years - providing concepts based on data from instruments that he designed and built himself. However, Dr. Dreyer’s data was in a form so new and unconventional that almost everyone in his field could not understand what he was talking about. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Years later, Dr. Dreyer was vindicated and proven correct. When Susumu Tonegawa was awarded a Nobel Prize (physiology or medicine, 1987) for work he had done in Switzerland, his innovative sequencing work demonstrated (through experiments that were illegal in the U.S. at the time) that Dreyer and his colleague’s predictions were correct. In the words of two scientific historians of this period: ‘This experiment marked the point of no return for the domination of the antibody diversity question by nucleotide studies: it was Susumu Tonegawa’s final proof of the Dreyer-Bennett V-C translocation hypothesis through the use of restriction enzymes’ [5]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg’s views on dyslexic insight were summarized in a quotation he kindly provided for the back cover of my third book, Seeing What Others Cannot See. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">‘West argues convincingly that dyslexics . . . seem to fail in elementary school learning while excelling at the broader level of graduate school. Many whose stories he recites were smashing successes in business. West urges that this is because of extra gifts in visual learning and thinking. He goes beyond praising dyslexics’ hidden strengths in visual thinking and learning, their ability to see what others cannot see - he demands that we stop hiding the imaginative strengths of all children under their weaknesses in reading.’ - Donald Lindberg, M.D., Director Emeritus, National Library of Medicine [6]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">5. Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">A major conference where Dr. Lindberg and I were on program provided insights into the history of medical education. The 50th reunion of Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine occurred from September 17-19, 1998, in Phoenix, Arizona. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Other speakers included: Gerald M. Edelman, Scripps Research Institute (Nobel Prize winner), and Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education (MacArthur Prize winner). Markle Scholars were professors identified by their medical school deans as the best teachers in the U.S. and Canada for several decades after World War II. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">In my talk, I spoke primarily about visual thinking among creative scientists and some then-recent developments in computer graphic technologies. However, I also mentioned how visual thinking and associated innovation sometimes were linked to dyslexia and other related learning differences. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Remarkably, during the three-day conference, many (nearly one half of the attendees and their spouses) spoke to me about their dyslexia (two surgeons from Johns Hopkins, for example) or told stories of dyslexia among their family members or their more creative and innovative coworkers. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">420 </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">As I look back, I am enormously grateful for the privilege of knowing Dr. Lindberg and his wife, Mary. Rightly, it is now often said both presided over the Golden Age of the National Library of Medicine. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg’s vision was broad and deep, often including early consideration of diverse topics that only later became evident within the mainstream. Don took over a massive medical library primarily designed to serve various medical specialists - and using the newest technologies, he pushed the boundaries to serve the nation and, eventually, the world. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">References</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[1] West TG. In the mind’s eye, creative visual thinkers, gifted dyslexics and the rise of visual technologies. 1</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 6.5pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">st </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">ed. Amherst, NY.: Prometheus Books; 1991. 3rd Ed. Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group; 2020. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[2] West TG. A return to visual thinking: new technologies, old talents and reversed expectations. Bethesda, MD.: NLM Board of Regents Meeting; May 26, 1993. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[3] West TG. Thinking like Einstein: returning to our visual roots with the emerging revolution in computer information visualization. Amherst NY.: Prometheus Books; 2004. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[4] Geschwind N, Galaburda AM. Cerebral lateralization: biological mechanisms, associations, and pathology. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press; 1987, p. 97-104. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[5] Tauber, AI, Podolsky SH. The generation of diversity: clonal selection theory and the rise of molecular immunology. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; 1997, p. 207. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[6] West TG. Seeing what others cannot see: the hidden advantages of visual thinkers and differently wired brains. Amherst, NY.: Prometheus Books; 2017. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">_____________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX B</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Foreword and Selected Reviews and Comments -- T. G. West </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Foreword to the Second Edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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, <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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’ [defective in visual thinking abilities]. 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.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>Thinking in Pictures</i>), she was taken aback when I said I could hardly visualize anything: ‘How <i>do </i>you think?’ she asked. Grandin herself has very heightened spatial and visual imagination, and thinks in very concrete images.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye </span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">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 <i>Frames of Mind </i>as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Oliver Sacks, M.D., January 2, 2009. The late Dr. Sacks, a British neurologist who resided in the US, is most widely known for his book <i>Awakenings </i>(1973) that was made into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Also well-known are his books <i>An Anthropologist from Mars </i>(1995), <i>Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf </i>(1989) and <i>The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat</i> (1985). A later book is titled <i>The Mind’s Eye </i>(2010). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">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 <i>New York Times </i>said that Sacks “has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Alvy Ray Smith, PhD, 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 <i>Tin Toy</i>, the first 3-dimensional computer animation ever to win an Academy Award. This team later produced the first completely computer-generated motion picture, <i>Toy Story</i>. 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Dr. Smith has recently released a new book, <i>A Biography of the Pixel</i>, which provides a detailed history of how pixel-based images have come to dominate all aspects of the modern world. “<span style="background-color: white;">The Great Digital Convergence of all media types into one universal digital medium occurred, with little fanfare, at the recent turn of the millennium. The bit became the universal medium, and the pixel -- a particular packaging of bits -- conquered the world.” (From the publisher, MIT Press, August 2021.)</span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“I want you to know that reading your book and the conversations we had at the SIGGRAPH [computer graphics] 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 <i>CALCULUS & Mathematica</i>, 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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Dr. J. Jerry Uhl, Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, telephone conversation of September 29, 1993. The late 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, <i>CALCULUS & Mathematica </i>(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. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“Unfortunately, I did not discover this wonderful book [<i>In the Mind’s Eye </i>by Thomas G. West] before I wrote <i>Thinking in Pictures </i>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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Temple Grandin, “The List,” <i>The Week </i>magazine, March 3, 2006, describing why she has included <i>In the Mind’s Eye </i>on her list of her six favorite books. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“Dear Tom: Thanks for sending me your epilogue [to the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>]. 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”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Email of August 17, 2009. Dr. Grandin is a professor of animal science and is author of the memoir <i>Thinking in Pictures </i>(dealing with her life with autism) and the best-selling book <i>Animals in Translation</i>. An HBO cable TV film based on Grandin’s life debuted February 6, 2010, starring Claire Dane. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews -- being nominated for 15 Emmy Awards and winning seven. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“Perhaps when we encounter the prodigious gifts in someone who masters different mediums, someone such as Michelangelo, what we are seeing is the rare convergence of spatial and object thinking in the mind of a genius. According to Thomas G. West in his book <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, Leonardo’s abilities as a visual spatial thinker were so vast that he anticipated scientific and technological advances by a hundred[s of] years in the areas of anatomy, physiology, mechanical engineering, and astronomy. West writes, ‘Visual spatial talents are, in some important cases, indispensable for the highest levels of original work in certain areas of science, engineering, medicine and mathematics.’ Other sculptors rejected the marble that Michelangelo used to carve the David. He saw the statue inside it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">– Temple Grandin, <i>Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions</i>, Riverhead Books, Penguin Random House, 2022, pp. 173-174. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Howard Gardner, PhD, letter of October 15, 1996. Dr. Gardner is author of many books, including <i>Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences </i>(Basic Books, 1983) and <i>Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century </i>(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.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> “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 [mathematical] 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. . . .”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- 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 <i>Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science</i>, Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1993. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Review by Joan Freeman, <i>European Journal for High Ability</i>, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“The original title is <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. The Japanese title <i>Geniuses Who Hated School</i> 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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Review in <i>Kagaku Asahi</i>, the monthly Japanese science magazine, August 1994, p. 92. Review translated by Yoshiko G. Doherty.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one’s thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind’s Eye </i>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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Roeper Review</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, Vol. 15, No. 1, September 1992, p. 54.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“I want you to know that reading your book and the conversations we had at the SIGGRAPH [computer graphics] 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 <i>CALCULUS & Mathematica</i>, 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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Dr. J. Jerry Uhl, Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, telephone conversation of September 29, 1993. The late 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, <i>CALCULUS & Mathematica </i>(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. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">___________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX C<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Text Slides<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">On Visual Thinking and the Strengths of Dyslexics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Text Slides Used in Recent Talks by Thomas G. West.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Most of West’s talks are made up of images, and sometimes video clips, which he discusses in an informal manner. However, some key points work better by discussing short text slides – a few of which are provided below.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Some want to teach mainly reading in order to bring dyslexics up to normal levels with “basic skills.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• But, instead, others want to study the dyslexic “super stars” to learn how they did it. Indeed, how similar they are to ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Studying success, we hope to learn things that are useful to dyslexics and others, especially in a rapidly-changing global technological and economic context with massive digital data, high speed links, “deep learning” and AI.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• “Basic skills have no market value.” </span></i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">(Norbert Weiner, author, <i>Cybernetics</i>, 1948.)<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">******************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Many dyslexics and strong visual thinkers seem poorly adapted to the old technologies of words and books, memorizing old knowledge. <br /><br />• But many seem perfectly adapted to the new technologies of complex information visualized in computer graphic images and simulations, creating new knowledge, seeing patterns that others cannot see.<br /><br />• We need to find ways to help students identify and employ their distinctive capabilities. Look to the highly successful. What to teach. How to teach. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">***************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Tell the Young Dyslexics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Time is on your side. All the things you have had trouble with are becoming less and less important. All the things you are good at are becoming more and more important. (See recent EY business consultant reports saying employers now want dyslexic talents and skills.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Machines are now doing the reading and rapid recall and clerical tasks. Humans should not to do machine work. Rather, humans need to visualize, see the big picture, understand, recognize patterns, consider slowly and ponder what it all means, where to go and how to get there. (Versus increasingly narrow specialist PhD training and career paths -- as basic things change and then change again.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">**************<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Samuel Torrey Orton, MD, in his 1925 paper on “Word Blindness”<br /><br />• In Iowa, Dr. Orton organized Mobile Psychiatric Units (Dr. Orton, a strong visual thinker, almost became an engineer.)<br />• He requested to see those “failing in their school.” (142 were referred.)<br />• Patient MP, 16, had an “inability to read.” But Orton could see that he was very bright. <br />• Orton wrote: “the Stanford-Binet method [then in 1925 a new test of “IQ”] . . . did not do justice to the boy’s mental equipment. . . . The test is inadequate to gauge . . . facile use of visual imagery of . . . complex type . . . [the boy had] good visualizing power . . . his replies were prompt and keen.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">**************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Recent trends, broad implications, now reversing talents -- <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">“Until the 1960s, a student in an American engineering school was expected by his teachers to use his mind’s eye to examine things that engineers had designed, to look at them, listen to them, walk around them and thus develop an intuitive feel for the way the material world works and sometimes doesn’t work. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">“By the 1980s, engineering curricula had shifted to analytical [mainly mathematical] approaches, so that visual and other sensual knowledge of the world seemed less relevant. As faculties dropped drawing and shop practice from their curricula and [professors] deemed plant and factory visits unnecessary, working knowledge of the material world disappeared from faculty agendas and therefore from student agendas, and the nonverbal, tacit, and intuitive understanding essential to engineering design atrophied.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">-- Eugene S. Ferguson, <i>Engineering and the Mind’s Eye</i>, the MIT press, 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Desire for New Tests and Measures<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">As I told a group of young dyslexic students: “We need to develop a new series of tests where the dyslexics will get the top score and the non-dyslexics will get the bottom score.” I had not been sure how many had been paying close attention. But to my surprise, my assertion brought spontaneous and enthusiastic applause. Their reaction tells us a lot about what they have been through – and how much they hunger for recognition of the things that they can do well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Often Nobel Prize winners seem to immediately understand what we are talking about when discussing visual thinking, visual technologies, dyslexia and the advantages of seeing things differently in 3D space. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Many school psychologists and conventional educators do not. Often they are trained to design courses and standardized tests that ignore or discourage seeing things differently. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">***************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Stories: We should listen to individual stories in depth first, then collect data. As a good medical history tells you what to look for and what to measure and what data to collect. <i>Anecdotes, personal and family histories, may lead to treasures of understanding</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Sometimes we count the wrong things. Many dyslexic talents are invisible to conventional tests and measures. (So the resulting data and research may appear to be solid and scientific. But, instead, the “hard data” might actually confirm errors and misunderstandings -- wrongly seen as if they were facts, or may entirely miss the point.) <i>Diversity is not a pathology.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Many talk of a “scientific survey.” In old science: researchers want to generalize based on large populations. Small groups and percentages do not matter, they say. However, in new science: Small percentages do matter. Individuals matter. Differences matter. Nano scales matter. There is sensitivity to initial conditions. Individuals are the new focus of “precision medicine.” <i>Recognizing the power of the small.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">*******************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexia, visual thinking, thinking in 3D space and visual technologies: varied levels of interest have been observed in these ideas and concepts while giving talks in the US and 14 countries over more than 25 years.<br /><br />• Nobel Prize winners and high-level, creative scientists are often the most interested; conventionally trained educators and school psychologists are usually not interested.<br /><br />• Groups that are interested are: NASA Ames, the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, Oxford and Cambridge University researchers in England, the U.S. National Library of Medicine-NIH, the Dyslexia Association of Singapore, GCHQ code breakers in the UK and Hong Kong medical doctors. These are practitioners, innovators, discoverers, practical users.<br /><br />• Many conventional tests and measures do not capture these talents. Need new tests. How to recognize and develop high potential . . . How to show the way. . . For dyslexics, and for other different thinkers, for all of us -- to show the path, innovating for major problems, especially in a new digital age of AI . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Concerning any really revolutionary discovery in science and technology: When you seek the origins of these most unexpected and most original discoveries, you should not be surprised to find a dyslexic. Because they are perhaps less full of previously memorized knowledge and conventional patterns of thought, and mostly think in pictures, often the dyslexics can observe closely with an open mind and can see what others cannot see. (Especially an advantage for Nobel Prize winners, of course -- because, they must, almost by definition, see things differently than conventional scientific thinkers.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">______________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX D<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Publications and Suggested Readings<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">On Visual Thinking, Strengths of Dyslexics and Artificial Intelligence (AI)</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Walker, Darren, and Hemant Taneja, March 30, 2023. “Build AI Guardrails Before We Crash,” <i>Washington Post</i>, page A23. This editorial page opinion piece in the <i>Post</i> is just one example among a rapidly growing number of articles, group letters, proposed legislation and other indicators of serious concerns about the extremely rapid growth and increasingly wide spread use of new AI systems like ChatGPT and other similar systems. An excerpt: “The artificial intelligence revolution has arrived. . . . We see leaders in every field placing bets, by the billions, on what comes next. . . . The time has come for new rules and tools that provide greater transparency on both the data sets used to train AI systems and the values built into their decision-making calculus. We are also calling for more action to address the economic dislocation that will follow the rapid redefinition of work.” -- Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation and author “From Generosity to Justice: A New Gospel of Wealth.” Hemant Taneja is CEO of General Catalyst and the author of “Intended Consequences: How to Build Market-Leading Companies with Responsible Innovation.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Eide, Brock, and Fernette Eide, 2023. <i>The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain. </i>Revised and updated edition. Penguin Random House, New York, USA.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Fawcett, Angela, and Rod Nicolson, 1994. <i>Dyslexia in Children</i>, Routledge, London, UK. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Nicolson, Rod, 2015. <i>Positive Dyslexia</i>. Rodin Books, Sheffield, UK. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1991. <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, USA.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1992. “A Future of Reversals: Dyslexic Talents in a World of Computer Visualization,” <i>Annals of Dyslexia</i>, Orton Dyslexia Society, vol. 42, pp. 124-139. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking.” In <i>Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft</i>, edited and translated by P. Wittenberg and T. Plesser. Gottingen, Germany, November 1993. (Paper published in German: Ruckkehr zum visuellen Denken, Forschung und Wissenschftliches Rechnen: Beitrage anlasslich des 10. EGV-Benutzertreffens der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Gottingen, November 1993.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1999. “The Abilities of Those with Reading Disabilities: Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” Chapter 11, <i>Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates. </i>Edited<i> </i>by Drake D. Duane, MD, Baltimore, MD: York Press, Inc. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 2004. <i>Thinking Like Einstein: Returning to Our Visual Roots with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information Visualization</i>. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 2005. “The Gifts of Dyslexia: Talents Among Dyslexics and Their Families,” <i>Hong Kong Journal of Paediatrics</i> (New Series), 10, 153-158. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 2009. <i>In the Mind’s Eye: Creative Visual Thinkers, Gifted Dyslexics and the Rise of Visual Technologies</i>. Second edition. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, distributed by Penguin Random House. (The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said “<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 2014. “Amazing Shortcomings, Amazing Strengths: Beginning to Understand the Hidden Talents of Dyslexics,” <i>Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences</i>, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2014, pp. 78-89. (A publication of the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS). DAS initiated a multi-year program “Embrace Dyslexia,” intended to take advantage of the distinctive talents of dyslexic children and adults, as a form of economic competitive advantage. Long a leader in technology and commerce, Singapore intends to lead the world in this effort as well. In November 2014, Thomas G. West was invited to visit Singapore for a week to give five talks as part of the kick-off for the “Embrace Dyslexia” program.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 2022. “Dyslexic Talents in Times of Adversity.” <i>Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences</i>.<i> </i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Vol. 9, No. 2, July 2022, pp. 194-203.<i> </i>Based on the June 2020 graduation talk given at The Siena School, Silver Spring, Maryland.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">End. Short version of archive listing with selected examples. Total 34 pages with four Appendices, A to D. Preliminary draft with revisions and additions. Most recent revision July 15, 2023. To date, the long version of the archive listing includes 168 total pages; 45 numbered descriptions of documents, media, presentations and events; with 7 Appendices, labelled A to G.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></u></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-50918238761916602092023-06-06T14:48:00.001-04:002023-06-06T14:59:10.030-04:00Updated Draft Archive Samples<p> <span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">PRELIMINARY DRAFT -- Note: The following set of 14 pages is part of a new revised draft intended to provide some basic examples and context (along with three Appendices) from the more extensive archive listings now in preparation. Updated, May 25, 2023. – TGW <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Time of Fundamental Change: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">The Larger Context of Advanced Visual and AI Technologies, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">“A Return to Visual Thinking” and <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Reconsidering Different Ways of Learning<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Brief Excerpts and Samples from Archive Listings<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Having been asked to give talks to many different groups in different countries, remarkably, West noted that the higher up he would go -- among Nobel Prize winning scientists, for example -- the more likely he would find those who readily understood patterns in unexpected weaknesses along with very high-level strengths, frequently featuring strong visual thinking as a major factor. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0.7in; margin-right: 0.7in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">He gradually realized that many low-level scientists and professionals mainly know what they have been taught; while for very high-level scientists, it is a great advantage to think differently and to see patterns that others do not see, patterns that are often initially resisted and misunderstood by those with conventional training.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Thomas G. West has been privileged to be given an insider’s view of the sometime relationships between high-level capabilities together with various unexpected weaknesses and learning difficulties. With the newest advances in AI now in the headlines, he finds new relevance of fundamental issues that he has been dealing with in his books and talks for more than 30 years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">With his early books, articles and talks about visual thinking, visual technologies, dyslexic talents and other learning differences, West found that he was quickly swept up in waves of fundamental change in attitudes and approach. Indeed, some indicators came quite early -- for example:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">West’s first book, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, was published in April 1991. Recently, he was going through some old papers and found this note about some early reactions to the book: “October 17, 1991. West attended a meeting at the National Institutes of Health Image Processing Group lecture series this afternoon at the NIH Clinical Center. While there, Margaret (Bonnie) Douglas, who managed the lecture series, mentioned that his book was causing a sensation among her colleagues and associates -- chiefly made up of those programmers working with computer medical imaging, data visualization and related matters. She said their department librarian had never seen such a long waiting list for one book. The book cover had been displayed with new arrivals at the library and a few had heard his talk the previous May, but other than word-of-mouth, Bonnie found it hard to explain how people had learned of the book. ‘It certainly seems to have touched a nerve somewhere; perhaps you will have a cult book on your hands, she remarked.’ ”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Reconsidering Different Ways of Learning: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Recent Advances in AI, Calling for Urgent Action. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">What Can Be Learned for Today’s Education from The Most Successful Visual Thinkers and Dyslexics? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">What Can Humans Do Better Than Machines? </span><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Currently, some educators are asking: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Won’t Students just use ChatbotGPT to Cheat?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Yes, but only if we continue to assess students in the same outdated ways. . . . Soon ChatbotGPT will be as expected and ubiquitous as spell check. Spell check empowers poor spellers by preventing their difficulties from impacting their ability to effectively communicate. In the near-term the same will be true for individuals who have difficulty organizing their ideas through written expression. . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“AI could (SHOULD) Change the Ways We Measure Potential<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“ChatbotGPT4 can outperform the vast majority of people on some of our most consequential standardized exams. It scored 700/800 on the SAT Math section, in the top 10% of the bar exam, in the 85% percentile of the LSAT and a 4 and 5 on the AP Calculus and AP Biology Exams. It even aced the Sommelier exam. Interestingly, it did not fare as well on the AP language exams which require higher levels of creativity and interpretation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“In a world where a computer can outperform the vast majority of humans on these exams, how can they possibly be an accurate prediction of who will be successful? In fact, they would seem to only predict who has the skills that can be better performed by computers. Dyslexic learners stand to be the beneficiaries of this shift in what is important and how we measure it.” (J. Clark, Chair of the International Dyslexia Association, email to IDA group of school heads, April 2023.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">As machines have long ago replaced assembly line workers and most bank tellers, we may not have been surprised to see an erosion of opportunities for those with certain clerical skills. But many of us may not have been ready to see that there may be great changes in the highest levels of managerial and professional roles as well. One of the fathers of computing and control systems, Norbert Weiner, in his book <i>Cybernetics</i>, saw it coming from the first. Writing in 1947, he explained,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The first industrial revolution was the devaluation of the human arm by the competition of machinery. The new modern industrial revolution is similarly bound to devalue the human brain, at least in its simpler and more routine decisions. Of course, just as the skilled carpenter, the skilled mechanic, the skilled dressmaker have in some degree survived the first industrial revolution, so the skilled scientist and the skilled administrator may survive the second. However, taking the second revolution is accomplished, the average human being of mediocre attainments or less has nothing to sell that is worth anyone’s money to buy.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">After more than 75 years, this is an especially sobering view. Much has come about that was unexpected since Weiner’s somber analysis, but the basic form and direction of this trend is remained unchanged – recently exploding into everyday life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is clear that not only clerical and other low-level functions are threated but also many functions formally thought to require high intelligence, many years of study and advanced professional degrees. Clearly, the conventional world of work is being turned upside down and we must begin to change conventional thinking and consider new plans of action. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">However, we may be surprised to see help from unexpected quarters. Indeed, some of those who have had the most trouble in the old educational systems, may soon begin to show the way forward in the new worlds of education and work. Some suggestive examples are provided below. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">A Short Archive Listing with a few Examples of Significant <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Past Talks, Events, Media and Documents<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 16pt;">“Dyslexia Is Britain’s Secret Weapon in the Spy War”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">(1) In June 2006, Thomas G. West was honored to be invited to be the main speaker at the first ever “Diversity Day” conference in Cheltenham, England, for the staff of GCHQ, the code-breaking descendants of Bletchley Park (the World War II Nazi code breakers and the source of “Ultra,” the extremely secret intelligence source for Winston Churchill, never revealed to the public until the 1970s). According to one employee at GCHQ, “while people with neuro-diversity may be viewed as ‘odd or weird,’ they are ‘fully accepted’ at GCHQ.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">GCHQ officials and cyber experts make it quite clear that their dyslexic employees, among others, are viewed as highly valued workers. As one spokesperson said in an article for the </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 14pt;">Daily Mail</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">, “Dyslexia Is Britain’s Secret Weapon in the Spy War: Top Codebreakers Can Crack Complex Problems Because They Suffer from the Condition. . . . Most people only get to see the jigsaw picture when it’s nearly finished while the dyslexic cryptographists can see what the jigsaw looks like with just two pieces.” (Also see section </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">in West’s third book, <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See, </i>“Seeing the Puzzle with Only Two Pieces -- Learning Differences at GCHQ,” West, 2017, pp. 147-150.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The following Saturday after the GCHQ diversity conference, there was an informal gathering for several employees and their families -- with a pub lunch and a walk around the village -- where one teen-aged son said, “Now I finally begin to understand my father.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">At one point, after the walk, West found himself sitting with a group of seven at the edge of our host’s garden, gradually discovering that all of those with him had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Among other things, they discussed <i>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time</i> by Mark Haddon and connections with the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze” (involving the significance of “the dog that did not bark”). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is apparent that organizations such as GCHQ (and possibly NSA in the US) are important places to better understand unexpected patterns in extraordinarily high performance and to seek connections between visual thinking, dyslexia, autism and other forms of different thinking. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">This approach is especially important since conventional professional literature and training is often focused exclusively on correcting academic weaknesses and problems without consideration of a range of special talents and capabilities. (More for this archive is to be provided later concerning this important GCHQ meeting and related corporate organization management policies. Full credit to JT and RT at K4L -- TGW.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Invitations to Speak from the Varied Worlds of Visual Thinkers<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">West is the author of three books, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> and <i>Seeing What Other</i>s <i>Cannot See</i>. From 1991 to 2021, he has given hundreds of presentations in the U.S., and 19 countries in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia/Pacific Region. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Early on, West found that he was invited to provide presentations for a variety of high-level institutions and organizations as part of a new awareness of fundamental change with respect to visual thinking and visual technologies -- along with new ways of thinking about the distinctive talents and capabilities of dyslexics and other different thinkers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Real World Perspectives<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">In most cases, the high interest in these topics and trends was from those who were observing these capabilities in actual operation and use “in the real world” of scientific discovery, medical innovation and entrepreneurial business.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">However, during this time many conventional experts, specialist academics and practicing professionals seemed to find it difficult to understand and appreciate these changes in perspective. They had been trained to rely on traditional tests and conventional measures and a conceptual framework that favors conventional verbal and mathematical academic capabilities along with extensive memorization -- instead of visual thinking and “thinking in pictures” -- that is, the manipulation of images or changing processes over time in three-dimensional space, in the imagination, especially in science, engineering, mathematics and other fields. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">These experts have long highly valued students who could easily memorize old knowledge -- but they often have very little understanding of those who may be best suited to creating new knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">“A Return to Visual Thinking” as a New Beginning <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">New Views of Knowledge, Ability and Potential <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">These changes in awareness were partly based on the rapidly emerging great power of the new computer graphic and related technologies during this period. However, this new awareness was also based on a renewed recognition of the power of the visual thinking as used by earlier scientists, engineers and inventors, such as Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla and others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Thus, “A Return to Visual Thinking” was the main theme of an annual meeting of European scientists -- and West’s invited presentation for this meeting -- for the 50 Max Planck Institutes in Germany in 1993.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Over time, West noticed that when he spoke about visual talents and learning differences in highly positive ways, with credible positive examples, some of those in his audience felt free, often for the first time, to talk about considerable strengths and hidden dyslexic weaknesses in themselves, their family members and their most talented co-workers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Remarkably, West noted that the higher up he would go -- among Nobel Prize winning scientists, for example -- the more likely he would find those who readily understood these patterns in unexpected weaknesses along with very high-level strengths. (He later realized that a lot of low-level scientists and practitioners mainly know what they have been taught; while for very high-level scientists, it is a great advantage to think differently and to see patterns that others do not see.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">For example, the Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, the Fifty-Year Reunion (item 2, below). In a striking and unexpected example, during the course of the conference, among these highly praised, award-winning physicians and highly regarded medical school professors, roughly half of those attending spoke to West of their own dyslexia, the dyslexia of talented coworkers or the dyslexia of highly creative members of their own families. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Accordingly, the events and documents listed in this archive might serve, in part, as an informal preliminary survey of the development of these fundamental observations in various scientific and technical occupations in various parts of the world over some three decades. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">See the sample items and events listed below for some of the best examples of how these changes in perspective were recognized, adopted and promoted by high-level organizations such as MIT and NASA Ames in the US, GCHQ and some universities in the UK, along with the Max Planck Institutes in Germany and other parts of Europe. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is considered important to preserve these primary source archive materials for further systematic study of the early years of these important trends -- trends that are likely to increase in importance with the continuing rapid growth of computer power and connectedness along with advanced applications of AI (recently more in evidence now than ever before). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Long Predicted, Major Work Transformations Have Arrived<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">As machines increasingly take over low level clerical and professional tasks, the creativity, innovation, visual and big picture thinking often seen among dyslexics, and other different thinkers, should be expected to increase in relative value. (This trend is even more apparent recently as AI programs such as ChatGPT4 are now seen as capable of taking over certain search, analysis and reporting tasks, with amazing speed but not always with the highest levels of accuracy and truthfulness -- since they generally only repeat, without proper fact checking, what is available on the web – most recently producing a flood of news stories and broad speculations.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">However, even before current trends, it is notable that in recent years dyslexia has increasingly come to be viewed as an advantage in many technical, scientific and entrepreneurial business fields. Business consulting firms like EY have generated reports documenting that many employers are now looking to hire creative and innovative dyslexics. The job search service LinkedIn now has a check box for “dyslexic thinking” as a positive trait for job hunting and it is said that more than 10,000 have checked the box in recent years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">In a sense, it may be argued that, at best, well-trained professionals have long struggled to help dyslexics master reading and basic academic work – while few have helped dyslexics to develop the high-level skills and capabilities that seem to be common, in various forms, among some dyslexics – skills that should be in greater demand as the low-level reading, search, report preparation and many conventional academic tasks are increasingly done much faster and more cheaply by machines. This was predicted from the earliest days of computing -- but now it has clearly arrived.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">It is also expected, remarkably, that the shift to big picture and visual thinking may also serve to highlight the value of some traditional modes of thought found among some indigenous peoples and disadvantaged groups. (See the “Native Voices” references to ancient traditional Polynesian navigation methods mentioned in the section prepared for the National Library of Medicine book on the career of Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, provided here as Appendix A.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Early Recognition for a Different Point of<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">View -- “Best of the Best”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">West’s first book, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, was awarded a gold seal and selected as one of the “best of the best” for the year out of some 6000 reviewed books by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association (one of only 12 books in the broad “Psychology” category, including books on “neuroscience, intelligence testing, language impairment, mental health and psychiatry”).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The book has been translated into Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Over some 30 years, West has provided hundreds of presentations for scientific, medical, art, design, computer and business groups in the US and 19 other countries. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The interest in these topics, across many different fields and disciplines, has been an indicator of the timeliness and broad impact of these perspectives and publications -- largely initially based on the remarkably prescient original work by the neurologists Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton in the 1920s and Dr. Norman Geschwind and his students in the 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">A broad and enduring interest in these topics is further indicated by the reissue in July 2020 of a Third Edition of West’s first book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. With over 30 years in print, the book continues to be what they call in the trade an “evergreen” -- a book that never dates and never stops selling. The two previous revised and expanded editions (Updated Edition and Second Edition) each contain Epilogues with some 40 to 50 pages of new material. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16pt;">Selected Additional Examples of Events and Documents<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">(2) Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion, September 17-19, 1998, Arizona Biltmore Resort. Speakers included, among others: Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, Director, National Library of Medicine; 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Markle Scholars were identified by medical school deans as the best medical school professors and teachers 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, as it turned out, the organizers were interested. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">In his talk, West spoke primarily of visual thinking among creative scientists and recent developments in visual technologies and computer graphics. However, West also spoke of how visual thinking and associated innovation were sometimes linked to dyslexia and other related learning differences. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">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 received later from a Canadian physician, another Markle Scholar; to be provided for the archive. -- TGW) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">(3) 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Attendance was by invitation only. Each attendee was asked to provide an image that represented their work -- to be worn as part of their name tag -- for discussion with other attendees. The conference handout (to be provided separately for inclusion in the archive) includes 210 images with attendee names and organizations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">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; he was one of the developers of the Visible Human Project for NLM). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">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 atomic and molecular structure, and later, the well-known discovery of the structure of DNA. (This image was supplied to West by Bragg’s daughter, Patience Bragg Thomson, former head of a school for dyslexic students in London. This family includes, over five generations, many visual occupations, many dyslexics and four winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">West was familiar with the book <i>Fractal Geometry of Nature</i> by Benoit Mandelbrot and was impressed with this very new and innovative form of mathematics. West hoped to be able to speak with him during the small three-day conference. In fact, as it turned out, West had several conversations with him. Dr. Mandelbrot talked about the hostility he had encountered from most conventional mathematicians, especially at Harvard University, where he had been teaching at the time. He then moved on to Yale University where, in contrast, they showed respect for Mandelbrot’s highly innovative approach to mathematics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">West mentioned his own interest in highly talented visual thinkers and dyslexics in science and mathematics 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">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 then most modern computer graphics technologies (actually starting with the most primitive early forms of computer graphics, well before others, because he was working for IBM at the time). These aspects are seen as signature indictors of the creative work of a classic visually-oriented approach as seen among many dyslexics.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">(4) Discovering PCR. In recent years, PCR has been in use everywhere in relation to testing for Covid-19. The following story shows that sometimes you don’t understand what you have been given – because you think it is some sort of error or mistake. Non-dyslexics sometimes miss things because they tend to see things based mainly on what they have been taught to see. In contrast, many dyslexics think in pictures and sometimes they see things that non-dyslexics do not see or cannot see – or, indeed, do not allow themselves to see. (</span><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The passage below is quoted from the book <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, by T.G. West, 2017, pages 69-71.)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Many years ago, during a family trip to Colorado, a friend told me a story that provides an inside look at how scientists work. I was just beginning serious research for my first book and we were dis</span><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">cussing creativity and the process of discovery. He was a well-known cancer researcher and taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“He told me he would sometimes prefer to forget this story. I asked if it had ever been written down anywhere. He said no. He and all of his associates found it too upsetting to recall or record -- but he told me it was alright for me to tell the story. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Years ago, one of his friends was a young researcher in a biochemistry laboratory and was performing a procedure intended to destroy DNA, the molecular blueprint for self-replication carried in all living cells. She was annoyed, however, at not being able to make the procedure work as intended. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Each time she measured the results of her work, she came up with more DNA than she started with. The researcher tried again and again. But each time she was disappointed to discover that she had more DNA rather than less once again. Her coworkers were sympathetic and tried to help her. But no solution to the problem could be found. She eventually dropped the project and went on to other tasks. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Some years later, another scientist in a different laboratory successfully developed a new method to create DNA, making many copies— and he subsequently received a Nobel Prize for his discovery. The young researcher and her former colleagues are still asking themselves how it is that they did not recognize what was really going on when her project repeatedly failed.<span style="position: relative; top: -4pt;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The story of the second scientist is now well known in scientific circles. The discoverer was Kary B. Mullis, who shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with another scientist, Michael Smith. Mullis received the prize for his development of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) that makes it possible to rapidly make thousands or millions of copies of specific DNA sequences. The improvements provided by Mullis have made the PCR technique of central importance in molecular biology and biochemistry. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“According to the Nobel Prize presentation at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences: ‘Using this method it is possible to amplify and isolate in a test tube a specific DNA segment within a background of a complex gene pool. In this repetitive process the number of copies of the specific DNA segment doubles during each cycle. In a few hours it is possible to achieve more than 20 cycles, which produces over a million copies.’</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Of course, the story is so upsetting because she had the discovery right there in front of her, but she was so focused on her seemingly failed project that she could not see the value of her experiment’s results. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Such stories teach us. Sometimes a gift is seen only as a problem, something that would be quickly wished away had we the power. Sometimes the most important thing is to be able to recognize the gift for what it is, even though it was not requested or desired. For this to be possible, it is helpful (in spite of one’s training) not to be wholly focused on the narrow interests of the moment—no matter how serious the task, no matter how large the grant, no matter how urgent the deadline. One has to be open to new possibilities, to looking at things a different way, to being able to see what you have been given, even when it is not what you asked for. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The role of chance or fortuitous accident is one of several themes that recur repeatedly in the literature of creativity, especially creativity in the sciences. I do not assume that all creativity is necessarily associated with some form of learning disability or learning difference. However, I do believe that a number of traits associated with dyslexia, other learning differences, and especially high visual-spatial talents may tend to predispose some individuals to greater creativity than might exist otherwise. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Being able to do what others want you to do, in the way they want you to do it, is seductive. If you can, you will. But if you cannot, you will have to find another way. It is a form of accidental self-selection. If it is possible to do it in the same way, successfully, often a new way will not be tried. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Thus, if a truly original method is needed, the conventionally successful student or researcher may be the last one to find it. Sometimes only among those who have repeatedly failed is there a high likelihood of success.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: GaramondPremrPro, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is the end of a short 14-page draft providing samples from the archive listings (with the following Appendix A, and others). Selected from some 165 total pages of listings to date. -- Thomas G. West<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Emails:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="mailto:thomasgwest@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">thomasgwest@gmail.com</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="mailto:thomasgwest@aol.com" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">thomasgwest@aol.com</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Blog:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Mobile: </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">202 262 1266<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX A<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Note: The brief chapter below was requested for the comprehensive book on the Dr. Lindberg’s life and career, with many authors, representing several professional groups, published February 1, 2022, by IOS Press, Amsterdam. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Transforming Biomedical Informatics and Health Information Access B.L. Humphreys et al. (Eds.) © 2021 The authors and IOS Press. This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0). doi:10.3233/SHTI211027 </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 31pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 26.5pt;">Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D., </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 24pt;">Visual Thinker and Medical Visionary</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Thomas G. WEST</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 8pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">1 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Washington D.C. U.S.A.</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Keywords. Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D., visual thinking, computer graphics technology, dyslexia, U.S. National Library of Medicine</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">1. Introduction </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">From the late 1980s until his retirement in 2015, I was privileged to observe the forward-thinking and astonishing depth, range, and liveliness of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) under the direction of Donald A. B. Lindberg M.D. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">As an outsider, I observed from my point of view as an ordinary library researcher. I mainly used NLM’s History of Medicine collections for information about innovative scientists like Michael Faraday and medical pioneers such as Dr. Harvey Cushing. Initially, I used the old paper index catalog cards, microfilm, and the early NLM mainframe computer information systems to research and prepare the manuscript for my first book, In the Mind’s Eye, published in spring 1991 [1]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I first met Dr. Lindberg at a gathering after a lecture in NLM’s Lister Hill Building. He asked about my work. I explained that my research focus concerned the talents of dyslexic individuals - together with visual thinking in the history of medicine and science. I was surprised to discover that Dr. Lindberg also was interested in these topics. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I later learned that these interests were partly a reflection of his personal history. Don’s father was an architect. Don was trained in a highly visual specialty, pathology, and some family members were dyslexic. As is often the case, this kind of personal history helps some to understand and appreciate the puzzling mixed strengths and weaknesses that accompany these life patterns. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I also was fascinated that Don’s interests included then-rapidly developing computer graphic technologies as well as the hidden talents of dyslexics (who often see things differently) to innovate and sometimes make scientific discoveries before conventionally trained experts in some fields. Over time, I began to appreciate that Dr. Lindberg had a remarkable ability to see where things were going and attract highly talented and creative people for his staff, NLM’s Board of Regents, and the Library’s diverse, inventive projects. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Over the years, Dr. Lindberg assumed leadership positions in several major areas - archiving massive amounts of genetic code information (within the National Center for Biomedical Information), providing research information in clinicaltrials.gov, and even leading a federal government-wide effort - the High-Performance Computing and </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><img border="0" height="1" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/eedcae68-8d00-4114-a92d-3ceb47c51045" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="107" /></span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 8pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 6.5pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">1 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Corresponding author: thomasgwest@gmail.com </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">417 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Communications Program (HPCC). He once remarked to me how difficult it was to deal with 500 HPCC emails a day. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg’s interest in visual thinking and dyslexia was evidenced when he asked me to be the after-dinner speaker at a meeting of NLM’s Board of Regents [2]. He accorded me the honor of describing the ideas I developed during my research and writing. I began my BOR speech with these words: </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">“My talk this evening is about a return to visual thinking. My subtitle ‘new technologies, old talents and reversed expectations,’ encapsulates my main thesis - that as we begin to use the newest technologies in really powerful ways (which we have hardly begun), we will begin to tap into some of our oldest and most “primitive” neurological (visual spatial) talents. In so doing, we will begin to see ourselves and our world with very different eyes – leading, in time, to fundamentally different attitudes towards education and concepts of intelligence, as well as the skills and talents that are considered to be the most valuable. . . .” </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">2. Advanced Applications </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">At NLM in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I witnessed the rapid changes in computer systems happening worldwide. Dr. Lindberg seemed to be simultaneously interested in the newest technologies, and at the same time, he respected the insights and sophisticated knowledge of early researchers and traditional cultures. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">For example, one morning I chanced to attend another lecture in NLM’s Lister Hill Building. The speaker was a sleepy young computer programmer and software engineer. He had been up all night, as he said, releasing to the World Wide Web thousands of copies of a new computer program he and a coworker designed - called a ‘browser.’ </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">As it turned out, it was ‘Mosaic,’ the first web browser of its kind. The young speaker was Marc Andreessen, then working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. Later, he became famous in the computer world for Netscape and the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Of course, these initiatives helped enable access to the Internet. They revolutionized mass communication - and I was privileged to see the very first day - primarily because of NLM and its forward-thinking director. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">3. Thinking Like Einstein on the Hokule’a </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">During his career, Dr. Lindberg became known as a significant innovator in using computers for healthcare research and practice. Under his direction, NLM pioneered broad access to medical information with Medline and PubMed. But Don also promoted a deeper understanding of less well-known groups with programs such as ‘Women in Medicine’ and ‘Native Voices.’ </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">‘Native Voices’ exemplified how Dr. Lindberg promoted the investigation of the traditional forms of medicine, widely ignored previously. In later years, I was thrilled to see that NLM played a significant role in a visit to Washington, D.C., during the round- the-world journey of the traditional Polynesian canoe, the Hokule’a - a double-hulled sailing canoe that enabled the early Polynesian peoples to travel among the islands of the broad Pacific Ocean. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">418 </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I was delighted to see Dr. Lindberg’s interest in this area. Previously, I followed the renewed practice of traditional navigation methods and the significant influence of its rebirth in generating pride and reviving traditional Polynesian culture. Of course, the early traditional navigators used the stars and other natural signs. However, traditional navigators also taught themselves to feel long-distance ocean swells to maintain a heading - and how the absence or ‘shadow’ in these swells could indicate the presence of an island, out of sight, over the horizon. I wrote about these insights in my second book, Thinking Like Einstein [3]. Indeed, the intended full title for the second book was to have been: Thinking Like Einstein on the Hokule’a. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg was well aware of how traditional cultures used visual abilities in highly sophisticated ways - with a minimum of technology and a sophisticated integration of profoundly understood natural forces. I was amazed and delighted when the Hokule'a tied up for several days at the Washington Canoe Club on the Potomac River in the middle of Washington, DC. Nainoa Thompson, the chief traditional navigator, gave a major talk at NLM about traditional navigation methods. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Like Andreessen, NLM provided a stage for an important person (who was not well known outside of Polynesia) to provide fresh perspectives and ideas. In a way, both talks were so typical of Dr. Lindberg’s NLM. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Moreover, I enjoyed several conversations with Nainoa at the Canoe Club, where he confirmed his special visual-spatial skills in traditional navigation probably were linked to his dyslexia. We talked about our everyday dyslexia experiences and the dyslexia of some family members. It all seemed to support the theory from Harvard neurologist and dyslexia researcher Norman Geschwind, M.D., who suggested the visual-spatial abilities often seen among dyslexics yielded an array of socio-cultural benefits [4]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">4. Dr. Lindberg’s Prescient Leadership </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Over time, I beheld how prescient Dr. Lindberg was in providing leadership during an era of enormous change and rapid progress. Don used his broad interests and deep understanding of the potential of computer systems in the service of medical knowledge and practice. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">One especially forward-looking conference was organized in mid-February 2000, at Dr. Lindberg’s direction. The ‘Visualization Research Agenda Meeting - The Impact of Visualization Technologies - Using Vision to Think’ considered how: ‘new visualization technologies are giving us new ways of seeing and understanding: bringing diverse worlds together, transforming the nature of education and work, redefining what we understand is talent and intelligence.’ The meeting focused on the implications of visualization technology for education and professional training, as well as how to build an appropriate research program. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">It was a small but diverse meeting with only 22 attendees. NLM’s participants included Dr. Lindberg, Alexa McCray, Michael Ackerman, and Steve Phillips. Other attendees represented: five institutes at the U.S. National Institutes of Health; two from the Smithsonian Institution; three from computer graphics organizations; and six persons with knowledge and experience regarding dyslexia, giftedness, and the brain’s evolution. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Among those in attendance was Alvy Ray Smith, Ph.D., a strong advocate for the power of computer graphics in many spheres. Dr. Smith was one of the two founders of the Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, CA. Dr. Smith was a member of NLM’s Board of Regents and helped with the Visible Human Project and other related programs. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">419 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Other attendees included William J. Dreyer, Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, who provided a striking example of the power of dyslexic visual thinking in science and medicine. Dr. Dreyer had been a classic dyslexic when young; his reading, spelling, and arithmetic assessment scores were substandard. But having performed well on other tests, Dr. Dreyer went on to study biology - and gradually realized he could tell his professors what experiments to do and what the results would be. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Previously, Dr. Dreyer revealed that his dyslexic imagination enabled him to visualize molecular biology and chemistry processes that led to a new and controversial theory about the human immune system. Dr. Dreyer espoused the theory for 12 years - providing concepts based on data from instruments that he designed and built himself. However, Dr. Dreyer’s data was in a form so new and unconventional that almost everyone in his field could not understand what he was talking about. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Years later, Dr. Dreyer was vindicated and proven correct. When Susumu Tonegawa was awarded a Nobel Prize (physiology or medicine, 1987) for work he had done in Switzerland, his innovative sequencing work demonstrated (through experiments that were illegal in the U.S. at the time) that Dreyer and his colleague’s predictions were correct. In the words of two scientific historians of this period: ‘This experiment marked the point of no return for the domination of the antibody diversity question by nucleotide studies: it was Susumu Tonegawa’s final proof of the Dreyer-Bennett V-C translocation hypothesis through the use of restriction enzymes’ [5]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg’s views on dyslexic insight were summarized in a quotation he kindly provided for the back cover of my third book, Seeing What Others Cannot See. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">‘West argues convincingly that dyslexics . . . seem to fail in elementary school learning while excelling at the broader level of graduate school. Many whose stories he recites were smashing successes in business. West urges that this is because of extra gifts in visual learning and thinking. He goes beyond praising dyslexics’ hidden strengths in visual thinking and learning, their ability to see what others cannot see - he demands that we stop hiding the imaginative strengths of all children under their weaknesses in reading.’ - Donald Lindberg, M.D., Director Emeritus, National Library of Medicine [6]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">5. Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">A major conference where Dr. Lindberg and I were on program provided insights into the history of medical education. The 50</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 8pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">th </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">reunion of Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine occurred from September 17-19, 1998, in Phoenix, Arizona. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Other speakers included: Gerald M. Edelman, Scripps Research Institute (Nobel Prize winner), and Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education (MacArthur Prize winner). Markle Scholars were professors identified by their medical school deans as the best teachers in the U.S. and Canada for several decades after World War II. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">In my talk, I spoke primarily about visual thinking among creative scientists and some then-recent developments in computer graphic technologies. However, I also mentioned how visual thinking and associated innovation sometimes were linked to dyslexia and other related learning differences. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Remarkably, during the three-day conference, many (nearly one half of the attendees and their spouses) spoke to me about their dyslexia (two surgeons from Johns Hopkins, for example) or told stories of dyslexia among their family members or their more creative and innovative coworkers. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">420 </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">As I look back, I am enormously grateful for the privilege of knowing Dr. Lindberg and his wife, Mary. Rightly, it is now often said both presided over the Golden Age of the National Library of Medicine. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg’s vision was broad and deep, often including early consideration of diverse topics that only later became evident within the mainstream. Don took over a massive medical library primarily designed to serve various medical specialists - and using the newest technologies, he pushed the boundaries to serve the nation and, eventually, the world. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">References</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[1] West TG. In the mind’s eye, creative visual thinkers, gifted dyslexics and the rise of visual technologies. 1</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 6.5pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">st </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">ed. Amherst, NY.: Prometheus Books; 1991. 3rd Ed. Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group; 2020. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[2] West TG. A return to visual thinking: new technologies, old talents and reversed expectations. Bethesda, MD.: NLM Board of Regents Meeting; May 26, 1993. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[3] West TG. Thinking like Einstein: returning to our visual roots with the emerging revolution in computer information visualization. Amherst NY.: Prometheus Books; 2004. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[4] Geschwind N, Galaburda AM. Cerebral lateralization: biological mechanisms, associations, and pathology. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press; 1987, p. 97-104. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[5] Tauber, AI, Podolsky SH. The generation of diversity: clonal selection theory and the rise of molecular immunology. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; 1997, p. 207. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[6] West TG. Seeing what others cannot see: the hidden advantages of visual thinkers and differently wired brains. Amherst, NY.: Prometheus Books; 2017. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX B</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Foreword and Selected Reviews and Comments -- T. G. West </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Foreword to the Second Edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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, <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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’ [defective in visual thinking abilities]. 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.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>Thinking in Pictures</i>), she was taken aback when I said I could hardly visualize anything: ‘How <i>do </i>you think?’ she asked. Grandin herself has very heightened spatial and visual imagination, and thinks in very concrete images.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye </span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">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 <i>Frames of Mind </i>as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Oliver Sacks, M.D., January 2, 2009. The late Dr. Sacks, a British neurologist who resided in the US, is most widely known for his book <i>Awakenings </i>(1973) that was made into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Also well-known are his books <i>An Anthropologist from Mars </i>(1995), <i>Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf </i>(1989) and <i>The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat</i> (1985). A later book is titled <i>The Mind’s Eye </i>(2010). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">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 <i>New York Times </i>said that Sacks “has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Alvy Ray Smith, PhD, 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 <i>Tin Toy</i>, the first 3-dimensional computer animation ever to win an Academy Award. This team later produced the first completely computer-generated motion picture, <i>Toy Story</i>. 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Dr. Smith has recently released a new book, <i>A Biography of the Pixel</i>, which provides a detailed history of how pixel-based images have come to dominate all aspects of the modern world. “<span style="background-color: white;">The Great Digital Convergence of all media types into one universal digital medium occurred, with little fanfare, at the recent turn of the millennium. The bit became the universal medium, and the pixel -- a particular packaging of bits -- conquered the world.” (From the publisher, MIT Press, August 2021.)</span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“I want you to know that reading your book and the conversations we had at the SIGGRAPH [computer graphics] 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 <i>CALCULUS & Mathematica</i>, 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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Dr. J. Jerry Uhl, Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, telephone conversation of September 29, 1993. The late 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, <i>CALCULUS & Mathematica </i>(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. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“Unfortunately, I did not discover this wonderful book [<i>In the Mind’s Eye </i>by Thomas G. West] before I wrote <i>Thinking in Pictures </i>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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Temple Grandin, “The List,” <i>The Week </i>magazine, March 3, 2006, describing why she has included <i>In the Mind’s Eye </i>on her list of her six favorite books. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“Dear Tom: Thanks for sending me your epilogue [to the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>]. 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”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Email of August 17, 2009. Dr. Grandin is a professor of animal science and is author of the memoir <i>Thinking in Pictures </i>(dealing with her life with autism) and the best-selling book <i>Animals in Translation</i>. An HBO cable TV film based on Grandin’s life debuted February 6, 2010, starring Claire Dane. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews -- being nominated for 15 Emmy Awards and winning seven. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“Perhaps when we encounter the prodigious gifts in someone who masters different mediums, someone such as Michelangelo, what we are seeing is the rare convergence of spatial and object thinking in the mind of a genius. According to Thomas G. West in his book <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, Leonardo’s abilities as a visual spatial thinker were so vast that he anticipated scientific and technological advances by [more than] a hundred years in the areas of anatomy, physiology, mechanical engineering, and astronomy. West writes, ‘Visual spatial talents are, in some important cases, indispensable for the highest levels of original work in certain areas of science, engineering, medicine and mathematics.’ Other sculptors rejected the marble that Michelangelo used to carve the David. He saw the statue inside it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">– Temple Grandin, <i>Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions</i>, Riverhead Books, Penguin Random House, 2022, pp. 173-174. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Howard Gardner, PhD, letter of October 15, 1996. Dr. Gardner is author of many books, including <i>Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences </i>(Basic Books, 1983) and <i>Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century </i>(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.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> “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 [mathematical] 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. . . .”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- 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 <i>Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science</i>, Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1993. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Review by Joan Freeman, <i>European Journal for High Ability</i>, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“The original title is <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. The Japanese title <i>Geniuses Who Hated School</i> 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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Review in <i>Kagaku Asahi</i>, the monthly Japanese science magazine, August 1994, p. 92. Review translated by Yoshiko G. Doherty.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one’s thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind’s Eye </i>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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Roeper Review</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, Vol. 15, No. 1, September 1992, p. 54.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“I want you to know that reading your book and the conversations we had at the SIGGRAPH [computer graphics] 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 <i>CALCULUS & Mathematica</i>, 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.”</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">-- Dr. J. Jerry Uhl, Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, telephone conversation of September 29, 1993. The late 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, <i>CALCULUS & Mathematica </i>(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. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX C<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Text Slides<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">On Visual Thinking and the Strengths of Dyslexics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Text Slides Used in Recent Talks by Thomas G. West.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Most of West’s talks are made up of images, and sometimes video clips, which he discusses in an informal manner. However, some key points work better by discussing short text slides – a few of which are provided below.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Some want to teach mainly reading in order to bring dyslexics up to normal levels with “basic skills.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• But, instead, others want to study the dyslexic “super stars” to learn how they did it. Indeed, how similar they are to ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Studying success, we hope to learn things that are useful to dyslexics and others, especially in a rapidly-changing global technological and economic context with massive data, high speed links, “deep learning” and AI.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• “Basic skills have no market value.” </span></i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">(Norbert Weiner, author, <i>Cybernetics</i>, 1948.)<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">******************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Many dyslexics and strong visual thinkers seem poorly adapted to the old technologies of words and books, memorizing old knowledge. <br /><br />• But many seem perfectly adapted to the new technologies of complex information visualized in computer graphic images and simulations, creating new knowledge, seeing patterns that others cannot see.<br /><br />• We need to find ways to help students identify and employ their distinctive capabilities. Look to the highly successful. What to teach. How to teach. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">***************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Tell the Young Dyslexics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Time is on your side. All the things you have had trouble with are becoming less and less important. All the things you are good at are becoming more and more important. (See recent EY business consultant reports saying employers now want dyslexic talents and skills.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Machines are now doing the reading and rapid recall and clerical tasks. Humans should not to do machine work. Rather, humans need to visualize, see the big picture, understand, recognize patterns, consider slowly and ponder what it all means, where to go and how to get there. (Versus increasingly narrow specialist PhD training and career paths -- as basic things change and then change again.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">**************<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Samuel Torrey Orton, MD, in his 1925 paper on “Word Blindness”<br /><br />• In Iowa, Dr. Orton organized Mobile Psychiatric Units (Dr. Orton, a strong visual thinker, almost became an engineer.)<br />• He requested to see those “failing in their school.” (142 were referred.)<br />• Patient MP, 16, had an “inability to read.” But Orton could see that he was very bright. <br />• Orton wrote: “the Stanford-Binet method [then in 1925 a new test of “IQ”] . . . did not do justice to the boy’s mental equipment. . . . The test is inadequate to gauge . . . facile use of visual imagery of . . . complex type . . . [the boy had] good visualizing power . . . his replies were prompt and keen.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">**************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Recent trends, broad implications, now reversing talents -- <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">“Until the 1960s, a student in an American engineering school was expected by his teachers to use his mind’s eye to examine things that engineers had designed, to look at them, listen to them, walk around them and thus develop an intuitive feel for the way the material world works and sometimes doesn’t work. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">“By the 1980s, engineering curricula had shifted to analytical [mainly mathematical] approaches, so that visual and other sensual knowledge of the world seemed less relevant. As faculties dropped drawing and shop practice from their curricula and [professors] deemed plant and factory visits unnecessary, working knowledge of the material world disappeared from faculty agendas and therefore from student agendas, and the nonverbal, tacit, and intuitive understanding essential to engineering design atrophied.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">-- Eugene S. Ferguson, <i>Engineering and the Mind’s Eye</i>, the MIT press, 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Desire for New Tests and Measures<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">As I told a group of young dyslexic students: “We need to develop a new series of tests where the dyslexics will get the top score and the non-dyslexics will get the bottom score.” I had not been sure how many had been paying close attention. But to my surprise, my assertion brought spontaneous and enthusiastic applause. Their reaction tells us a lot about what they have been through – and how much they hunger for recognition of the things that they can do well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Often Nobel Prize winners seem to immediately understand what we are talking about when discussing visual thinking, visual technologies, dyslexia and the advantages of seeing things differently in 3D space. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Many school psychologists and conventional educators do not. Often they are trained to design courses and standardized tests that ignore or discourage seeing things differently. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">***************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Stories: We should listen to individual stories in depth first, then collect data. As a good medical history tells you what to look for and what to measure and what data to collect. <i>Anecdotes, personal and family histories, may lead to treasures of understanding</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Sometimes we count the wrong things. Many dyslexic talents are invisible to conventional tests and measures. (So the resulting data and research may appear to be solid and scientific. But, instead, the “hard data” might actually confirm errors and misunderstandings -- wrongly seen as if they were facts, or may entirely miss the point.) <i>Diversity is not a pathology.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Many talk of a “scientific survey.” In old science: researchers want to generalize based on large populations. Small groups and percentages do not matter, they say. However, in new science: Small percentages do matter. Individuals matter. Differences matter. Nano scales matter. There is sensitivity to initial conditions. Individuals are the new focus of “precision medicine.” <i>Recognizing the power of the small.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">*******************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexia, visual thinking, thinking in 3D space and visual technologies: varied levels of interest have been observed in these ideas and concepts while giving talks in the US and 19 countries over more than 25 years.<br /><br />• Nobel Prize winners and high-level, creative scientists are often the most interested; conventionally trained educators and school psychologists are usually not interested.<br /><br />• Groups that are interested are: NASA Ames, the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, Oxford and Cambridge University researchers in England, the U.S. National Library of Medicine-NIH, the Dyslexia Association of Singapore, GCHQ code breakers in the UK and Hong Kong medical doctors. These are practitioners, innovators, discoverers, practical users.<br /><br />• Many conventional tests and measures do not capture these talents. Need new tests. How to recognize and develop high potential . . . How to show the way. . . For dyslexics, and for other different thinkers, for all of us -- to show the path, innovating for major problems, especially in a new digital age of AI . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">• Concerning any really revolutionary discovery in science and technology: When you seek the origins of these most unexpected and most original discoveries, you should not be surprised to find a dyslexic. Because they are perhaps less full of previously memorized knowledge and conventional patterns of thought, and mostly think in pictures, often the dyslexics can observe closely with an open mind and can see what others cannot see. (Especially an advantage for Nobel Prize winners, of course -- because, they must, almost by definition, see things differently than conventional scientific thinkers.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><br /></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX D<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Publications and Suggested Readings<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">On Visual Thinking, Strengths of Dyslexics and Artificial Intelligence (AI)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Publications <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Walker, Darren, and Hemant Taneja, March 30, 2023. “Build AI Guardrails Before We Crash,” <i>Washington Post</i>, page A23. This editorial page opinion piece in the <i>Post</i> is just one among a rapidly growing number of articles, group letters and other indicators of serious concerns about the extremely rapid growth and increasingly wide spread use of new AI systems like ChatGPT and other similar systems. An excerpt: “The artificial intelligence revolution has arrived. . . . We see leaders in every field placing bets, by the billions, on what comes next. . . . The time has come for new rules and tools that provide greater transparency on both the data sets used to train AI systems and the values built into their decision-making calculus. We are also calling for more action to address the economic dislocation that will follow the rapid redefinition of work.” -- Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation and author “From Generosity to Justice: A New Gospel of Wealth.” Hemant Taneja is CEO of General Catalyst and the author of “Intended Consequences: How to Build Market-Leading Companies with Responsible Innovation.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Eide, Brock, MD, MA, and Fernette Eide, MD, 2023. <i>The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain. Revised and Updated</i>. New York, NY. Plume, An imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC. “The Dyslexic Advantage had a profound and positive impact on my life since it explained ‘me’ to me for the first time.” -- Dr. Robert Ballard, Explorer-at-Large for the National Geographic Society and author of <i>Into the Deep: A Memoir from the Man Who Found Titanic.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1991. <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1992. “A Future of Reversals: Dyslexic Talents in a World of Computer Visualization,” <i>Annals of Dyslexia</i>, Orton Dyslexia Society, vol. 42, pp. 124-139. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking.” In <i>Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft</i>, edited and translated by P. Wittenberg and T. Plesser. Gottingen, Germany, November 1993. (Paper published in German: Ruckkehr zum visuellen Denken, Forschung und Wissenschftliches Rechnen: Beitrage anlasslich des 10. EGV-Benutzertreffens der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Gottingen, November 1993.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1999. “The Abilities of Those with Reading Disabilities: Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” Chapter 11, <i>Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates. </i>Edited<i> </i>by Drake D. Duane, MD, Baltimore, MD: York Press, Inc. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 2004. <i>Thinking Like Einstein: Returning to Our Visual Roots with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information Visualization</i>. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 2005. “The Gifts of Dyslexia: Talents Among Dyslexics and Their Families,” <i>Hong Kong Journal of Paediatrics</i> (New Series), 10, 153-158. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 2009. <i>In the Mind’s Eye: Creative Visual Thinkers, Gifted Dyslexics and the Rise of Visual Technologies</i>. Second edition. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, distributed by Penguin Random House. (The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said “<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 2014. “Amazing Shortcomings, Amazing Strengths: Beginning to Understand the Hidden Talents of Dyslexics,” <i>Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences</i>, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2014, pp. 78-89. (A publication of the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS). DAS initiated a multi-year program “Embrace Dyslexia,” intended to take advantage of the distinctive talents of dyslexic children and adults, as a form of economic competitive advantage. Long a leader in technology and commerce, Singapore intends to lead the world in this effort as well. In November 2014, Thomas G. West was invited to visit Singapore for a week to give five talks as part of the kick-off for the “Embrace Dyslexia” program.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 2022. “Dyslexic Talents in Times of Adversity.” <i>Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences</i>.<i> </i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Vol. 9, No. 2, July 2022, pp. 194-203.<i> </i>Based on the June 2020 graduation talk given at The Siena School, Silver Spring, Maryland.<i></i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">End. Short version of archive listing with examples. Total 34 pages. Preliminary draft with revisions and additions. Most recent revision May 25, 2023. To date, the long version of the archive listing includes 168 total pages; 45 numbered descriptions of documents, media, presentations and events; with 7 appendices, labelled A to G.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-44121797416058357732023-03-04T18:30:00.000-05:002023-03-04T18:30:24.309-05:00<p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“When the World Plague Was Stopped by a Digital Artist”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 1in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The question: How did this fictional story published in 1995 so closely anticipate the covid 19 virus -- that first appeared in December 2019, taking on full force in 2020 -- some 25 years before it actually happened?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 1in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 1in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Below is an excerpt of the imaginary story from <i>Wired Magazine</i>, Fall 1995: </span><span style="font-family: Times;">“Savior of the Plague Years 1996-2020.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“Our initial hope was to find some weakness in [the] Mao [plague virus] that we could exploit. But what we found scared the living daylights out of us. . . . What we discovered [was that] . . . in hours, it converted the entire immune system into an ally. We were devastated. [But in time we realized that] we had the human genome nailed, and we had the Mao genome nailed. And we had that marvelous [broadband Internet virtual reality] system for communicating among scientific minds. We used the system to design a new human killer T-cell -- the Mao [plague virus] Killer T. . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“How did you do that?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“Actually, it wasn't me; that was Javier's idea.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“But I thought Javier was a graphic designer, not a scientist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“Which is probably why he cracked it, and we didn't. He worked out the simulation routines that showed how [the] Mao [virus] did the cell intrusion and subversion. And he became fascinated with membrane geometry, not knowing anything about protein electrochemistry or synthesis. For him it was just a graphics puzzle, and he played around with the simulations until he found a surface that would turn the probe back on itself. All we'd asked him to do was modify the program. . . . We thought . . . he would just create a simple command. Instead, he solved the problem of armoring, because if you can simulate it, you can order it up in wetware. When we saw the demo, the [lab] went silent. Absolute silence for perhaps 30 seconds. Then everybody started talking frantically.” -- Interview excerpt from the story “Savior of the Plague Years 1996-2020,” <i>Wired</i> <i>Scenarios</i>, 1995 <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in 1in 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“The future of humanity and microbes likely will unfold as episodes of a suspense thriller that could be titled Our Wits Versus Their Genes.” </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">-- </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Dr. Joshua Lederberg, <i>Science</i> magazine, 2000.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Our Wits Versus Their Genes<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">It is our wits against their genes -- and their fast evolution. And it will always be so. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">We now understand that we can never live without the microbes. We used to think they were the enemy. Now we can see clearly that they are essential supports for our lives and our world. Finally, we have learned to think more in terms of ecology than warfare, interdependence rather than elimination. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Yet we now also know that we can never stop finding new ways to protect ourselves from their occasional pathological outbreaks (and, worse, our own stupidity). We can never adapt through our own genes as quickly as they can -- so, we must find other ways. We must use our wits and we must learn to use all the different kinds of cleverness and inventiveness that we have among us. And we can never stop.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">When I read Joshua Lederberg's wonderful short essay in <i>Science</i> on how we have come to understand the fundamental nature of infectious disease, I was immediately reminded of the <i>Wired</i> short science fiction story excerpted above. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">This story has stayed with me, recurring to mind from time to time, since I first read it years ago. A good test of a good piece. I thought there might be a special connection between the two that would be of interest to those who know something about the near-term and longer-term prospects for computer graphics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Initially, it is a bold and almost silly idea -- the world being saved by a digital artist --during a fictional time of global plague where small surviving colonies were linked by a diminished but still functioning Internet. Yet, the way the story is told, the idea gained unexpected credibility. And behind the story there is a greater question and possibly a deeper understanding -- one that we have been dealing with for some time in its various aspects. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">That is, of course, does the skill, the technology, the kind of mind and the special experience of the digital artist actually lend itself distinctly to solving certain kinds of problems better than others? And might these solutions (one day) have unexpectedly broad impact? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Perhaps we have a short story here that could be making a statement that has greater weight than many volumes of science or policy or procedure. Considering the enduring importance of the topic, it would appear that it could be of special interest to many beyond the comparatively small world of computer graphics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">And, considering the more recent history since 2000 of global threats from SARS, anthrax, mad cow disease and bird flu, it would seem that all of us would have a deeper and more enduring interest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Just a Graphics Puzzle<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I had long admired the <i>Wired Scenarios</i> story because it seemed to capture in a few words (and provocatively doctored photographs), my own long-held belief -- that the visual approach has a special power for seeing patterns and solving problems which is not properly or fully appreciated. Too often, it is assumed that what is wanted is to know a lot of facts and to recall them quickly and accurately, on demand. The training and selection for most of our professions, from law to medicine, is based mainly on this narrow idea.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">However, the literature on creativity has long observed that the most important thing is <i>seeing</i> the big patterns and <i>seeing</i>the unexpected connections and novel solutions. For this, it is often the outsider who has the advantage of seeing the unexpected pattern what the well-trained professionals within the field somehow miss. The story of the less than fully trained and less than fully informed outsider making the big discovery is in fact a commonplace in the history of science. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">By his own report, Albert Einstein relied more on his mental images than the kinds of mathematics used by his associates. Indeed, as Einstein became a better mathematician, several have argued that his creativity became considerably diminished, as his approach became more mathematical (more conventional) and less visual (less original). It is striking that this pattern was noted separately both by the physicist Richard Feynman and the scientist and author Abraham Pais. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">One mathematician of Einstein’s own era, David Hilbert, a great admirer of Einstein's work, came close himself to some of the early basic insights involved in general relativity. Yet Hilbert did not claim any share of Einstein's major accomplishment. However, he did make clear, with no small amount of exaggeration, that Einstein's ideas came from other places than his mathematical skill. “Every boy on the streets of Göttingen,” he said, “understands more about four-dimensional geometry than Einstein. Yet, in spite of that, Einstein did the work and not the mathematicians.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I was pleased to see the authors of the <i>Wired</i> story acknowledge these observations. But I was even more pleased to see them focus on the skills and approach of a computer graphics artist -- one who saw the solution to the disease process as “just a graphics puzzle” involving “membrane geometry.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Since (in the story) they were all using virtual reality (VR) simulations of the microbes, he could visualize directly the various structures. Because of the VR images, he did not have to rely on years of training and experience to build a crude personal mental image of what was going on at the surface of the molecule. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">It is quite easy to imagine that someday soon discoveries such as this may be routinely expected with powerful graphic computers and as that high-quality VR and high bandwidth Internet connections have become more and more widely available. With such technological developments, a lot of previously unrecognized talent could come quickly and unexpectedly into play. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">In the end, of course, you need both the experts and the outsiders. You also need a large and varied team with many kinds of training and native talents in order to find solutions as well as implement remediation programs. In the not too distant future, with the widespread use of new visualization technologies, perhaps we will all grow to have a greater appreciation of what each person, and each kind of brain, can bring to such a problem, whether in medicine or other areas. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Around the World in 80 Hours<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">In his <i>Science</i> essay, Dr. Lederberg, pointed out that in our competition with microbes many of our recent technical and economic advances play right into the strengths of the fast-adapting, tiny creatures. We live longer and world population grows, doubling twice in the last century, fostering “new vulnerabilities.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">There is greater crowding, making disease transmission between individuals easier. Continued destruction of forests brings greater contact with disease-carrying animals and insects. Increased freedom in travel and trade further compound these problems. “Travel around the world,” he says, “can be completed in less than 80 hours (compared to the 80 days of Jules Verne's 19th-century fantasy), constituting a historic new experience.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Everywhere this long-distance travel has become frequent and routine: “Well over a million passengers, each one a potential carrier of pathogens, travel daily by aircraft to international destinations. International commerce, especially in foodstuffs, only adds to the global traffic of potential pathogens and vectors [carriers]. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Because the transit times of people and goods are now so short compared to the incubation times of disease, carriers of disease can arrive at their destination before the danger they harbor is detectable, reducing health quarantine to a near absurdity.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Dr. Lederberg also points out that when it comes to the pathological development of microbes, we may be our own worst enemies. He observes that “the darker corner of microbiological research is the abyss of maliciously designed biological warfare (BW) agents and systems to deliver them. What a nightmare for the next millennium! What's worse, for the near future, technology is likely to favor offensive BW weaponry. . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Brilliant Flashes<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Consequently, in the long run as well as the short run, we can see that it is indeed our wits against their genes. And it will always be so. Mostly, as Dr. Lederberg explains, we now see that microbes are essential supports for our lives and our world. They are everywhere -- and mostly they are on our side, more or less. However, we do need to be aware that in spite of medical successes and a wiser understanding of ecological perspectives, that serious problems probably lie ahead. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">We know more, but our economic and political successes may create enormous future problems. However, we may take some heart in expecting that the spread of new visualization technologies (among other things) may help to promote a more comprehensive view of our whole situation -- promoting strong visual thinkers to make wiser decisions about the future for us all. And, with some luck, we may learn to explicitly appreciate the full value of digital artists (and those like them) -- and their real life potential to be true global heros if the worst were to happen. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">While we have learned to think more in terms of ecology than warfare, we all now know that we can never stop searching for new ways to protect ourselves. We can never adapt through our own genes as quickly as the microbes can. We must find other ways. So, we have to use our wits and we must learn to use all the different kinds of cleverness and inventiveness that we have among us -- especially among those who might be best suited to seeing patterns and structures that might be missed by the experts. We need to search a broader field with greater success. Because we can never stop. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: "New York", serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in;">References<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Joshua Lederberg, "Infectious History," in <i>Science</i> magazine, April 14, 2000, pp. 287-293. Part of series, "Pathways of Discovery." The late Dr. Lederberg headed the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Informatics at the Rockefeller University in New York City. He became a Nobel Laureate (1958) for his research on genetic mechanisms in bacteria. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: "New York", serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: "New York", serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;">This column first appeared in ACM SIGGRAPH <i>Computer Graphics</i> magazine in November 2000. Much has happened since then to underscore the relevance of Dr. Lederberg’s essay and the <i>Wired</i> story. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: "New York", serif; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Times;">Wired magazine</span></i><span style="font-family: Times;">, "Savior of the Plague Years 1996-2020," in <i>Wired</i> <i>Scenarios: 1.01</i>, special supplement to <i>Wired</i>magazine, Fall 1995, pages 84-148. By the staff of <i>Wired</i> magazine. Image manipulation by Eric Rodenbeck. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="font-family: "New York", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-34490664498572040722023-02-20T23:36:00.002-05:002023-02-20T23:36:49.523-05:00<p> <i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Note: The sections below are to be part of a future book on Charles Massey West, Jr., and Anne Warner West, their lives and their art. From time to time these sections have been revised with additional material for limited circulation. Some newly discovered information was added recently concerning the 1941 Corcoran Biennial Prize and the then newly opened National Gallery of Art. References to current articles in the </span></i><span style="font-family: Times;">Washington Post</span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times;">, </span></i><span style="font-family: Times;">The Economist</span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> and </span></i><span style="font-family: Times;">WSJ</span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> on Edward Hopper’s exhibition at the Whitney in New York City have been added, February 2023. -- TGW</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 24pt;">“The Narrows,” 1942<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times;">by Thomas G. West<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><img height="274" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/8b79ab2b-bd74-46e3-ba0c-5aa52b635301" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="431" /></span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">“The Narrows” by Charles M. West, Jr., 1941<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">In the autumn of 1942, “The Narrows,” a painting by Charles Massey West, Jr., a native of Centreville, Maryland, was one of the prize winners at the Fifty-Third Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">For West in 1942, it was not the top prize, but there he was, shoulder to shoulder with the top artists of the era -- artists like Grant Wood, Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keeffe --who have come to represent, over time, the very best of a distinctly American form of art.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">It is true that the year before, in 1941, the “The Narrows” had already won the Corcoran Biennial in Washington, DC, and also had been published in <i>Art Magazine</i> (as noted below). But this was somehow different.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">It wasn’t the top prize. But it was major prize in a major show, providing recognition among major artists of the time. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times;">*****<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">The Death of Grant Wood, Famous for “American Gothic”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">In the fall of 1942, the Chicago show and its exhibition catalogue mainly honored Grant Wood, who had died earlier that same year. Wood had already become an icon of American painting.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">With images such as “American Gothic” (of course, very well known), “Daughters of Revolution” and “Good Influence” (all reproduced in the catalogue), Wood had linked humor and satire with pride in the simplicity and honesty of Middle America. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Sometimes he used a flat, almost plastic palate, with smooth forms, high contrast and deep shadows -- not commonly seen again until the Pixar computer animation films some 70 years later.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">“Nighthawks” -- Edward Hopper’s “Triumph”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The top prize that year at the Art Institute of Chicago had gone to Edward Hopper for “Nighthawks,” a canvas that was to become itself another icon of American painting. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Lonely people in a bright diner in a dark cityscape -- familiar in numerous magazine articles, satirical imitations and young persons’ wall posters -- culminating as the central focus of the major show on Hopper in the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, that closed January 21, 2008.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Art historian and commentator Robert Hughes called Hopper the most important painter of the period and it is noteworthy that “Nighthawks” is the lone image that spans the backs of his multi-tape video history of American painting.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">It is also notable how pivotal “Nighthawks” was in Hopper’s professional life. One writer notes in the US National Gallery show catalogue: “In May 1945, having become famous and successful after his triumph with ‘Nighthawks,’ Hopper was inducted into the National Institute of Arts and Letters.” (Barter, 2007, p. 211.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Hopper paintings have retained high interest and value even after many decades of fashionable non-representational art. In one example, one of Hopper’s paintings (“Blackwell’s Island,” 1928) was sold at Christie’s in New York, May 23, 2013. “Estimated at $15-20 million, it brought $17 million – making it the evening’s top lot and setting a new Christie’s record for a single work in an auction of American Art.” (<i>Architectural Digest</i>, September 2013, p. 66.) (See more recent 2023 articles listed in References and Readings, below.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">Very Best of Distinctly American Painters<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">For West, it was not the top prize, but there he was, as we have seen, shoulder to shoulder with the top artists of the time – a group of artists who have come to represent the very best of a distinctly American art form during an important period of American history.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">In the show catalogue, West’s short biographical sketch was listed in facing pages with other short sketches of the top prizewinners. Hopper’s bio noted that his “early work aroused so little interest that he gave up painting for several years.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><img height="229" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/308c12e6-204f-444b-a86e-6800db87e8c7" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_2" width="418" /></span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">“Nighthawks,” Edward Hopper, Art Institute of Chicago, 1942 <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">In West’s bio, his hometown is spelled incorrectly but his study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia (PAFA, attended 1931-1934; the oldest and most prestigious art school in America) is noted along with his then current teaching position (at the John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana) and his award in 1934 of the Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarship (as top art school student at PAFA, for 4 months of study and painting in Europe).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">In the show catalogue, there are black and white photographs of the winning paintings. Hopper’s “Nighthawks” is in the middle of the booklet, Plate VII, “Awarded the Ada S. Garrett Prize.” One page leaf away is “The Narrows” by Charles M. West, Jr., Plate IX, “Awarded the Honorable Mention for Landscape.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">Continuing Fame of Grant Wood and Edward Hopper at the Chicago Institute<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">It is interesting to note that the Grant Wood and Edward Hopper paintings figure prominently in the way the Art Institute of Chicago presents itself to the public even in recent years. In 2016, 74 years after this show and catalogue, the Institute proudly proclaimed itself as the finest museum in America for 2013 (“Winner, Voted #1 Museum in the United States, <i>Travelers’ Choice</i> 2013”). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">It is significant that the front cover of the short guide book to the museum has a photograph of “American Gothic” – while the long guide book cover shows a blown up of a detail section from “Nighthawks.” The museum shop even sells an expensive leather tote bag with the full “Nighthawks” painting shown on both sides.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">Those Who Showed in the Chicago Exhibition But Did Not Win Prizes<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Also listed in the 1942 Chicago show catalogue were paintings by well-known and not so well-known artists of the period whose work was exhibited but did not win any prize. The full catalogue listing is quoted below, indented, without quotation marks; comments from this writer are in brackets. In one case, the painting shown below is the actual painting exhibited in the Chicago show (Georgia O’Keeffe, “Red Hills and Bones”). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Some of those listed were associated with the Pennsylvania Academy (now known as part of the “Pennsylvania Academy School” or “Pennsylvania Impressionists” or “American Impressionists”) or with the “Brandywine School” of painters in Wilmington, Delaware (started by magazine and book illustrator Howard Pyle), including N. C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth and James Wyeth.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Henriette Wyeth, born Wilmington, Delaware, 1907; lives in San Patricio, New Mexico, 233 [given here is the reference number for the paintings exhibited in this show], Portrait of N. C. Wyeth. [Daughter of N. C. Wyeth, sister of Andrew Wyeth, aunt to James Wyeth.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Peter Hurd, born Roswell, New Mexico, 1904; lives in San Patricio, New Mexico, 133, Prairie Shower. [Husband of Henriette Wyeth; much later famously commissioned to do portrait of LBJ.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Francis Speight, born Windsor, North Carolina, 1896; lives in Roxborough, Pennsylvania, 217, Scene in West Manayunk. [West’s teacher at the PAFA; both Speight and West were students of Daniel Garber among other famous PAFA teachers. Speight and his wife Sarah were long time close friends of Charles and Anne West (Sarah was their classmate). Sarah Speight painted a portrait of the young Charles West (while at art school, apparently posing as part of his scholarship support; remarkably, Anne Warner also painted a portrait of CMW at the same sitting, now also in possession of the West gallery) that now hangs in the West Gallery in Centreville. The West Gallery also owns a painting of another Manayunk scene, “Cliff House,” by Francis Speight.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Walter Stuempfig, Jr., born Philadelphia, 1914; lives in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, 218, Family Reunion. [West’s classmate at the PAFA.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Donald M. Mattison, born Beloit, Wisconsin, 1905; lives in Indianapolis, 167, Good-by. [Mattison was West’s boss at the time. As Director of the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, Indiana, Mattison had recruited West, then at the University of Iowa, as a young star teacher. Indeed, as it become evident later, Mattison had been hired at this time to bring in new, high-quality talent, capable of producing students who would win major prizes in the US and Europe. See article by R.B. Perry, <i>American Art Review</i>, April 2011, cited below.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Thomas [Hart] Benton, born Neosho, Missouri, 1889; lives in Kansas City, 59, Negro Soldier.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Georgia O’Keeffe, born Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, 1887; lives in New York, 180, Red Hills and Bones. [Shown below.]<img height="311" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/83542ec7-c0f9-490d-908e-ff87381f721b" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_3" width="311" /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.25in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times;">*****<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">Boyhood in Centreville, the Once-Busy Wharf Area<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">It was not the top prize. But it was a long way to have traveled for the boy from Centreville -- a small river town, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, that had been in many ways unchanged for more than a century. The town of 2000 people on the Corsica River in a timeless rural area of farmers, watermen and shopkeepers on the Delmarva Peninsula, had long been a virtual island between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean -- reachable from Baltimore or Annapolis on the Western Shore only by slow ferry boat or ancient steamer. The two bridges across the Bay were not built until the 1950s and the 1970s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Born in 1907, the young Charlie West had spent his boyhood mostly in the town’s nearby wharf area (not far from the family home on Chesterfield Avenue). Not unlike Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the young Charlie followed the river traffic, absorbing outrageous local superstitions from the cooks, deck hands and travelers, seeing plays and melodramas at the James Adams Floating Theater when it was in town -- escaping his four older sisters and his no-nonsense, small-town businessman father (who ran a dry goods store opposite the Queen Anne’s County Courthouse).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><img height="338" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/e1ab094b-b51f-4734-820c-af62550e980c" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_4" width="453" /></span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">“The James Adams Floating Theater,” by Charles M. West, Jr., 1936<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">At the Centreville Wharf, the Original “Showboat”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The James Adams Floating Theater was a theater built on a barge towed from river town to river town around the Chesapeake Bay and other Eastern Seaboard locations, such as the Outer Banks area of North Carolina. It was said (and we now know, correctly) to have been the actual basis for the stories later used in the musical “Showboat.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The watercolor by Charles West, “The James Adams Floating Theater,” was signed “CW’36.” Charles did several watercolors and oil paintings of this floating theater and related scenes. Stories from the lives of those living on this floating theater were, in fact, the actual basis for those later used in the novel <i>Show Boat </i>by Edna Ferber and the musical by Jerome Kern and Oskar Hammerstein. The origins of the novel and the musical are recounted in a history of the James Adams Floating Theater -- described at another location by historian Mark A. Moore (in Bath, North Carolina) -- provided in the following passage:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="color: #120d01; font-family: Times;">“. . . Edna [Ferber] finally beheld the arrival of the massive show boat. The ‘<i>James Adams Floating Palace Theatre came floating majestically down the Pamlico and tied up alongside the rickety dock</i>.’ The craft was enormous. Painted white with dark trim, the flat-bottomed vessel was 132 feet long, 34 feet wide, and drew 14 inches of water. The long rectangular barge — a full two stories high — kindled in Edna Ferber all of the romance and river lore that her studies had yielded thus far: ‘<i>There began, for me, four of the most enchanting days I've ever known</i>.’ . . . Miss Ferber scratched furiously on a pad of yellow notepaper as [owner-actor] Charles Hunter, smoking steadily, spun his tale for Edna. ‘<i>It was a stream of pure gold,</i>’ she confessed. ‘<i>Incidents, characters, absurdities, drama, tragedies, river lore, theatrical wisdom poured forth in that quiet flexible voice. He looked, really, more like a small-town college professor . . . than like a show-boat actor.’</i></span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-width: 3pt; border-style: none none dotted; padding: 0in 0in 1pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; padding: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #120d01; font-family: Times;">“. . . </span></i><span style="color: #120d01; font-family: Times;">Miss Ferber initially resented the idea of a musical adaptation of her novel. But she signed a contract in November 1926, and was quickly won over by Jerome Kern's beautiful score, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. One of the compositions written for <i>Show Boat </i>has become an icon of Broadway and cinematic song. . . . ‘<i>I must . . . confess</i>,’ admitted Edna, ‘<i>to being one of those whose eyes grow dreamy and whose mouth is wreathed in wistful smiles whenever the orchestra . . . plays </i>Ol' Man River . . . . <i>I never have tired of it . . . . And I consider Oscar Hammerstein's lyric to </i>Ol' Man River <i>to be powerful, native, tragic, and true</i>.’ When Kern first played and sang the song for Edna, ‘<i>I give you my word</i>,’ she confessed, ‘<i>my hair stood on end, the tears came to my eyes, I breathed like a heroine in a melodrama. This was great music. This was music that would outlast Jerome Kern's day and mine</i>.’ And so it has.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: #120d01; font-family: Times;"> </span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">The Centreville Dance Hall<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Among Charlie’s close boyhood friends in Centreville was the African-American Bush Gaines. They remained good friends throughout their adult years. On at least one occasion, Bush took Charlie to the “Colored-Only” dance hall in Centreville’s “Sandy Bottom” area (the location, near the intersection of South Commerce and Little Kidwell, is now empty except for a small park structure, recently installed). The painting, called the “Dance Hall” or the “Paladoria Inn,” became the subject of one of West’s most loved paintings. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 14pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><img height="348" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/4d09e68b-d064-484a-a6b8-d495ff80da56" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_5" width="305" /></span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 14pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“Dance Hall, The Paladoria Inn” Charles M. West, Jr., c. 1933-1934<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Some observers have noted that the painting appears to be patterned (in some respects) on the painting “La Danse Au Moulin-Rouge” and especially the “Moulin Rouge -- La Goulue” poster (1891) both by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec -- the latter with distant audience, lively dancer in the middle ground and cartoon-like characterization of a man in the near foreground. West greatly admired the work of Toulouse-Lautrec along with other French</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">artists of the period.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><img height="105" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/062e48a2-6733-4031-acfc-59e14badd0f9" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_6" width="56" /></span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“Moulin Rouge – La Goulue,” Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, 1891<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times;">*****<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">A Balance Point<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The prize for “The Narrows” wasn’t the top prize. But in the fall of 1942, at the age of 35, the recognition received at the Chicago show was special indeed -- a kind of watershed, a balance point in his life as a nationally recognized painter and artist, one generation removed from a local family of farmers and shop keepers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">It was only 11 years before that West had won a scholarship to attend art school at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia – mainly based at the Academy’s Country School at Chester Springs, Pennsylvania.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">It was only 8 years before that he had been awarded the top art school prize to study and paint in Europe in 1934 -- almost losing his life from appendicitis as the grand ship steamed toward France. (The French surgeon performed the operation at no charge, saying an American surgeon would have done the same for a traveling art student from France.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">After his operation in Paris, West was befriended in the hospital by a Hungarian Countess and her rich American husband -- and was invited to recuperate at their grand chateau outside Paris. In so doing, he saw, first hand, the last days of a style of life -- with lush gardens, expensive cars, grand estates and grander parties -- that was to end forever only five years later -- when war broke out in Europe in 1939.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">Influence of French Impressionists<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">In his painting, West loved the dash and freshness and vitality of the French Impressionists of the late 1800s. He saw it as a style well suited to the rural landscapes and river scenes that he had known all of his life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Two years before the Chicago show, in 1940, West had married a fellow art school student, Anne Dickie Warner. Their first son had been born in March of 1941, named after his father and grandfather – so the baby became the third Charles Massey West, known as “Chip.” A second son was born in August of 1943 – named Thomas Gifford West (with a middle name from his mother’s grandfather, Frank Gifford Tallman, shared by her first cousin, Frank (Gifford) Tallman (III), the famous movie stunt pilot, <i>Mad Mad World, Catch 22, The Great Waldo Pepper, </i>among others, see below).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Upon first seeing the Chicago exhibition catalogue, the man who later became the head of the Pennsylvania Academy sent a note to the former student: “Dear Charlie: I can only take time for the merest word this morning, but the Chicago Art Institute catalogue has just come to my desk and I see that you have crashed through again. Heartiest congratulations and best wishes for all the Wests! Sincerely Yours, Joseph T. Fraser, November 11, 1942.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">A Major Prize and a Major Event -- The Corcoran Biennial and The National Gallery of Art Opening<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">As noted above, “The Narrows” was selected to be included in the 1941 Corcoran Biennial, in Washington, DC -- chosen from among 2700 paintings considered that year. A black and white photograph of the painting is displayed on the first page of the magazine article, page 202, with the caption, “Charles M. West, Jr., ‘The Narrows,’ in the Seventeenth Corcoran Biennial.” in the <i>Magazine of Art</i>, “A Monthly Magazine Relating the Arts to Contemporary Life,” Volume 34, Number 4, The American Federation of the Arts, Washington, April, 1941. (Duncan Phillips of the Phillips Gallery is listed as one of the Associate Editors.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">This issue included a major article on the newly opened National Gallery of Art, “The Last of the Romans, Comment on the Building of the National Gallery of Art,” By Joseph Hudnut, pp. 169-173. Also included in this issue, “The President Accepts the National Gallery of Art,” p. 210: “<i>On the evening of March 17, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the following address at the dedication of the National Gallery of Art. Others participating where Chief Justice Hughes (as Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution), Rev. Ze Barney Phillips, Mr. David K. E. Bruce, President of the Gallery, Mr. Samuel H. Kress, and Mr. Paul Mellon</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">The Honeywell Prize -- While Teaching at the John Herron Art School<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">“The Honeywell prize . . . for the most excellent landscape in oils was awarded to Charles West, Jr., instructor in still life painting at the Art School for his ‘Landscape in Winter.’ ” One of the prizes awarded in the 18th Annual Hoosier Salon. <i>The John Herron Art School Chronicle</i>, Published Three Times a Year at Pennsylvania and Sixteenth Streets, Indianapolis, Indiana. February 1942, Vol. v, No. 2. pp. 1 and 2. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">This issue also includes the article: “John Herron Art School Adopts Wartime Schedule. . . . Donald M. Mattison, Director of the John Heron Art School, announces that classes in all departments of the school will be offered on a continuous all year schedule. . . . This schedule makes it possible for young men who have graduated from high school to complete the major part of three years of work before they become eligible for military service. . . . That the particular technical training obtained in an art school is of distinct value in many branches of military service is evidenced by the special duties assigned various Art School graduates and under-graduates now on active service.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">Retrained for War Work -- Move to Hometown -- Final Rest<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">When the Chicago show closed December 10, 1942, America had been at war for its first full year. The art school closed. West was retrained to become a draftsman for the local war industries in Indianapolis (as an employee of the P.R. Mallory Company).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Thirty years later -- after resettling his young family in his own hometown and having taught painting, sculpture and history of art at several schools, art schools and colleges -- eventually -- at the end of December 1972, at the age of 65, West’s life was at an end.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Charles West was buried, with a small family service, along side his parents in the family plot in Centreville (eventually, under one of the plain classical tombstones that he himself had designed), as flights of geese flew overhead in the cold of early January.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“The West Gallery” on Lawyers Row<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">In later years, Charles’ wife Anne turned a small building, former law offices on Lawyers Row in the center of the town, into a gallery to honor her husband’s paintings and to show the art work of others.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">It is apparent that West’s father’s dream was that his son would become a lawyer, the top of the social scale of the small agricultural town and county, a northern-most outpost of very Southern rural attitudes and traditions. It is no small irony that West’s paintings -- his art and his career so much a puzzle to his father and virtually everyone else in this essentially provincial town and rural county -- finally ended up at the center of the law offices that face the old Queen Anne’s County Courthouse. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">There, property deeds had been exchanged and fought over for hundreds of years -- land ownership long having been in the area the main path to wealth and social position. Over the years, Anne West painted a number of views of the Courthouse from the upstairs rooms of the rented building, former law offices, which eventually became the “West Gallery.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Anne lived on for another 34 years of painting and travel, grandchildren and family visits in Centreville, Chestertown and Washington, D.C. -- passing away in her sleep in the afternoon of November 10, 2006, at the age of 97, just a month short of her 98th birthday.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">A Family of Artists, Visual Thinkers and Hands-on Craftsmen<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">It is perhaps significant that Anne Dickie Warner West was descended from an old Quaker family of millwrights, church clock makers, silver smiths, artists and engineers (a family that included sailing ship captains and, later, one famous cousin -- the movie stunt pilot Frank Gifford Tallman -- the third of that name). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Originally from Blockley, in England, a village with many millers and craftsmen, the American Warners had settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then Wilmington, Delaware. William Warner had been the founder of the “Blockley” area of western Philadelphia, five years before the arrival of William Penn. For generations, the Warners did the kinds of work that required high levels of hands-on, visual-spatial skills.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The pattern is noted in a history of the area: “… Men … who provide … ‘Yankee ingenuity.’ In parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania, both before and after the Revolution [of 1776], if there was a need for someone to mend a watch, make a clock, fix a gun-lock, do local metalsmithing in pewter, copper or silver, run a store, build a water-power mill or operate it, there was often a Quaker named Warner or Ellicott in the neighborhood who could do the job.” (<i>Maryland Historical Magazine, </i>quoted in the book<i>, An American Family.)</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><img height="302" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/32a866bd-66f4-4c2e-bdfa-a31578780ea2" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_7" width="455" /></span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">“Queen Anne’s County Courthouse,” by Anne Warner West, 1940<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">References and Readings<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Art Institute of Chicago, 1942. Catalogue of the <i>Fifty-Third Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Barter, Judith A., 2007. “Travels and Travails: Hopper’s Late Pictures” in <i>Edward Hopper</i>, Boston, MA: MFA Publications, pp. 211-225. The book was published in conjunction with the exhibition “Edward Hopper,” organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Other sections of this book were written by Carol Troyen, Janet L. Comey, Elliot Bostwick Davis and Ellen E. Roberts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Times;">Economist</span></i><span style="font-family: Times;"> magazine, January 29, 2023. One full page on Hopper exhibition at Whitney in New York through March 5, 2023. Very popular. The show catalogue is “the gift to have” says the <i>Economist</i>. Full reference to be provided – along with reference to <i>WSJ</i> article as well. Perhaps suggesting a temporary revival of interest in some traditional representational art forms.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Kennicott, Philip, 2023. “Critic’s NoteBook: In Edward Hopper’s New York, Silence Speaks Volumes,” <i>Washington Post</i>, Arts&Style, Section E, January 29, 2023, pp. E1, E7-E8. Note: E1 is one quarter page (at bottom) with one photo: “Room in Brooklyn, 1932.” Pages E8 and E9 provide two full pages with one full line of text (left margin) plus large photos of 5 paintings: “Room in New York,” 1932; “City Roofs” 1932; “New York Movie,” 1939; “Approaching a City,” 1946; “People in the Sun,” 1960. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="color: #120d01; font-family: Times;">More, Mark A., “Historic Bath: Edna Ferber and the James Adams Floating Theater,”</span><span style="font-family: Times;">http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bath/edna-ferber.htm<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="color: #120d01; font-family: Times;">Perry, Rachel Berenson, 2011. “Indiana Realities: Regional Paintings 1930-1945.” <i>American Art Review</i>, Volume XXIII, Number 2, March – April 2011, pp. 68-75. (Grateful thanks to Charles Mendez for reference to this article.)</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #120d01; font-family: Times;">Sellin, David, 1986. “Francis Speight,” in <i>Francis Speight: A Retrospective, November 7 – December 6, 1986. </i>Taggart, Jorgensen & Putman, 3241 P Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20007.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Warner, Ralph F. and R. David Warner, Sr., 2010. </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Family-Warners-Philadelphia/dp/1450210619/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1M0TD4MK51328&keywords=an+american+Family+by+Warner&qid=1642732697&sprefix=an+american+family+by+warner%2Cspecialty-aps%2C44&sr=8-1"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-decoration: none;">An American Family: The Warners of Philadelphia</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> From the publisher: “</span><i><span style="color: #0f1111; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">An American Family</span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1111; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> is about the Warner family of Philadelphia's Blockley Township. R. David Warner, Sr., the author, is qualified to write this book because he and his father are the twelfth and thirteenth generation of a family which settled on the shores of the Schuylkill River five years before William Penn laid out the city. Before his death in 1992, the author's father wrote a series of letters containing the stories told to him as a child in the early twentieth century. He researched the public records of both the Historical Societies and the Quaker Meetinghouse to build upon the actual accounts of his family members. He spent the last twenty years of his life collecting this historical information.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Copyright 2018, 2023: Thomas G. West. Rights for all West artwork and papers are held by Thomas G. West. Permission to reproduce non-West paintings will be secured for the future book prior to publication. Images are from open Internet sources unless otherwise noted. This is a draft chapter section, with additional images and text inserted from time to time. Revised in December of 2021 and January of 2023. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Contact information: thomasgwest@gmail.com. Mobile phone: 202-262-1266. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Blog: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Biographical Notes -- Thomas G. West -- Son of CMW, Jr., and AWW.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Thomas G. West is the author of three books. After he was tested for dyslexia at the age of 41, Thomas West recognized how the distinctive visual strengths and academic weaknesses seen among dyslexics had major affects on the lives of his father, himself and other family members. This realization led to a series of researches and books -- which led, in time, to travels and talks to interested groups in many parts of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The first book for Thomas West -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye: Creative Visual Thinkers, Gifted Dyslexics and The Rise of Visual Technologies</i> -- was first published in 1991 and was recently re-leased by a new publisher (first time in paperback) in a Third Edition, in July of 2020. It is considered an “evergreen” in the trade, a book that never ages and never stops selling. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The book includes a Foreword by the famous medical writer Dr. Oliver Sacks, who says “<i>In the Mind's Eye</i> brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">In the Mind’s Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> was published in Japanese translation as <i>Geniuses Who Hated School</i>. The book has also been translated into Chinese and Korean. Awarded a gold seal by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association, the book was recognized as one of the “best of the best” for the year (in their broad psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience category). According to one reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye </i>is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Over time, West was invited to provide presentations for scientific, medical, art, design, computer and business groups in the U.S. and 19 other countries, including groups in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Dubai-UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and twelve European countries. Since the pandemic, West has given Zoom talks and interviews in Egypt, The Netherlands, Singapore and Zimbabwe. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">West’s second book is <i>Thinking Like Einstein -- Returning to Our Visual Roots with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information Visualization</i>. This book is based on five years of quarterly columns that he wrote for <i>Computer Graphics</i>, the in-house members’ publication of ACM-SIGGRAPH -- the international computer graphics association with conferences in Los Angeles attracting up to 60,000 computer artists, technical professionals and users of CG technologies -- including animators, astronomers, surgeons, mathematicians and makers of feature films. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">West’s third book is <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See -- The Hidden Advantages of Visual Thinkers and Differently Wired Brains</i>. In this book, he investigates how different kinds of brains and different ways of thinking can help to make discoveries and solve problems in ways unexpected by conventional experts. West focuses on what he has learned over some 30 years of travel and talks -- based on the stories he has heard from a group of extraordinarily bright and creative people -- strong visual thinkers and those with dyslexia, Asperger’s syndrome, and other different ways of thinking, learning and working. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">West has </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">given presentations to the </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Royal College of Art in London, the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland, the </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Confederation of British Industry in London, the Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam, </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">a meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany, the first ever “Diversity Day” conference for the staff of GCHQ (the code-making and code-breaking descendants of Bletchley Park, the source of the extremely secret “Ultra” for Winston Churchill in World War II), in Cheltenham, England, as well as scientists and artists at Green College and at Magdalen College within Oxford University, England. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Other talks have included a conference at the University of Uppsala before the Queen of Sweden, </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">the University of California at Berkeley, an education conference sponsored by Harvard and MIT, the Arts Dyslexia Trust in London, </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">the Dyslexia Association of Singapore, </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">the International Symposium on Dyslexia in the Chinese Language organized by the Society of Child Neurology and Developmental Pediatrics in Hong Kong, </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey, </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California – and</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> a Director's Colloquium for scientists and staff of NASA Ames Research Center, at Moffett Field in California’s Silicon Valley</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">West’s papers, books and personal blog have been deposited in a permanent archive in the History of Medicine Section, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-67502670370769603832023-02-20T22:58:00.001-05:002023-02-20T22:58:39.920-05:00<p> <span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now in use everywhere -- discovering PCR – and not understanding what you have been given</span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Many years ago, during a family trip to Colorado, a friend told me a story that provides an inside look at how scientists work. I was just beginning serious research for my first book and we were discussing creativity and the process of discovery. He was a well-known cancer researcher and taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">He told me he would sometimes prefer to forget this <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>story. I asked if it had ever been written down anywhere. He said no. He and all of his associates found it too upsetting to recall or record -- but he told me it was alright for me to tell the story. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Years ago, one of his friends was a young researcher in a biochemistry laboratory and was performing a procedure intended to destroy DNA, the molecular blueprint for self-replication carried in all living cells. She was annoyed, however, at not being able to make the procedure work as intended. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Each time she measured the results of her work, she came up with more DNA than she started with. The researcher tried again and again. But each time she was disappointed to discover that she had more DNA rather than less once again. Her coworkers were sympathetic and tried to help her. But no solution to the problem could be found. She eventually dropped the project and went on to other tasks. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Some years later, another scientist in a different laboratory successfully developed a new method to create DNA, making many copies— and he subsequently received a Nobel Prize for his discovery. The young researcher and her former colleagues are still asking themselves how it is that they did not recognize what was really going on when her project repeatedly failed. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The story of the second scientist is now well known in scientific circles. The discoverer was Kary B. Mullis, who shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with another scientist, Michael Smith. Mullis received the prize for his development of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) that makes it possible to rapidly make thousands or millions of copies of specific DNA sequences. The improvements provided by Mullis have made the PCR technique of central importance in molecular biology and biochemistry. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">According to the Nobel Prize presentation at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences: “Using this method it is possible to amplify and isolate in a test tube a specific DNA segment within a background of a complex gene pool. In this repetitive process the number of copies of the specific DNA segment doubles during each cycle. In a few hours it is possible to achieve more than 20 cycles, which produces over a million copies.”</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, the story is so upsetting because she had the discovery right there in front of her, but she was so focused on her seemingly failed project that she could not see the value of her experiment’s results. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Such stories teach us. Sometimes a gift is seen only as a problem, something that would be quickly wished away had we the power. Sometimes the most important thing is to be able to recognize the gift for what it is, even though it was not requested or desired. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For this to be possible, it is helpful (in spite of one’s training) not to be wholly focused on the narrow inter- ests of the moment—no matter how serious the task, no matter how large the grant, no matter how urgent the deadline. One has to be open to new possibilities, to looking at things a different way, to being able to see what you have been given, even when it is not what you asked for. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The role of chance or fortuitous accident is one of several themes that recur repeatedly in the literature of creativity, especially creativity in the sciences. I do not assume that all creativity is necessarily associated with some form of learning disability or learning difference. However, I do believe that a number of traits associated with dyslexia, other learning differences, and especially high visual-spatial talents may tend to predispose some individuals to greater creativity than might exist otherwise. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Being able to do what others want you to do, in the way they want you to do it, is seductive. If you can, you will. But if you cannot, you will have to find another way. It is a form of accidental self-selection. If it is possible to do it in the same way, successfully, often a new way will not be tried. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Thus, if a truly original method is needed, the conventionally successful student or researcher may be the last one to find it. Sometimes only among those who have repeatedly failed is there a high likelihood of success. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">From <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, TG West, pages 69-71.</div></div>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-6125488054395799402023-01-24T23:58:00.001-05:002023-01-25T00:02:17.039-05:00<p><span style="font-family: times;"> <span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Considering the important events of 2022, I think of James Lovelock and his predictions about climate change -- as well as much else, including whether there is life on Mars. An outsider, but he is a true scientific giant of our times. I will repost below a section on James Lovelock from my third book.</span></span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">James Lovelock, has died at the age of 103</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Washington Post, July 31, 2022, page C9, "Scientist behind 'living' Earth theory was provocateur of climate activism."</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">I have long <a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a>viewed Lovelock as the deepest thinker of our age. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">I started my third book with the story of one of his major discoveries. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Lovelock Excerpts</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><i>From Seeing What Others Cannot See </i>(2017) by Thomas G West</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Chapter One -- Seeing the Whole</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">“What this analysis showed was that Mars had almost nothing but carbon dioxide. Just bare traces of other gases were present. And I knew immediately that this meant that Mars was probably lifeless. And at that moment, suddenly a thought came into my mind. But why is the Earth’s atmosphere so amazingly different.” -- </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">James Lovelock</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Looking for Life on Mars -- Understanding Life on Earth</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">In September 1965, the British scientist James Lovelock was asked by NASA to help with the design of ways to see if there was life on Mars. He met with other scientists, mostly biologists, to discuss the design of instruments and detectors that could be transported to Mars -- which was then thought to be somewhat similar to the Mojave Desert. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">So they talked of soil types and landing craft. One scientist even built a tiny metal cage for the fleas that might be found on the animals that might be living in the Mars desert. Lovelock said this approach made no sense to him since we could not know if life on Mars would be in any way similar to life on Earth. The director of the scientific group was not happy and challenged Lovelock to come up with a better idea -- “by Friday.” </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Under time pressure, Lovelock had a “Eureka moment” -- an idea that had not occurred to him before. He thought one had to only analyze the gases in the atmosphere of Mars (from a distance) to see whether life was there. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">He thought that, if life were there, the organisms would have to use gases from the atmosphere to help build their bodies and they would have to give off their waste gases to the atmosphere as well. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">He happened to be working in the group with the astronomer Carl Sagan -- who, with an associate, used data from a special telescope to analyze the Mars gases from the Earth. They found that almost the whole Mars atmosphere was nothing but carbon dioxide -- with only a few traces of other gases. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Accordingly, Lovelock considered that there was probably no life on Mars, after all.[1]</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">However, in rapid fashion, Lovelock started to ask himself -- if this is true for Mars, how does this work on Earth? Initially, Sagan did not like Lovelock’s idea. But then Sagan noted a long-standing scientific puzzle: Over billions of years, our Sun has increased in power by 30 percent -- yet the Earth has remained habitable for life.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"> If it was warm enough for life long ago, how come “we are not boiling now?” Lovelock asked himself. How was this possible? How could the Earth continue to be cool enough for life even when the Sun was growing so hot? How was Earth different from Mars? </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Could it be that living things on Earth were somehow regulating the gases on Earth -- and this, in turn, was regulating the temperature of the Earth as well? In this way the idea of a self-regulating Earth was born -- now known as Lovelock’s “Gaia Hypothesis” or later “Gaia Theory.” </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">As other scientists have noted, this leap required an unusual kind of mind -- one capable of seeing the Earth from the “top down” as a whole, not just from the perspective of one scientific discipline or another. Because of a rather unconventional career, Lovelock was famous for having knowledge and experience in many different disciples and well as hands-on instrument invention. He was perhaps more able than most to integrate the various parts of the puzzle. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">In the BBC documentary “Beautiful Mind: James Lovelock” where he tells this story, Lovelock also says “it so happens that I am dyslexic, but not seriously.” He says the dyslexia slows him down on exams and causes confusion in handling certain mathematical equations. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">We may well wonder to what extent Lovelock’s dyslexia (and the kinds of thinking that seem often to go along with it) would have helped him to see the really big-picture and, as a consequence, see what others could not see, forever altering the way we all see our whole planet. [2]</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">* * * * *</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Looking at the life story of James Lovelock, one can hardly imagine anyone who fits better the kind of pattern that we are focusing on in this book. Over and over again he has seen what others could not see or would not see. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">As one scientist observed: “[Lovelock’s] mind is able to make intuitive leaps or connections in things that the rest of us would always keep separate in our heads and it is these connections that he has been able to see that he has gifted us.” [3]</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Lovelock has always independent and unorthodox, certainly not a specialist. And he was clearly, by his own account, dyslexic, although as we noted, “not seriously.” He has described his father’s reading problems. Like James, his father was also an inventor, tinkerer and had a great knowledge of the world of nature. We see that that we have some evidence for at least two generations of these traits. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Lovelock is the author of a number of books, but mostly not about himself. However, fortunately, we have now access to a number of interviews and some very well done documentaries on his life and on his distinctive approach to science. Indeed, one documentary by the BBC in the series of “Great Minds” (quoted above) is so well put together, with material so well selected, that one could write a small essay on almost every one of Lovelock’s assertions and stories. It is quite remarkable.Lovelock has had recognition for many inventions and discoveries. Chief among these are the electron capture detector and the Gaia Hypothesis. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">The electron capture detector is extremely sensitive. Some say that the sensitivity of this detector allowed the careful measurements of small amounts of chemicals in the atmosphere. The detector is thus credited with helping to start the green movement with the concern about the CFCs in the atmosphere and the well-known “ozone hole.” </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Two scientists, not Lovelock, received the Nobel Prize for their work with CFCs and the ozone hole. But all of their attention was based on data originally collected by Lovelock using his own invention. Originally these data were collected mainly because Lovelock was personally curious about the new haze that he had seen over the woodlands where he used to walk with his father. This was a change. He saw that CFCs were a “people marker.” </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">He found that they had spread all over the planet and they did not degrade. Fortunately, the problem could be addressed but stopping production by a few companies. Lovelock notes that dealing with “global heating” is not so simple or easy. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">As everyone knows, the controversies about climate change and global warning are endless. However, cool minds continue to shed light on this hot topic. Referring to a very recent book (Anthony McMichael, Climate Change and the Health of Nations) reviewer Anita Makri summarizes the author’s position and recommendations: “Scepticism, doubt, and denial don’t escape McMichael’s attention. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">He argues that not believing in climate change originates from a human tendency to favor urgent, survival-enhancing reactions over responding to gradual changes. Can the brainpower we evolved in times of climatic stability be channeled toward changing the behavior that undermines this stability? he asks. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">McMichael concedes that change is not easy. He focuses on motivating action by speaking to the public about climate change not in the abstract but in terms that are closer to home, akin to everyday experience. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Through education and informed discussion, let’s talk of debilitating heat, not emissions; parched crops, not scenarios; infectious microbes in the water we drink, not targets. This way, he says, there may be a chance to activate the “fight or flight” response that befits this threat to our survival.” [4]</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Visual Thinkers and Visual Discoveries</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">For centuries, those who think visually and those who think differently have struggled at the edge of a world of education and work mostly dominated by those who think in words and numbers instead of images and mental models.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">It is not often fully appreciated how much these two groups represent vastly different cultures -- different in ways of working and different in ways of thinking. Visual thinkers and different thinkers like Lovelock have long been, apparently, among the most creative and innovative in the sciences as well as art, design and other fields. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">In recent decades, the rapid rise of information-rich computer graphic data and information visualizations -- coupled with new global economic challenges and easy access to massive data sources -- has turned the conventional world of information upside down, although few with conventional “expert” knowledge have yet noticed. (Sociologists and psychologists have just begun to realize that their conventional studies of 20 subject individuals seem as nothing when social media can easily and rapidly survey thousands or millions.) </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">It seems clear that recent educational reforms (and more recent reforms of the reforms) in the U.S. and elsewhere have merely reinforced the long standing conventional values and methods -- leading to “teaching to the test” along with almost universal boredom and widespread fear -- while the visual and other creative talents (actually the most valuable talents in this new visual-digital world) are misunderstood and ignored. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">More recently, as visual thinkers and other different thinkers aided by these new technologies increasingly move toward center stage, it is hoped that their capabilities will come to be recognized and fully valued -- and that these thinkers will be in a better position to formulate actions based on big-picture solutions to big-picture problems. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">The growing awareness of the value of visual-spatial talent is a topic I have been dealing with explicitly as a researcher and writer for over 25 years – yet in many ways, I now realize, it has been a topic that I have been thinking about for most of my life. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Coming from a family of artists and engineers, silver smiths and millwrights, and at least one movie stunt pilot, I have always recognized the value of thinking in pictures and the value of precision motion in 3D space. But in the early days, my great puzzle always was how to bring visual talents to bear on conventional school subjects, especially in the early years. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Visual talents are so often not understood or are misunderstood. The usual formal academic approaches did not seem to be appropriate. I finally settled on the notion that what would be most useful to readers would be to describe a more personal story – with a series of examples, as one problem and one discovery led to another series of observations and insights – those that in time resulted in my two earlier books,<i> In the Mind’s Eye</i> and <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i>.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">[End of excerpt. <i>Seeing What Other Cannot See</i>, 2017, pages 21-26.]</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">End Notes for Chapter One________________________________________</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">[1] As Lovelock tells the story in the BBC documentary: In September 1965, Lovelock met with Carl Sagan and another astronomer, Lou Kaplan. They had sheets and sheets of computer paper showing a complete analysis of the Mars atmosphere. “What this analysis showed was that Mars had almost nothing but carbon dioxide. Just bare traces of other gases were present. And I knew immediately that this meant that Mars was probably lifeless. And at that moment, suddenly a thought came into my mind. But why is the Earth’s atmosphere so amazingly different?” This brief version of the story is supported by a much more detailed version from a long interview with Lovelock provided in “An Oral History of British Science” (in Partnership with The British Library) 2010.\</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">[2] On YouTube, the BBC documentary titled “Beautiful Minds: James Lovelock.” Total time, 58:40. Lovelock’s non-specialist perspectives on science, the NASA Mars story and related stories begin at time mark 25:50. With Lovelock mostly speaking for himself, this documentary is rich with important details about his early life, his unusual education -- and how his unusual ways of thinking and working have led to major inventions and discoveries. Repeatedly we are told about how his “out of the box” and top down, big-picture thinking led to insights that other over-specialized scientists could not see or were unlikely to see. They are mostly trained and hired to focus on narrow problems -- so they have a hard time seeing the really big picture that requires the integration of knowledge and understanding of many related disciplines. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">[3] Prof. Tim Lenton, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, quoted in BBC documentary, “Beautiful Minds: James Lovelock.”</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">[4] Makri, “Back to the Future,” summarizing, McMichael, Climate Change, 2017, Science, January 27, 2017, p. 355.</span></div></div>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-87414291609296451622022-07-19T14:02:00.000-04:002022-07-19T14:02:58.508-04:00A Nursery for the Stars<p><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: times;">"Everywhere We Look, There's Galaxies </span></span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: times;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everywhere"</span></span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: times;">As we view the daily news of the small mindedness and bad behavior of humans on Earth, we are made aware this month of the true vastness of the universe, at a scale larger than ever seen before: </span></span></p><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">“The universe's splendor and breadth are on display like never before, thanks to a new batch of images that NASA released from the James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday. The images from the new telescope are ‘really gorgeous,’ said NASA's Jane Rigby, the operations project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. ‘That's something that has been true for every image we've gotten with Webb,’ she added. ‘We can't take blank sky [images]. Everywhere we look, there's galaxies everywhere.’. . . </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">One of the most eye-popping images released on Tuesday depicts what looks to be cosmic cliffs, valleys and mountains — albeit with mountains that stretch to seven light-years in height.” (<a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl gpro0wi8 py34i1dx" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2022%2F07%2F11%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3uFM9EOqoACfoa-YT3qz-hIUrkHzr42kNgpYDCvuy0nu0RS0EOZdVbQ5U&h=AT2z3PbRCPAzHTjmHwAjU7nNTVqN8xYffKnLB9DJX0iZwyjfZMq_1t2srF8e3H9W-DUmXbNdKs1Oj4968nhvd0GCEyKmm1IO4luv6LdLKEFZx8AuCFlXOBbZxoNqBbuLb6STYZ0&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT1DhUTl4VUk6JTEkAOv1ZhVuhqRNIJVZJ-caQ0qVf5gmwzzLDb96W7td4FgQ6diezSD6BtrgDYj_VKMJErBaGgVZrlh6HP2pfP6wnQ_hz9q1n6ZyIcWpMFchXFYfi7nv41gg27DaHW7sUcb8hM_" rel="nofollow noopener" role="link" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--blue-link); cursor: pointer; display: inline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none;" tabindex="0" target="_blank">www.npr.org/2022/07/11</a> webb-telescope-pictures-nasa.)</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">This all reminds me of the talk I was asked to give at NASA Ames some years ago.</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">(10) West’s lecture was part of a 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. West’s talk and visit also included an associated visitor tour. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">West and his wife were shown massive wind tunnels and many scientific exhibits -- including new raw data on a large wall full of flat screen TVs indicating possible planets orbiting hundreds of stars fresh from the Kepler satellite. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">When one of the West party asked whether there might be life on other planets, they were treated to wave after wave of stars and planets washing across on the large wall made up of many TV screens -- so, hundreds and many thousands of possibilities (and these were only the planets that happened to be “in front” of the star at the time of observation).</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Now when I consider the Kepler data shown to us at NASA Ames -- in combination with the very new Webb pictures -- with so many, many stars and galaxies with such enormous periods of time -- it suddenly seemed so clear to me: The question is not whether there is life on other planets -- but how many times has life started and endured -- only to be suddenly halted by an exploding nearby star -- with nothing left, at best, but a few weak radio and light signals to show that they had ever been there. --- TGW -- July 19, 2022</span></div></div>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-18574699699871520642022-05-05T16:58:00.001-04:002022-05-05T17:42:27.715-04:00<p> <span style="font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;">Selected Significant Events and Documents</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"> </span></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16pt;">West Archive, the National Library of Medicine, NIH <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16pt;">Updated Short Listing, Revised, May 5, 2022<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16pt;"> Working Draft, in Process -- Sample Pages with 12 Excerpts<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Example Item from a Short List of Significant Events and Documents<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Dyslexia Is Britain’s Secret Weapon in the Spy War”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(1) In June 2006, Thomas G. West was honored to be invited to be the main speaker at the first “Diversity Day” conference in Cheltenham, England, for the staff of GCHQ, the code-making and code-breaking descendants of Bletchley Park (the World War II code breakers and the source of “Ultra,” the extremely secret intelligence source for Winston Churchill, never revealed to the public until the 1970s). According to one employee at GCHQ, “while people with neuro-diversity may be viewed as ‘odd or weird,’ they are ‘fully accepted’ at GCHQ.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">GCHQ officials and cyber experts make it quite clear that their dyslexic employees, among others, are highly valued workers. As one spokesperson said in an article for the </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 14pt;">Daily Mail</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">, “Dyslexia Is Britain’s Secret Weapon in the Spy War: Top Codebreakers Can Crack Complex Problems Because They Suffer from the Condition . . . . Most people only get to see the jigsaw picture when it’s nearly finished while the dyslexic cryptographists can see what the jigsaw looks like with just two pieces.” (Also see section </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">in <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See, </i>“Seeing the Puzzle with Only Two Pieces -- Learning Differences at GCHQ,” West, 2017, pp. 147-150.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">There was an informal gathering the following Saturday after the GCHQ conference for several employees and their families -- with a pub lunch and a walk around the village -- where one teen-aged son said, “Now I finally begin to understand my father.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">At one point, after the walk, West found himself sitting with a group of seven at the edge of our host’s garden, gradually discovering that all of those with him had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Among other things, they discussed <i>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time</i>by Mark Haddon and connections with the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze” (involving the significance of “the dog that did not bark”). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">It is apparent that organizations such as GCHQ are important places to better understand unexpected patterns in extraordinarily high performance and seek links between visual thinking, dyslexia, autism and other forms of different thinking. This approach is especially important since conventional professional literature and training is often focused on deficits alone without consideration of special capabilities. (More is to be provided about this most important meeting. Full credit to JT and RT at K4L -- TGW.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">_____________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The Context: A Time of Fundamental Change --<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“A Return to Visual Thinking”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The GCHQ conference was one of many where West was privileged to be provided with an insider’s view of the possible relationships between high-level capabilities together with unexpected weaknesses and learning difficulties. Indeed, with his early publications and talks, West found that he was quickly swept up in waves of fundamental change in views about technology and different ways of thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West is the author of three books, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i>and <i>Seeing What Other</i>s <i>Cannot See</i>. From 1991 to 2021, he has given hundreds of presentations in the U.S., and 19 countries in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia/Pacific Region. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West found that he was invited to provide presentations for a varied group of high-level institutions and organizations as part of a new awareness of fundamental change with respect to visual thinking, visual technologies and scientific data visualization along with new ways of thinking about the distinctive capabilities of dyslexics and other different thinkers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Real World Perspectives<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In most cases, the high interest in these topics and trends was from those who were observing these capabilities in actual operation and use “in the real world” of scientific discovery, medical innovation and entrepreneurial business. Conference organizers and advocate organization heads were eager to arrange for speakers and panels to share these new ideas with a larger audience of those mostly still unfamiliar with these dramatic changes in perspective, operations and practice. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">However, during this time many conventional specialist academics and practicing professionals seemed to find it difficult to understand and appreciate these changes in perspective. They had been trained to rely on traditional tests and measures and a conceptual framework that favored conventional verbal and numerical academic capabilities along with memorization -- instead of visual thinking and “thinking in pictures” -- that is, the manipulation of images or objects in three dimensional space, in the imagination. They valued students who could easily learn old knowledge -- but had little understanding of those best suited to creating new knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">These changes in awareness were partly based on the rapidly emerging great power of the new computer graphic and related technologies during this period. But this new awareness was also based on a renewed recognition of the power of the visual thinking as used by earlier scientists, engineers and inventors, such as Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla and others. Thus, “A Return to Visual Thinking” was the main theme of the annual meeting of scientists -- and West’s invited presentation <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- for the 50 Max Planck Institutes in Germany in 1993. (See item 4, below.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Over time, West noticed that when he spoke about visual talents and learning differences in highly positive ways, with credible positive examples, some of those in his audience felt free, often for the first time, to talk about considerable strengths and hidden weaknesses in themselves, their family members and their most talented co-workers. Remarkably, West noted that the higher up he would go -- among Noble Prize winning scientists, for example -- the more likely he would find those who readily understood these patterns in unexpected weaknesses along with high level strengths. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">For example, see especially in item 2, below, the Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, the Fifty-Year Reunion. In a striking and unexpected example, during the course of the conference, among these highly praised, award-winning physicians and highly regarded medical school professors, roughly half of those attending spoke to West of their own dyslexia, the dyslexia of talented coworkers or the dyslexia of highly creative members of their own families. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Accordingly, the events and documents listed here can serve, in part, as an informal preliminary survey of the development of these fundamental observations in various occupations and various parts of the world over three decades. See the sample items listed below for some of the best examples of how these changes in perspective were recognized, adopted and promoted by organizations such as MIT, NASA Ames, GCHQ in the UK, the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, businesses in Singapore and related institutions. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">It is considered important to preserve these archive materials for further systematic study of the early years of these important trends -- trends that are likely to increase in importance with the continuing rapid growth of computer power and connectedness. As the machines take over all low level clerical tasks, the creativity and big picture thinking often seen in dyslexics will continue to increase in value. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Broad Impact<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Over time, West had come to measure the significance of these invited talks, seminars and workshops by the extent to which the simple but powerful ideas he learned from two prescient neurologists were received and given serious consideration by those interested in the strengths and talents of individuals with dyslexia and other learning differences -- together with the related advances in computer graphics, computer simulation, visual thinking and advanced information visualization technologies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Throughout his early research, West relied on the extensive primary sources made available by the archives and history collections of the Library of Congress and the National Library of Medicine -- along with conference meetings, publications and websites of the computer graphics professional organization ACM-SIGGRAPH and the International Dyslexia Association, among others. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West’s extended listing of selected events and documents, with informal brief descriptions addressed to users, is intended to show evidence of the gradual development of these trends -- to provide researchers, advocates and other archive users a guide to available resources along with models for future programs and efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Early Recognition -- “Best of the Best”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In the Mind’s Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">, West’sfirst book, was awarded a gold seal and selected as one of the “best of the best” for the year out of some 6000 reviewed booksby the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association(one of only 12 books in the broad “Psychology” category, including books on “neuroscience, intelligence testing, language impairment, mental health and psychiatry”).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The book has been translated into Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Over the years, West has provided many presentations for scientific, medical, art, design, computer and business groups. The interest in these topics, across many different fields and disciplines, has been an indicator of the timeliness and broad impact of these perspectives and publications -- largely initially based on the original work by the neurologists Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton in the 1920s and Dr. Norman Gechwind and his students in the 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i>as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A broad and enduring interest in these topics is further indicated by the reissue in July 2020 of a Third Edition (first time in paperback) of West’s first book,<i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. With over 29 years in print, the book continues to be what they call in the trade an “evergreen” -- a book that never dates and never stops selling. The two previous revised and expanded editions (updated edition and second edition) each contain Epilogues with some 40 to 50 pages of new material. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">_______________________________</span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Events and Documents, Continued<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(2) Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion, September 17-19, 1998, Arizona Biltmore Resort. Speakers included, among others: Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, National Library of Medicine; 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Markle Scholars were identified as the best medical school professors and teachers 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, as it turned out, the organizers were interested. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In his talk, West spoke primarily of visual thinking among creative scientists and recent developments in visual technologies and computer graphics. However, 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 received later from a Canadian Markle Scholar; to be provided. -- TGW) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(3) 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 -- for discussion with other attendees. The conference handout (to be provided separately for the archive) includes 210 images with names and organizations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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; he was one of the developers of the Visible Human Project for NLM). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 atomic structure, and later, the discovery of the structure of DNA. (This image was supplied to West by Bragg’s daughter, Patience Bragg Thomson, former head of a school for dyslexic students in London. This family includes, over five generations, many with visual occupations, many dyslexics and four winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West had several conversations with Dr. Mandelbrot at this MIT conference. Dr. Mandelbrot 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 of computer graphics, well before others). These aspects are seen as signature indictors of the work of a classic visually oriented approach as seen in many dyslexics.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(4) In November 1993, West was invited to speak at the annual meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The invitation initially was based on a short article by West in <i>Computers and Physics</i>. The presentation in English and the German language proceedings volume have been donated to the archive collection. (To be confirmed.) During informal discussions after his talk, West was told of dyslexia and other learning differences within the families of famous German scientists. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">It is noteworthy that this large high-level meeting in November 1993 was dominated by conventional “main frame thinking” and remarkably antiquated technologies. For example, no graphics videos could be shown in the large lecture theater. We had to move to a small conference room to show video clips on a TV. (This situation is shown in one of the photographs provided in the printed proceedings book; West is shown looking at a computer graphic image on a TV screen.) In dramatic contrast, in the conference in Amsterdam in October of that same year the designers, artists, architects and computer professionals had already adopted and were using the latest technologies in all the presentations. (See item 5, below.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">See chapter in the book compiled from the proceedings of this conference: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking,” <i>Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft</i>, 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(5) Invited speaker. The Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Doors of Perception,” October 30-31, 1993, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, organized by The Netherlands Design Institute and <i>Mediamatic</i>magazine. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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. . . .” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Other speakers included Louis Rossetto, the founding editor and publisher of the first <i>Wired</i>magazine (published in Europe well before moving to the US and later sold to a major US publisher). West was recruited to speak at this first conference of the newly formed Netherlands Design Institute based on a talk he had given only two months earlier at the ACM SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in Los Angeles (where he had been video taped by a NDI scout from Amsterdam). 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Please see a letter (original 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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i>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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i>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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(6) 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The title of West’s talk was: “ ‘Strephs,’ Tumbling Symbols and Technological Change: The Implications of Dyslexia Research in a World Turned Upside Down.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The program booklet for this Boston conference included an article by West reprinted with permission from <i>Computer Graphics</i>, August 1996 issue: “Images and Reversals, Talking Less, Drawing More.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This article was introduced by the conference booklet editor: “The following article was prepared by Thomas G. West as part of the series of articles requested by the editor of <i>Computer Graphics</i>magazine, a publication of the International Association of Computer Graphics Professionals, ACM SIGGRAPH. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">[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 <i>Faust</i>, 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“ ‘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 section gathered in the center, divorced from relevant text, and treated as little more than decoration.’ (<i>Eight Little Piggies</i>, Norton, 1993) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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. The Orton Dyslexia Society was later renamed The International Dyslexia Association in Memory of Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(7) 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: <i>Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates</i>, Drake D. Duane, MD, editor, York Press, 1999. West’s talk is Chapter 11, “Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(8) 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 state of New York, the Wadsworth Center is similar to the U.S. Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Indeed, it was established long before the Federal level CDC and has a similar broad range of responsibilities and missions. (Details of mission programs to be provided.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West was invited to speak by the Head of the Center, a virologist, who he met at a dinner of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine. The visit included an extensive tour of the Center facilities, programs and missions -- along with several Q&A discussions with Center staff. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(9) The New York Branch of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Twentieth Anniversary Conference, Language & Medical Symposia on Dyslexia, March 18-20, 1993. As the economy moves from a primarily verbal orientation to one that is visual-spatial, the talents of dyslexics will be increasingly needed as various visual technologies are adopted. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 national conference of the Orton Dyslexia Society (that later became the International Dyslexia Association, as noted above). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Many of the major figures in the field spoke at this three-day meeting. This included Patience Thomson, Head of Fairley House School, London, England -- who Thomas West and his wife Margaret later came to know 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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. (Full program listing to be provided.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(10) West’s lecture was part of a 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. West’s talk was also part of an associated visitor tour. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West and his wife 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">When one of the West party asked whether there might be life on other planets, they were treated to wave after wave of stars and planets washing across on the large wall made up of many 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(11) The Learning Disability Association of Taiwan. Three day-long presentations in three different cities. Three different translators -- from English into Mandarin Chinese language, alternating, English-Mandarin. 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 of the English. 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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Travel to Taiwan was linked to a prior conference in Hong Kong conducted in English and Cantonese (item 17 below, not provided here). (The organizer of the Taiwan talks, Wei-Pi Hung, over 12 months, translated West’s book, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, into Chinese, with traditional characters. This book is to be provided to the archive along with the Japanese and Korean translations. To be confirmed.) Discussions of dyslexia in Taiwan were especially interesting since the culture puts extreme pressure on students. They should look pale and sleep deprived -- or they are not studying hard enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(12) In November 2014, West was invited to give five talks over one week for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore as part of effort to take advantage of the distinctive talents exhibited by dyslexic children and adults. Long a leader in technological and commercial innovation, Singapore is leading the world with this effort as well. (Several publications and web videos are available. Much more to come for this section.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Note: Full listing of some 50 - 60 events and documents, to date, available on request.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">***************************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Recent Events with Additional Biographical Detail and Excerpts<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West’s three books have had a number of editions and printings -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>(with editions in 1991, 1997, 2009 and 2020), <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i>(2004) and <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See </i>(2017). From 1991 to 2021, Thomas G. West has given hundreds of presentations in the U.S., and 19 countries in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia/Pacific region -- including Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">An indicator of continuing interest in these topics is that West was asked in recent years (2019-2022) to join a global network, based in Stockholm, Sweden, of those with high interest in the strengths and talents of dyslexic children and adults. This network includes researchers, advocates, practitioners and academics from Oxford, Cambridge and Sheffield universities in the UK as well as individuals associated with the Nobel Prize Foundation in Stockholm and a former advisor to the Swedish Royal Family (where three of five are dyslexic). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The regular meetings of the group have been held via Zoom every 4 to 6 weeks -- including network members from Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and the US. This network provides evidence that the interest in dyslexic strengths is global and continues to be a main focus for many researchers and practitioners.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">On June 9, 2020, West gave the commencement address (via Zoom) for graduates of Siena School, Silver Spring, Maryland, a high school for college-bound dyslexic students. (A copy of this address is to be provided in an appendix.) West has given additional talks (via Zoom and related technologies, recorded and/or live) in October and November 2020 for groups based in Amsterdam, Holland, Cairo, Egypt, and a group associated George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia -- as well as the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) annual conference based in the U.S. (previously planned for Denver, Colorado, later made virtual). In June 2021, West spoke via Zoom as part of a panel for a dyslexia and talent conference organized by the Dyslexia Association of Singapore. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Over the years, West’s investigations have led him to look beyond dyslexia to a wider range of learning differences. In his third book, <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, 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 often quite different from conventionally trained experts. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">With this book, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The items in this listing provide a sampling 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. A section with selected reviews and comments is provided in Appendix B.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Accordingly, this listing serves as a checklist of some of the associated materials not to be missed in the boxes and binders donated to the NLM History of Medicine permanent archive. The related documents include drafts of talks and research papers, printed programs with topic descriptions, speaker bios, newspaper clippings and other publicity, conference proceedings, associated drafts, chapters, books, journal articles. transcripts of oral histories (Caltech and others) and other materials -- including a listing acknowledging key individuals who have arranged talks, conferences and publications and have contributed to this effort in various ways over some 30 years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Related websites, videos, blogs, audio recordings, photographs, overhead transparency sheets, 35 mm film slides and Power Point images have been (or will be) provided separately. The West blog (below) has already been incorporated into the NLM History of Medicine digital archive system, with over 90 articles and commentaries to date. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Blog: (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><u><span style="color: blue;">inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com</span></u>)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">******************************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX A<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;">Note: The article below was requested for the book on the Dr. Lindberg’s life and career, published online February 1, 2022, by IOS Press, Amsterdam. (Hard cover, Much-April.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Transforming Biomedical Informatics and Health Information Access B.L. Humphreys et al. (Eds.) © 2021 The authors and IOS Press. This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0). doi:10.3233/SHTI211027 </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 31pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 26.5pt;">Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D., </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 24pt;">Visual Thinker and Medical Visionary</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Thomas G. WEST</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 8pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">1 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Washington D.C. U.S.A.</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Keywords. Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D., visual thinking, computer graphics technology, dyslexia, U.S. National Library of Medicine</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">1. Introduction </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">From the late 1980s until his retirement in 2015, I was privileged to observe the forward- thinking and astonishing depth, range, and liveliness of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) under the direction of Donald A. B. Lindberg M.D. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">As an outsider, I observed from my point of view as an ordinary library researcher. I mainly utilized NLM’s History of Medicine collections for information about innovative scientists like Michael Faraday and medical pioneers such as Dr. Harvey Cushing. Initially, I used the old paper index catalog cards, microfilm, and the early NLM mainframe computer information systems to research and prepare the manuscript for my first book, In the Mind’s Eye, published in spring 1991 [1]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I first met Dr. Lindberg at a gathering after a lecture in NLM’s Lister Hill Building. He asked about my work. I explained that my research focus concerned the talents of dyslexic individuals - together with visual thinking in the history of medicine and science. I was surprised to discover that Dr. Lindberg also was interested in these topics. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I later learned that these interests were partly a reflection of his personal history. Don’s father was an architect. Don was trained in a highly visual specialty, pathology, and some family members were dyslexic. As is often the case, this kind of personal history helps some to understand and appreciate the puzzling mixed strengths and weaknesses that accompany these life patterns. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I also was fascinated that Don’s interests included then-rapidly developing computer graphic technologies as well as the hidden talents of dyslexics (who often see things differently) to innovate and sometimes make scientific discoveries before conventionally trained experts in some fields. Over time, I began to appreciate that Dr. Lindberg had a remarkable ability to see where things were going and attract highly talented and creative people for his staff, NLM’s Board of Regents, and the Library’s diverse, inventive projects. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Over the years, Dr. Lindberg assumed leadership positions in several major areas - archiving massive amounts of genetic code information (within the National Center for Biomedical Information), providing research information in clinicaltrials.gov, and even leading a federal government-wide effort - the High-Performance Computing and </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><img height="3" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="109" /></span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 8pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 6.5pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">1 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Corresponding author: thomasgwest@gmail.com </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">417 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Communications Program (HPCC). He once remarked to me how difficult it was to deal with 500 HPCC emails a day. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg’s interest in visual thinking and dyslexia was evidenced when he asked me to be the after-dinner speaker at a meeting of NLM’s Board of Regents [2]. He accorded me the honor of describing the ideas I developed during my research and writing. I began my BOR speech with these words: </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">“My talk this evening is about a return to visual thinking. My subtitle ‘new technologies, old talents and reversed expectations,’ encapsulates my main thesis - that as we begin to use the newest technologies in really powerful ways (which we have hardly begun), we will begin to tap into some of our oldest and most “primitive” neurological (visual spatial) talents. In so doing, we will begin to see ourselves and our world with very different eyes – leading, in time, to fundamentally different attitudes towards education and concepts of intelligence, as well as the skills and talents that are considered to be the most valuable. . . .” </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">2. Advanced Applications </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">At NLM in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I witnessed the rapid changes in computer systems happening worldwide. Dr. Lindberg seemed to be simultaneously interested in the newest technologies, and at the same time, he respected the insights and sophisticated knowledge of early researchers and traditional cultures. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">For example, one morning I chanced to attend another lecture in NLM’s Lister Hill Building. The speaker was a sleepy young computer programmer and software engineer. He had been up all night, as he said, releasing to the World Wide Web thousands of copies of a new computer program he and a coworker designed - called a ‘browser.’ </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">As it turned out, it was ‘Mosaic,’ the first web browser of its kind. The young speaker was Marc Andreessen, then working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. Later, he became famous in the computer world for Netscape and the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Of course, these initiatives helped enable access to the Internet. They revolutionized mass communication - and I was privileged to see the very first day - primarily because of NLM and its forward-thinking director. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">3. Thinking Like Einstein on the Hokule’a </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">During his career, Dr. Lindberg became known as a significant innovator in using computers for healthcare research and practice. Under his direction, NLM pioneered broad access to medical information with Medline and PubMed. But Don also promoted a deeper understanding of less well-known groups with programs such as ‘Women in Medicine’ and ‘Native Voices.’ </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">‘Native Voices’ exemplified how Dr. Lindberg promoted the investigation of the traditional forms of medicine, widely ignored previously. In later years, I was thrilled to see that NLM played a significant role in a visit to Washington, D.C., during the round- the-world journey of the traditional Polynesian canoe, the Hokule’a - a double-hulled sailing canoe that enabled the early Polynesian peoples to travel among the islands of the broad Pacific Ocean. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">418</span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">I was delighted to see Dr. Lindberg’s interest in this area. Previously, I followed the renewed practice of traditional navigation methods and the significant influence of its rebirth in generating pride and reviving traditional Polynesian culture. Of course, the early traditional navigators used the stars and other natural signs. However, traditional navigators also taught themselves to feel long-distance ocean swells to maintain a heading - and how the absence of ‘shadow’ in these swells could indicate the presence of an island, out of sight, over the horizon. I wrote about these insights in my second book, Thinking Like Einstein [3]. Indeed, the intended full title for the second book was to have been: Thinking Like Einstein on the Hokule’a. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg was well aware of how traditional cultures used visual abilities in highly sophisticated ways - with a minimum of technology and a sophisticated integration of profoundly understood natural forces. I was amazed and delighted when the Hokule'a tied up for several days at the Washington Canoe Club on the Potomac River in the middle of Washington, DC. Nainoa Thompson, the chief traditional navigator, gave a major talk at NLM about traditional navigation methods. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Like Andreessen, NLM provided a stage for an important person (who was not well known outside of Polynesia) to provide fresh perspectives and ideas. In a way, both talks were so typical of Dr. Lindberg’s NLM. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Moreover, I enjoyed several conversations with Nainoa at the Canoe Club, where he confirmed his special visual-spatial skills in traditional navigation probably were linked to his dyslexia. We talked about our everyday dyslexia experiences and the dyslexia of some family members. It all seemed to support the theory from Harvard neurologist and dyslexia researcher Norman Geschwind, M.D., who suggested the visual-spatial abilities often seen among dyslexics yielded an array of socio-cultural benefits [4]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">4. Dr. Lindberg’s Prescient Leadership </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Over time, I beheld how prescient Dr. Lindberg was in providing leadership during an era of enormous change and rapid progress. Don used his broad interests and deep understanding of the potential of computer systems in the service of medical knowledge and practice. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">One especially forward-looking conference was organized in mid-February 2000. At Dr. Lindberg’s direction. The ‘Visualization Research Agenda Meeting - The Impact of Visualization Technologies - Using Vision to Think’ considered how: ‘new visualization technologies are giving us new ways of seeing and understanding: bringing diverse worlds together, transforming the nature of education and work, redefining what we understand is talent and intelligence.’ The meeting focused on the implications of visualization technology for education and professional training, as well as how to build an appropriate research program. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">It was a small but diverse meeting with only 22 attendees. NLM’s participants included Dr. Lindberg, Alexa McCray, Michael Ackerman, and Steve Phillips. Other attendees represented: five institutes at the U.S. National Institutes of Health; two from the Smithsonian Institution; three from computer graphics organizations; and six persons with knowledge and experience regarding dyslexia, giftedness, and the brain’s evolution. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Among those in attendance was Alvy Ray Smith, Ph.D., a strong advocate for the power of computer graphics in many spheres. Dr. Smith was one of the two founders of the Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, CA. Dr. Smith was a member of NLM’s Board of Regents and helped with the Visible Human Project and other related programs. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">419 </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Other attendees included William J. Dreyer, Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, who provided a striking example of the power of dyslexic visual thinking in science and medicine. Dr. Dreyer had been a classic dyslexic when young; his reading, spelling, and arithmetic assessment scores were substandard. But having performed well on other tests, Dr. Dreyer went on to study biology - and gradually realized he could tell his professors what experiments to do and what the results would be. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Previously, Dr. Dreyer revealed that his dyslexic imagination enabled him to visualize molecular biology and chemistry processes that led to a new and controversial theory about the human immune system. Dr. Dreyer espoused the theory for about 12 years - providing concepts based on data from instruments that he designed and built himself. However, Dr. Dreyer’s data was in a form so new and unconventional that almost everyone in his field could not understand what he was talking about. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Years later, Dr. Dreyer was vindicated and proven correct. When Susumu Tonegawa was awarded a Nobel Prize (physiology or medicine, 1987) for work he had done in Switzerland, his innovative sequencing work demonstrated (through experiments that were illegal in the U.S. at the time) that Dreyer and his colleague’s predictions were correct. In the words of two scientific historians of this period: ‘This experiment marked the point of no return for the domination of the antibody diversity question by nucleotide studies: it was Susumu Tonegawa’s final proof of the Dreyer-Bennett V-C translocation hypothesis through the use of restriction enzymes’ [5]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg’s views on dyslexic insight were summarized in a quotation he kindly provided for the back cover of my third book, Seeing What Others Cannot See. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">‘West argues convincingly that dyslexics . . . seem to fail in elementary school learning while excelling at the broader level of graduate school. Many whose stories he recites were smashing successes in business. West urges that this is because of extra gifts in visual learning and thinking. He goes beyond praising dyslexics’ hidden strengths in visual thinking and learning, their ability to see what others cannot see - he demands that we stop hiding the imaginative strengths of all children under their weaknesses in reading.’ - Donald Lindberg, M.D., Director Emeritus, National Library of Medicine [6]. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">5. Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">A major conference where Dr. Lindberg and I were on program provided insights into the history of medical education. The 50</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 8pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">th </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">reunion of Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine occurred from September 17-19, 1998, in Phoenix, Arizona. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Other speakers included: Gerald M. Edelman, Scripps Research Institute (Nobel Prize winner), and Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education (MacArthur Prize winner). Markle Scholars were professors identified by their medical school deans as the best teachers in the U.S. and Canada for several decades after World War II. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">In my talk, I spoke primarily about visual thinking among creative scientists and some then-recent developments in computer graphic technologies. However, I also mentioned how visual thinking and associated innovation sometimes were linked to dyslexia and other related learning differences. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Remarkably, during the three-day conference, many (nearly one half of the attendees and their spouses) spoke to me about their dyslexia (two surgeons from Johns Hopkins, for example) or told stories of dyslexia among their family members or their more creative and innovative coworkers. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">420</span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Italic"; font-size: 10.5pt;">T.G. West / Personal Memories of Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">As I look back, I am enormously grateful for the privilege of knowing Dr. Lindberg and his wife, Mary. Rightly, it is now often said both presided over the Golden Age of the National Library of Medicine. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">Dr. Lindberg’s vision was broad and deep, often including early consideration of diverse topics that only later became evident within the mainstream. Don took over a massive medical library primarily designed to serve various medical specialists - and using the newest technologies, he pushed the boundaries to serve the nation and, eventually, the world. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 13pt;">References</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[1] West TG. In the mind’s eye, creative visual thinkers, gifted dyslexics and the rise of visual technologies. 1</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 6.5pt; position: relative; top: -4pt;">st</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">ed. Amherst, NY.: Prometheus Books; 1991. 3rd Ed. Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group; 2020. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[2] West TG. A return to visual thinking: new technologies, old talents and reversed expectations. Bethesda, MD.: NLM Board of Regents Meeting; May 26, 1993. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[3] West TG. Thinking like Einstein: returning to our visual roots with the emerging revolution in computer information visualization. Amherst NY.: Prometheus Books; 2004. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[4] Geschwind N, Galaburda AM. Cerebral lateralization: biological mechanisms, associations, and pathology. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press; 1987, p. 97-104. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[5] Tauber, AI, Podolsky SH. The generation of diversity: clonal selection theory and the rise of molecular immunology. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; 1997, p. 207. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times Roman"; font-size: 10.5pt;">[6] West TG. Seeing what others cannot see: the hidden advantages of visual thinkers and differently wired brains. Amherst, NY.: Prometheus Books; 2017. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">***************************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX B<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Foreword with Selected Reviews and Comments -- T. G. West <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Foreword to the Second Edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">by Oliver Sacks, M.D.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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, <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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’ [defective in visual thinking]. 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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<i>Thinking in Pictures</i>), she was taken aback when I said I could hardly visualize anything: ‘How <i>do</i>you think?’ she asked. Grandin herself has very heightened spatial and visual imagination, and thinks in very concrete images.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 <i>Frames of Mind</i>as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Oliver Sacks, M.D., January 2, 2009. Dr. Sacks, a British neurologist residing in the US, is most widely known for his book <i>Awakenings</i>(1973) that was made into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Also well known are his books <i>An Anthropologist from Mars</i>(1995), <i>Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf</i>(1989) and <i>The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat</i>(1985). A recent book is titled <i>The Mind’s Eye</i>(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 <i>New York Times</i>said that Sacks “has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Since he first published <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>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."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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 <i>The Mislabeled Child </i>(Hyperion, 2006) and <i>The Dyslexic Advantage</i>(Hudson Street Press, 2011). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. . . . 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Jim Romeo, New York Academy of Sciences, <i>Update Magazine</i>, April/May 2004, “Getting Scientific about Why Johnny Can’t Read--Understanding Dyslexia.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> “Unfortunately, I did not discover this wonderful book [<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>by Thomas G. West] before I wrote <i>Thinking in Pictures</i>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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Temple Grandin, “The List,” <i>The Week</i>magazine, March 3, 2006, describing why she has included <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>on her list of her six favorite books. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Dear Tom: Thanks for sending me your epilogue [to the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>]. 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”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Email of August 17, 2009. Dr. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Grandin is a professor of animal science and is author of the memoir <i>Thinking in Pictures</i>(dealing with her life with autism) and the best-selling book <i>Animals in Translation</i>. An HBO cable TV film based on Grandin’s life debuted February 6, 2010, starring Claire Dane. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews -- being nominated for 15 Emmy Awards and winning seven. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Howard Gardner, PhD, letter of October 15, 1996. Dr. Gardner is author of many books, including <i>Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences</i>(BasicBooks, 1983) and <i>Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century</i>(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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.’ <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>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<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Blurb above sent to Thomas G. West by Dr. Oliver Sacks for use with the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, October 23, 2008. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Additional Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Alvy Ray Smith, PhD, 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 <i>Tin Toy</i>, the first 3-dimensional computer animation ever to win an Academy Award. This team later produced the first completely computer-generated motion picture, <i>Toy Story</i>. 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. Dr. Smith has recently released a new book, <i>A Biography of the Pixel</i>, which provides a detailed history of how pixel-based images have come to dominate all aspects of the modern world. “</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The Great Digital Convergence of all media types into one universal digital medium occurred, with little fanfare, at the recent turn of the millennium. The bit became the universal medium, and the pixel -- a particular packaging of bits -- conquered the world.” (From the publisher, MIT Press, August 2021.)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. . . [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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Loren Pope, “The Learning Disabled of Today Will Be the Gifted of Tomorrow,” in <i>Colleges That Change Lives</i>(Penguin, New York, 2000 and 2006).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“. . . I entirely agree with [Dr. Doris Kelly] when she says that [<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>] 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- T.R. Miles, Ph.D., in <i>Dyslexia Contact</i>, June 1993, pp. 14-15. The late Dr. Miles was Professor Emeritus, University College of North Wales, and Vice President of the British Dyslexia Association.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>CALCULUS&</i><i>Mathematica</i>, 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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<i>&Mathematica</i>(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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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. . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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 <i>Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science</i>, Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1993. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Review by Joan Freeman, <i>European Journal for High Ability</i>, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 -- <i>now</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Susan Parkinson, editor, newsletter of The Arts Dyslexia Trust (United Kingdom), November 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Lord Renwick, Chairman, European Informatics Market (EURIM), Vice-President, Past Chairman, The British Dyslexia Association. Electronic mail of October 30, 1996. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“The original title is <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. The Japanese title <i>Geniuses Who Hated School</i>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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Review in <i>Kagaku Asahi</i>, the monthly Japanese science magazine, August 1994, p. 92. Review translated by Yoshiko G. Doherty.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one’s thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Roeper Review</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">, Vol. 15, No. 1, September 1992, p. 54.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">****************************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX C<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Summary Slides, Basic Approach<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Note: The presentation slides in talks provided by West are usually made up of images of people, places, books and other graphic material -- sometimes with just a few key words or phrases to be discussed by the speaker. However, occasional longer text slides, like those below, have been incorporated in recent years to emphasize certain concepts and points of view, especially when they are significantly different from what many in the audience might expect or believe.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Text Slides Used in Talks by Thomas West<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Some want to teach mainly reading in order to bring dyslexics up to normal levels with “basic skills.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• But, instead, others want to study the dyslexic “super stars” to learn how they did it. <i>Indeed,</i><i>how similar they are to ourselves</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Studying success, we hope to learn things that are useful to dyslexics and others, especially in a rapidly-changing global technological and economic context with massive data, high speed links, “deep learning” and AI.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Basic skills have no market value. </span></i><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">(Norbert Weiner, <i>Cybernetics</i>, 1948.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">***************</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Many dyslexics and strong visual thinkers seem poorly adapted to the old technologies of words and books, memorizing old knowledge. <br /><br />• But many seem perfectly adapted to the new technologies of complex information visualized in computer graphic images and simulations, creating new knowledge, seeing what others cannot see.<br /><br />• Need to find ways to help students identify and employ their distinctive capabilities. Look to the highly successful. What to teach. How to teach. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">***************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Tell the Young Dyslexics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Time is on your side. All the things you have had trouble with are becoming less and less important. All the things you are good at are becoming more and more important. (See EY business consultant reports.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Machines are now doing the reading and rapid recall and clerical tasks. Humans should not to do machine work. Rather, humans need to visualize, see the big picture, understand, recognize patterns, consider slowly and ponder what it all means, where to go and how to get there. (Versus narrow specialist PhD training -- as basic things change and then change again.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">**************<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Samuel Torrey Orton, MD, in his 1925 paper on “Word Blindness”<br /><br />• Iowa, Mobile Psychiatric Units (Orton almost became an engineer.)<br />• He requested to see those “failing in their school.” (142 were referred.)<br />• Patient MP, 16, “inability to read.” But Orton could see that he was very bright. <br /><br />• Orton wrote: “Stanford-Binet method [then a new test] . . . did not do justice to the boy’s mental equipment. . . . The test is inadequate to gauge . . . facile use of visual imagery of . . . complex type . . . good visualizing power . . . his replies were prompt and keen.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Desire for New Tests and Measures<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As I told a group of young dyslexic students: “We need to develop a new series of tests where the dyslexics will get the top score and the non-dyslexics will get the bottom score.” I had not been sure how many had been paying close attention. But to my surprise, my assertion brought spontaneous and enthusiastic applause. Their reaction tells us a lot about what they have been through – and how much they hunger for recognition of the things that they can do well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0in; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Often Nobel Prize winners seem to immediately understand what we are talking about when discussing visual thinking, visual technologies, dyslexia and the advantages of seeing things differently in 3D space. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Many school psychologists and conventional educators do not. Often they are trained to design courses and tests that ignore or discourage seeing things differently. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">***************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexics are unlike non-dyslexics -- but they are also unlike each other. With highly varied traits, they are an essentially heterogeneous group, hard to measure and categorize. Nature’s way of creating brains that are really different. This is an advantage to the larger group over long periods of time. (Dr. Norman Geschwind) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">***************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Stories: We should listen to individual stories in depth first, then collect data. As a good medical history tells you what to look for and what to measure and what data to collect. <i>Anecdotes, and family histories, may lead to treasures of understanding</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Sometimes we count the wrong things. Many dyslexic talents are invisible to conventional tests and measures. (So the resulting data may appear to be solid and scientific. But, instead, the hard data might actually confirm errors and misunderstandings -- wrongly seen as if they were facts, or may entirely miss the point.) <i>Diversity is not a pathology.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Many talk of a “scientific survey.” In old science: researchers want to generalize based on large populations. Small percentages do not matter. However, in new science: Small percents do matter. Individuals matter. Differences matter. Nano scales matter. There is sensitivity to initial conditions. The new focus of “precision medicine.” <i>The power of the small.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Of course, insights gained from anecdotes and family histories must always be tested properly using appropriate methods and measures (old or new). However, these sources should be seen as valuable in gaining insights not ordinarily available with conventional methods and sample selection, especially when the findings are opposite from those that would otherwise be expected. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*******************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Visualization seen as important in new ways of teaching mathematics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“I want you to know that reading your book and the conversations we had at the SIGGRAPH [computer graphics] 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 <i>Calculus &</i><i>Mathematica</i>, 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 [using memorized mathematics].” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span face=""ヒラギノ明朝 ProN W3"" style="font-size: 14pt;">–</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">J. Jerry Uhl, PhD, Math Department Head, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*******************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexia, visual thinking, thinking in 3D space and visual technologies: varied levels of interest observed in these ideas and concepts while giving talks over more than 25 years.<br /><br />• Nobel Prize winners and high-level, creative scientists are often interested; conventionally trained educators and school psychologists are usually not interested.<br /><br />• Groups like NASA Ames, the Max Planck Institutes, Oxford and Cambridge University researchers, NLM-NIH, the Dyslexia Association of Singapore, GCHQ in the UK and Hong Kong doctors are interested </span><span lang="MR" style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">–</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">these are practitioners, innovators, discoverers, practical users.<br /><br />• Many conventional tests and measures do not capture these talents. Need new tests. How to recognize and develop high potential . . . How to show the way. . . For dyslexics, and for other different thinkers, for all of us -- to show the path, innovating for major problems, in a new digital age of AI . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Concerning a really revolutionary discovery in science and technology. When you seek the origins of these discoveries, you should not be surprised to find a dyslexic. Because they are less full of previously memorized knowledge, and mostly think in pictures, often the dyslexics can observe closely with an open mind and can see what others cannot see. (Especially an advantage for Nobel Prize winners, of course -- because, they must, almost by definition, see things differently than conventional thinkers.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">********************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX D<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Visualization Research Agenda Meeting,”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">National Library of Medicine, February 15-16, 2000.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Brief Quotations to Provide Background and Context”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Misconceptions Widespread --<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Concerning the question of whether technically creative people will ever be comfortable with artistically created people. I have seen two very different working environments, up close, that give two very different pictures. Pixar is an excellent example of how the two types can and do work harmoniously together -- with equal respect, dignity, salary, promotion opportunities, company ownership and mutual admiration. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“My other experience is Microsoft, which, frankly, just does not ‘get it’ about artists. The technologically creative people here are awesome and Microsoft is the best run company I’ve ever seen, but the people here don’t respect artists in that deep way I just described at Pixar. They seem to believe the really good talents in the world are technical and if you can’t cut it then you do other things, like art. In other words, the culture here doesn’t, not yet anyway, welcome the other side. I’m trying to change this, but it isn’t so yet.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Alvy Ray Smith, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, interview, in <i>ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics</i>, May 1999.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Recent trends, broad implications, now reversing talents -- <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Until the 1960s, a student in an American engineering school was expected by his teachers to use his minds eye to examine things that engineers had designed, to look at them, listen to them, walk around them and thus develop an intuitive feel for the way the material world works and sometimes doesn’t work. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“By the 1980s, engineering curricula had shifted to analytical [and mathematical] approaches, so that visual and other sensual knowledge of the world seemed less relevant. As faculties dropped drawing and shop practice from their curricula and [professors] deemed plant and factory visits unnecessary, working knowledge of the material world disappeared from faculty agendas and therefore from student agendas, and the nonverbal, tacit, and intuitive understanding essential to engineering design atrophied.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Eugene S. Ferguson, <i>Engineering and the Minds Eye</i>, the MIT press, 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Special ability, fundamental in creative science, often ignored -- <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Spatial ability has been given only token attention as an important dimension of cognitive functioning. Research on the structure, identification, and development of spatial abilities has been conducted by a few researchers around the world [but] often ignored by the psychological and educational community. In addition, special ability has played only a modest role in educational assessment and instruction. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth, Center for Talented Youth, Johns Hopkins University.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Professional implications, screening out talent -- <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The engineering profession is being denied potentially innovative engineers by the present school system. As it is now structured, it screens out and discourages students who have abilities similar to those of the large number of presently practicing engineers, most of whom graduated before 1960. That innovative group, trained on vacuum tube technology, developed semiconductor electronics lasers, optical communications, satellite communications -- and put a man on the moon. I believe that a significant portion of these engineers are right brain dominant hand or compensated dyslexics. The type of students entering engineering school now is different from the student of the 1940s and 1950s. There is far more screening out today of right brain and moderately dyslexic students. Unfortunately too many companies will only hire graduates with high grades -- which is no indication of an engineer’s ingenuity. These potential employers should instead keep an open eye keep and open mind about right brain and dyslexic students, who could fill positions where their innovative and intuitive approaches to problems could be utilized.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Walter W. Fry, retired electrical engineer formerly with the Brookhaven National laboratory, “Speak Out.” <i>IEEE Spectrum</i>, December 1990. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Changes in Screening Methods Over Time -- T. G. West<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Note: Above observations possible in this time period because these innovative engineers were then alive. Some 30 years later, most of these engineers are gone. All the young engineers have been screened by standardized tests -- and have been trained to focus on mathematical approaches rather than “hands on” visual learning. So all are now able to memorize well and past modern tests. But perhaps few are able to do really major innovation, perhaps based on insights from innovative visual thinking. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Similar might be said of the older doctors who attended the Markle Foundation reunion, where many told West of their own dyslexia or the dyslexia of near family members. See item 2 above. Need to provide more discussion on this speculation. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Compare UK leadership prior to WWI where top government people prided themselves on knowing no science; they were all trained mainly in Greek and Latin literature and proud of reading major ancient texts in the original Greek every few years. (To obtain quotation on this from Bragg family. Also, similar to observation of Prof. John Stein, below, about highly innovative dyslexic Oxford dermatology professor, see below.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Modern selection methods may effectively select out some of the most creative and individuals in various professional groups. So much depends upon what kinds of tests and section methods are used during certain historical periods.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Parallel efforts, Finding Talent at Oxford University––<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Oxford University is currently mounting an effort to try to find ways to identify highly talented students who would not pass the usual screening mechanisms currently in place. One specific example given is a dyslexic dermatologist who has been a leader in his field, teaching at Oxford with many innovative papers and professional awards. Because of his weaknesses in test taking, however, he would not be admitted to Oxford today. They want to see how screening may be altered to change this situation. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Professor John Stein, lecture in physiology, Oxford University, personal communication, London, June 1999.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A longer term expectation––<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I have often argued in my public talks that the graduate education process that produces physicists is totally skewed to selecting those with analytical [and mathematical] skills and rejecting those with visual or holistic skills. I have claimed that with the rise of scientific visualization as a new mode of discovery, a new class of minds will arise as scientists. In my own life, my guru in computational science was dyslexic and he certainly saw the world in a different and much more effective manner then his own colleagues. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Larry Smarr, National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Personal communication. [See his email.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">***************************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 16pt;">APPENDIX E <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 16pt;">Acknowledgements<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Most of the presentations, events and publications listed here result mainly from the vision, energy, advocacy and leadership of a small number of highly committed individuals. [Very preliminary here. More to come -- along with more on the main connections for each. Alpha order. -- TGW]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Susanna Cederquist -- Author of Swedish language book, <i>Dyslexia plus Talent equals Truth; </i>former consultant on dyslexia for Swedish Royal Family; founder of international group WHOLE, with monthly Zoom meetings for those interested in the talents of dyslexics.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">William J. Dreyer, PhD -- Professor, Caltech, dyslexic molecular biologist; his innovative research led to Nobel Prize (for another scientist); with his dyslexic imagination he could easily assemble molecules in 3D space and tell his professors what experiments to do and what the results would be; started seven biotech companies; invited West to visit him at Caltech to hear his life story; see section in third book; his interviews are included in the Caltech oral history project (have paper transcript with his notations). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide -- Authors of the book <i>Dyslexic Advantage</i>; other books, websites, newsletter, courses for teachers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dr. Angela Fawcett and David Fawcett -- Professor, coauthor <i>Dyslexia, Learning and the Brain</i>, editor, UK journal “Dyslexia” and later, in Singapore, “Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Kate Griggs -- Co-founder with Richard Branson, Made By Dyslexia, UK.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Deborah Hewes -- Head of Publications, Dyslexia Association of Singapore.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lord (Charles) Hindlip -- Chair of Christie’s Auction House, London; Chair of Arts Dyslexia Trust for 5 years; provided Introduction for handmade large format book <i>Art Works</i>published by the ADT to raise funds for the charity. (Second Introduction for this book provided by T.G.West.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">John R. (Jack) Horner -- Dinosaur researcher, Spielberg film consultant, Bozeman, Montana -- Two joint conference talks with West; two visits to Montana museum and digs; West interview of Horner filmed by Japanese film crew NHK, personal, never broadcast; to be available in West archive; Horner explains why he teaches his 19 graduate students to “think like a dyslexic” because dyslexics “have never been in the box.” His dyslexic grad student made discovery of blood vessels inside fossil bone more than 60 million years old; started molecular level research approach, never thought possible before.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Donald A. B. Lindberg, MD. Former Director of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. (See Appendix A.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Adrianne Noe, PhD. -- Director, National Museum of Health and Medicine; organized in September 2007, museum display and panel of speakers for dedication of device designed by William J. Dreyer, PhD, of Caltech -- the first gas-phase automated protein sequencer, patented in 1977. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Susan Parkinson -- Founder, the Arts Dyslexia Trust, arranged for many talks for art and scientific groups in the UK; Mall Galleries, London, May 1994; Crypt, St. Martin in the Fields, London. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lord (Harry) Renwick -- Long-term advocate for dyslexics in House of Lords; Vice President, British Dyslexia Association. Arranged several conferences concerning dyslexia and business. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rod Nicholson -- Professor, Edge Hill University, coauthor, <i>Dyslexia, Learning and the Brain</i>, author, <i>Positive Dyslexia.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Marc I. Rowe, MD -- Dyslexic pediatric surgeon, top award, Ladd Metal. His story included in later editions of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lee Siang -- CEO, Dyslexia Association of Singapore. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">John Stein, MD -- Professor, Oxford University, Dyslexia Trust.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Patience Bragg Thomson -- Publisher, teacher, school head; scientific family with many dyslexics, many visual thinkers and four Nobel Prize winners. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jo and Richard Todd -- Key 4 Learning. Consultants, GCHQ, UK Government; helped to arrange the first “Diversity Day” at GCHQ. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-84158357789825212762021-08-30T21:35:00.004-04:002021-08-30T21:49:54.630-04:00<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Updated Listing for History of Medicine<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Events and Documents for West Archive</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">National Library of Medicine, NIH </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">New Short Version, August 30, 2021<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> Working Draft, in Process </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">First 13 Listings</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">__________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Short Sample Listings of 13 Significant Events and Documents<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Archive Introduction and Guide in the <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18.66666603088379px;">Following Section</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(Total of 72 listings, to date, available on request.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">(1) Thomas G. West was invited to be the main speaker in June 2006 at the first “Diversity Day” for the staff of GCHQ, descendants of Bletchley Park in Cheltenham, England. (World War II code breakers and the source of “Ultra,” the extremely secret intelligence source for Winston Churchill, never revealed to the public until the 1970s). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">According to one employee at GCHQ, “while people with neuro-diversity may be viewed as ‘odd or weird,’ they are ‘fully accepted’ at GCHQ.” Cyber experts and officials at GCHQ make it clear that their dyslexic employees are highly valued workers. As one spokesperson said, they can crack complex problems because they are dyslexic and see patterns that others do not see: “most people only get to see the jigsaw puzzle when it’s nearly finished while the dyslexic cryptographists can see what the jigsaw puzzle looks like with just two pieces.” See section on GCHQ in West’s book <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See, </i>2017, pp. 147-150, “Seeing the Puzzle with Only Two Pieces -- Learning Differences at GCHQ.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The GCHQ diversity program included an informal gathering of employees the following Saturday with a nearby village walk and pub lunch -- where one teen-aged son said, “Now I finally begin to understand my father.” At one point, after an around the village walk, West found himself sitting with a group of seven at the edge of our host’s garden, gradually realizing that all of those with him had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Among other things, they discussed <i>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time</i> by Mark Haddon and connections with a Sherlock Holmes story (the significance of “the dog that did not bark”). More is to be provided about this most important meeting. It is apparent that GCHQ and similar organizations would be excellent places to investigate and better understand extraordinarily high performance in the rapidly changing modern world, seeking positive links between visual thinking, dyslexia, autism and other forms of different thinking, learning and working.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(2) An annual meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany. See chapter in the book compiled from the proceedings of this conference: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking,” <i>Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft</i>, 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 <i>Computers and Physics</i>. The separate article in English along with the German language proceedings volume have already been donated to the archive collection. (To be confirmed. -- TGW.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">During informal discussions after his talk, West was told of dyslexia and other learning differences within the families of famous German physicists. It is noteworthy that this large high-level meeting in November 1993 was dominated by conventional “main frame thinking” and remarkably antiquated technologies. For example, we had to move to a small conference room to show video clips on a TV; this was not possible in the large lecture theater. (This is, in fact, shown in one of the photographs provided in the printed proceedings book; West is shown looking at a computer graphic image on a TV screen in the conference room.) In dramatic contrast, in the conference in Amsterdam, in October of that same year, the designers, artists, architects and computer professionals had already adopted and were using the latest technologies in all the presentations. West was told that most of the Max Planck institutes were build around one leading or famous scientist -- and as these scientists would age there was less incentive to adopt new methods and technologies. (See item 4 below.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(3) 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 -- for discussion with other attendees. The conference handout (to be provided separately for the NLM archive) includes 210 images with names and organizations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">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; he was 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 atomic structure, and later, the discovery of the structure of DNA. (The image was supplied to West by Bragg’s daughter, Patience Bragg Thomson, former head of a school for dyslexic students in London. This family includes, over five generations, many visual occupations, many dyslexics and four winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">West had several conversations with Dr. Mandelbrot at this conference. Dr. Mandelbrot 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 of computer graphics, available to in-house IBM researchers, well before others). These aspects are seen as signature indictors of the work of a classic visually-oriented dyslexic approach. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(4) The Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Doors of Perception,” October 30-31, 1993, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, organized by The Netherlands Design Institute and <i>Mediamatic</i> magazine. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">West was one of several invited speakers. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">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. . . .” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Other speakers included Louis Rossetto, the founding editor and publisher of the first <i>Wired</i> magazine (published in Europe well before beginning publication in the US; later sold to a major magazine publisher in the US, condenast.com). 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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(5) Invited speaker at 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 the large, steeply sloped, 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 it’s star at the time of observation). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(6) Invited speaker for the Learning Disability Association of Taiwan. Three day-long presentations in three different cities. Three different translators -- from English into Mandarin Chinese language, alternating, not simultaneous. One formal professor was 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 of the talk. 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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Travel to Taiwan was linked to a prior conference in Hong Kong conducted in English and Cantonese. The organizer of the Taiwan talks, Wei-Pi Hung, PhD, over 12 months, translated West’s book, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, into Chinese, with traditional (old form) characters. A copy of this book is to be provided to the archive along with the Japanese and Korean translations. Discussions of dyslexia in Taiwan were especially interesting since the larger culture puts extreme pressure on all students. They should look pale and sleep deprived -- or they are not studying hard enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(7) In November 2014, West was invited to visit Singapore to give five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore as part of their effort (</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“Embrace Dyslexia</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">”) to take advantage of the distinctive talents exhibited by dyslexic children and adults</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">, as a form of economic competitive advantage. Long a leader in technology and commerce, Singapore is leading the world in this effort as well. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Several publications and web videos are available for the NLM West archive. (Among others, please see the invited article for the then new journal: </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 2014. “Amazing Shortcomings, Amazing Strengths: Beginning to Understand the Hidden Talents of Dyslexics,” <i>Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences</i>, vol. 1, no. 1, January 2014, pp. 78-89.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">)</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (8) Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion, September 17-19, 1998, Arizona Biltmore Resort. Speakers included, among others: Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, Director, National Library of Medicine; 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Markle Scholar award winners were identified by their medical school deans 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, as it turned out, 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. However, West also spoke of how visual thinking and associated innovation were sometimes linked to dyslexia and other related learning differences. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">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 for the archive. -- TGW) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (9) 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 title of West’s talk was: “ ‘Strephs,’ Tumbling Symbols and Technological Change: The Implications of Dyslexia Research in a World Turned Upside Down.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The program booklet for this Boston Dyslexia Conference included an article by West which was reprinted with permission from <i>Computer Graphics</i>, August 1996 issue: “Images and Reversals, Talking Less, Drawing More.” This article was introduced by the conference booklet editor: “The following article was prepared by Thomas G. West as part of the series of articles requested by the editor of <i>Computer Graphics</i> magazine, a publication of the International Association 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 rapid technological change on the other. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[An excerpt from the article:] “ ‘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 <i>Faust</i>, 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“ ‘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 section gathered in the center, divorced from relevant text, and treated as little more than decoration.’ (<i>Eight Little Piggies</i>, Norton, 1993) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[End of excerpt. The Orton Dyslexia Society was later renamed The International Dyslexia Association in Memory of Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(10) 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The conference talks were collected into a book: <i>Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates</i>, Drake D. Duane, MD, editor, York Press, 1999. West’s talk is Chapter 11, “Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(11) 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 state of New York, the Wadsworth Center is similar to the U.S. Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Indeed, it was established long before the Federal level CDC and has a similar broad range of responsibilities and missions. (Details of mission and programs to be provided.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">West was invited to speak by the Head of the Center, a virologist, who he met at a dinner of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine. The visit included an extensive tour of the Center facilities, programs and missions -- along with several Q&A discussions with Center staff. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(12) The New York Branch of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Twentieth Anniversary Conference, Language & Medical Symposia on Dyslexia, March 18-20, 1993. As the economy moves from a primarily verbal orientation to one that is visual-spatial, the talents of dyslexics will be increasingly 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 national conference of the Orton Dyslexia Society (that later became the International Dyslexia Association, as noted). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Many of the major figures in the field at the time spoke at this three-day meeting. This included Patience Thomson, Head of Fairley House School, London, England -- who Thomas West and his wife Margaret later came to know 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Bragg Thomson family over five generations includes many visual thinkers, many dyslexics and four winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics. (See item 44 and Appendix B.) Other speakers at the New York meeting were major figures in the field: 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. (Full program listing to be provided.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(13) Nortel UK Business Leaders Conference, 1994. (Excerpt from posting July 19, 2021. Needs further editing. With UK spellings and punctuation style; without additional quotation marks.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;">You can imagine West’s surprise when he read during a background search earlier today, an article in the UK magazine, <i>Computer Weekly</i>, on the life and work of Harry Renwick -- a man West came to know during several UK visits as one who shared his strong interest in dyslexic strengths as well as the longer-term impact of computer systems, especially computer graphics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;">West was pleased to be asked to speak at the small 1994 conference of UK business and government leaders, sponsored by the former Canadian telecom company, Nortel -- and he was honored to be remembered in Philip Virgo’s recollection of that conference. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;">Below is an excerpt from the article: “Lord Harry Renwick -- Tech Visionary and Catalyst” by Philip Virgo in <i>Computer Weekly</i>, October 28, 2020. (Lord Renwick passed away in August of 2020. The rest of the article provides fascinating information about Harry Renwick’s dyslexia and computer work and his father’s work in WWII. His war work was considered so valuable that he was awarded the last of the hereditary titles ever given.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;">“Lord Harry Renwick had the dyslexic gift of envisioning complex technologies and grasping their implications, long before others, without offending those who could not understand how he did so. As chairman of the British Dyslexia Association from 1977 – 82 and subsequently a Vice President he also helped a generation of those at the cutting edge of technology to appreciate the need to identify and harness the talent of potential Faradays, Einsteins, Teslas, Edisons, Churchills, Pattons (and Bransons) rather than exclude them from mainstream education -- as too expensive to diagnose and then too disruptive. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;">“His maiden speech in the House of Lords in 1975 cannot be bettered as an introduction to the plight of those . . . who are still, today, more likely to end up in Feltham Young Offenders than have their talents recognised and harnessed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;">“Envisioning the Future <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;">“My own favourite memory of Lord Renwick is from 1994 when he persuaded Nortel, then leading the world into the future, to host a short residential conference on “Envisioning the Future”. Thomas ‘In the Mind’s Eye’ West introduced discussions which ranged from the past, present and future of deep-fakery (both analogue and digital), through techniques of using technology to display complexity (including that based on big data) to the way the industrial tectonic and geo-political plates were changing, with the resurgence of those who had been running complex civilisations for several millennia longer than Western Europe or North America. I plagiarised the material for my entry for the Conference to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Leo, the world’s first business computer.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif;">End of excerpt. TGW<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">_______________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Introduction and Guide to the Archive and Listings -- May, July 2021<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">From 1991 to 2021, 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 significance of these invited talks, seminars and workshops by the extent to which the simple but powerful ideas he learned from two prescient neurologists have been received and given serious consideration by those interested in the strengths and talents of individuals with dyslexia and other learning differences -- together with the related major cultural changes being brought about by advances in computer graphics, computer simulation, visual thinking and advanced information visualization technologies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Throughout his research, West has relied heavily on the extensive primary sources made available by the collections and archives of the National Library of Medicine and the Library of Congress. Conventional biographers and historians sometimes do not understand the significance of the details and life patterns of highly visual innovators and other different thinkers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">This listing of selected events and documents, with informal brief descriptions addressed to archive users, is intended to show evidence of the gradual development and effectiveness of these perspectives and efforts -- as well as provide researchers, advocates and other archive users with a guide to available resources along with models for future efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">West is the author of three books, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> (with editions in 1991, 1997, 2009 and 2020), <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i>(2004) and <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See </i>(2017). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The first book,<i> In the Mind’s Eye,</i> was awarded a gold seal and selected as one of the “best of the best” for the year out of some 6000 reviewed books by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association(one of only 12 books in the broad “Psychology” category, including books on neuroscience, intelligence testing, language impairment, mental health and psychiatry).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">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 many different fields and disciplines, has been an indicator, much to West’s surprise, of the timeliness and broad impact of these research findings and publications -- largely based on the original work by the neurologists Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton in the 1920s and Dr. Norman Gechwind and his students in the 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A broad and enduring interest in these topics is further indicated by the reissue in July 2020 of a Third Edition (first time in paperback) of West’s first book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. Now with over 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 Epilogues with some 40 to 50 pages of new material. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Another indicator of continuing interest is that in recent months, West has been asked to join a global network, based in Stockholm, Sweden, of those with high interest in the strengths and talents of dyslexic children and adults. This network includes researchers, advocates and academics from Oxford, Cambridge and Sheffield universities in the UK as well as individuals associated with the Nobel Prize Foundation in Stockholm and a former advisor to the Swedish Royal Family (where three of five are dyslexic). The 9th meeting of the group is to be held (via Zoom) on June 7, 2021 -- including network members from Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and the US. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">This network provides evidence that the interest in dyslexic strengths is global and continues to be a main focus for many researchers and practitioners (although these views continue to be debated by certain conventional groups). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">West has given additional talks (via Zoom and related technologies, recorded and/or live) in October and November 2020 for groups based in Amsterdam, Holland, Cairo, Egypt, and a group associated George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia -- as well as the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) annual conference based in the U.S. (previously planned for Denver, Colorado, later made virtual). On June 24th, 2021, West is scheduled to speak via Zoom as part of a panel for a dyslexia and talent conference organized by the Dyslexia Association of Singapore. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">On June 9, 2020, West gave the commencement address (via Zoom) for graduates of Siena School, Silver Spring, Maryland, a high school for college-bound dyslexic students. (A copy of this address is provided in Appendix C, below -- providing a brief overview of current considerations for young adults, among others.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Over the years, West’s investigations have led him to look beyond dyslexia to a wider range of learning differences. In his third book, <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, 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 often quite different from conventionally trained experts. With this book, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The numbered items below provide a 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 (Appendix A).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Accordingly, this listing serves as a checklist of some of the associated materials not to be missed in the boxes and binders donated to the NLM 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 drafts, chapters, books, journal articles and other materials. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Related websites, videos, blogs, audio recordings, photographs, overhead transparency sheets, 35 mm film slides and Power Point images have been (or will be) provided separately. The West blog (below) has already been incorporated into the NLM History of Medicine digital archive system, with over 90 articles and commentaries to date. Additional information is to be provided from time to time for the numbered items and events below where only a name or brief description is currently listed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Blog: (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><u><span style="color: blue;">inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com</span></u>)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A Cultural Shift and Time of Fundamental Change: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“A Return to Visual Thinking”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It should be noted that with his early publications and talks (based on the work of Orton and Geschwind, along with what he had learned from those working with the most advanced computer graphics technologies), West found that he was swept up in an important cultural shift -- a wave of fundamental change in thinking about visual thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">He found that he was invited to participate and provide presentations for a highly varied group of high-level institutions and organizations around the world as part of a new awareness of fundamental change with respect to visual thinkers, visual technologies, scientific data visualization as well as new ways of thinking about the distinctive capabilities of dyslexics and other different thinkers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">This new awareness was partly based on the rapidly emerging power of the new visual technologies during this period. But it was also based on a renewed awareness of the power of the visual thinking used by earlier scientists, engineers and inventors, such as Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, Tesla and others. (Thus “A Return to Visual Thinking” was already selected as the main theme for of the 1993 annual meeting of the 50 Max Planck Institutes in Germany -- long before West was invited to speak. West’s previous talks and writings on historical visual-thinking scientists were seen as well targeted for their annual program.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In most cases, the high interest in these topics and trends was from those who were observing these capabilities in actual operation and use “in the real world” of scientific discovery, medical innovation and entrepreneurial business. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">At the same time many specialist academics seemed to have found it difficult to understand and appreciate these capabilities, employing their conventional tests and measures and a conceptual framework that favored conventional verbal and numerical academic capabilities over visual thinking and “thinking in pictures” in 3D space. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In addition, West noticed over time that when he spoke of these learning differences in highly positive ways, with credible positive examples, some in his audience felt free, often for the first time, to talk about considerable strengths and hidden weaknesses in themselves, their family members and their co-workers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As noted in item 8 above, the Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, the Fifty-Year Reunion, provided a striking and unexpected example. During the course of the conference, among these highly praised, award-winning physicians and medical school professors, roughly half of those attending spoke to West of their own dyslexia or the dyslexia of highly creative co-workers or members of their own family. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Accordingly, the events and documents listed in the archive can sometimes serve, in part, as a reflection of a significant cultural shift -- as well as the development these fundamental ideas in various industries and various parts of the world over three decades. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Documented Evidence <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">To Resist a Regressive Counter Trend<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Indeed, it is becoming apparent that many of the activities and trends documented in this archive are becoming increasingly important since a counter trend is taking place: conventionally trained researchers are falling back on conventional tests and measures in an effort to prove that dyslexics and other different thinkers have no distinctive capabilities -- or that their special strengths are unimportant, rare or only randomly distributed as in any large population. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In contrast, the events and high-level interest documented in this archive provide important evidence that the world has changed and new perspectives and measures need to be adopted. Now machines have largely taken over (as long predicted) the low-level clerical, memorization, fact recall, rapid mental calculation and the other academic skills that are so highly valued by conventional education. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Consequently, the high-level capabilities often seen in dyslexics, such as true innovation, pattern recognition, mental modeling and big-picture thinking, need to be understood and valued. Many parts of the world of business and science are already aware of these new trends. However, the world of conventional education seems to resist these new developments. New measurement scales are needed for newly understood and appreciated capabilities, especially in the age of “deep learning” and AI. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For some of the best examples of how these changes in perspective were recognized, adopted and promoted by organizations such as MIT, NASA Ames, GCHQ in the UK, the Max Planck Institutes and related institutions, see especially items 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 12. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Selected recent summary presentation text slides of this basic approach are provided in Appendix E. Listed in Appendix F, Acknowledgements, are the names of some of the people who did so much to move these ideas and insights forward by organizing the presentations, publications and events listed above and below.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Note: Full listing of 72 archive items, to date, available on request. Also, see on Google, listings under the search term “Thomas G. West, dyslexia.” (There are others with the same names and middle initial but, of course, entirely different fields and publications.) -- TGW<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Email: thomasgwest@gmail.com. Mobile: 202 262 1266<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Selected Publications<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 1992. “A Future of Reversals: Dyslexic Talents in a World of Computer Visualization,” <i>Annals of Dyslexia</i>, vol. 42, pp. 124-139. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking.” In <i>Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft</i>, edited and translated by P. Wittenberg and T. Plesser. Gottingen, Germany, November 1993. (Published as a book in 1994.) (Paper published in German: Ruckkehr zum visuellen Denken, Forschung und Wissenschftliches Rechnen: Beitrage anlasslich des 10. EGV-Benutzertreffens der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Gottingen, November 1993.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 1999. “The Abilities of Those with Reading Disabilities: Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” Chapter 11, <i>Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates. </i>Edited<i> </i>by Drake D. Duane, MD, Baltimore, MD: York Press, Inc. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 2004. <i>Thinking Like Einstein: Returning to Our Visual Roots with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information Visualization</i>. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 2005. “The Gifts of Dyslexia: Talents Among Dyslexics and Their Families,” <i>Hong Kong Journal of Paediatrics</i> (New Series), 10, 153-158. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 2009. <i>In the Mind’s Eye: Creative Visual Thinkers, Gifted Dyslexics and the Rise of Visual Technologies</i>. Second edition. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, distributed by Penguin Random House. (The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said “<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.” A third edition was published in July 2020. )<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 2014. “Amazing Shortcomings, Amazing Strengths: Beginning to Understand the Hidden Talents of Dyslexics,” <i>Asia Pacific Journal of Developmental Differences</i>, vol. 1, no. 1, January 2014, pp. 78-89. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 2017. <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See: The Hidden Advantages of Visual Thinkers and Differently Wired Brains</i>. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, distributed by Penguin Random House. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-44241393140932166882021-05-15T21:09:00.002-04:002021-05-15T21:11:16.356-04:00<p>Note: Here is a new short version of the listing. Intended to give an overall view with a few of the more interesting sample items up front and a brief guide that follows. -- TGW</p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;">Selected Significant Events and Documents for the West Archive</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16pt;">Updated Listing for History of Medicine<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16pt;">National Library of Medicine, NIH -- Revised, May 14, 2021<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16pt;"> Working Draft, in Process -- First 12 Listings of 72 Total<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">____________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Short Sample Listings of 12 Significant Events and Documents<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Archive Introduction and Guide in a Following Section<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(Total of 72 listings, to date, available on request.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(1) 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 title of West’s talk was: “ ‘Strephs,’ Tumbling Symbols and Technological Change: The Implications of Dyslexia Research in a World Turned Upside Down.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The program booklet for this Boston Dyslexia Conference included an article by West which was reprinted with permission from <i>Computer Graphics</i>, August 1996 issue: “Images and Reversals, Talking Less, Drawing More.” This article was introduced by the conference booklet editor: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“The following article was prepared by Thomas G. West as part of the series of articles requested by the editor of <i>Computer Graphics</i> magazine, a publication of the International Association 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">[An excerpt from the article:] “ ‘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 <i>Faust</i>, 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“ ‘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 section gathered in the center, divorced from relevant text, and treated as little more than decoration.’ (<i>Eight Little Piggies</i>, Norton, 1993) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">[End of excerpt. The Orton Dyslexia Society was later renamed The International Dyslexia Association in Memory of Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(2) Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion, September 17-19, 1998, Arizona Biltmore Resort and Villas. Speakers included, among others: Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, National Library of Medicine; 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 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, as it turned out, the organizers were interested. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In his talk, West spoke primarily of visual thinking among creative scientists and recent developments in visual technologies and computer graphics. However, 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. -- TGW) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(3) West was invited to be the main speaker at the 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,” the extremely secret intelligence source for Winston Churchill, never revealed to the public until the 1970s), in Cheltenham, England. See section on GCHQ, pp. 147-150, in <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See,</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">More to be provided about this most important meeting -- and a subsequent informal gathering the following Saturday with a nearby village walk and pub lunch -- where one teen-aged son said, “Now I finally begin to understand my father.” At one point, after the lunch and the round the village walk, West found himself sitting with a group of seven at the edge of our host’s garden, suddenly realizing that all of those with him had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Among other things, they discussed <i>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time</i> by Mark Haddon and connections with a Sherlock Holmes story. It is apparent that GCHQ would be an excellent place to investigate and better understand extraordinarily high performance in the modern world and seek positive links with visual thinking, dyslexia, autism and other forms of different thinking and working. -- TGW<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(4) 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: <i>Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates</i>, Drake D. Duane, MD, editor, York Press, 1999. West’s talk is Chapter 11, “Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(5) An annual meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany. See chapter in the book compiled from the proceedings of this conference: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking,” <i>Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft</i>, 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 <i>Computers and Physics</i>. The article in English and the German language proceedings volume has already been donated to the archive collection. (To be confirmed.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">During informal discussions after his talk, West was told of dyslexia and other learning differences within the families of famous German physicists. It is noteworthy that this large high-level meeting in November 1993 was dominated by conventional “main frame thinking” and remarkably antiquated technologies. For example, we had to move to a small conference room to show video clips on a TV. (This is, in fact, shown in one of the photographs provided in the printed proceedings book; West is shown looking at a computer graphic image on a TV screen.) In dramatic contrast, in the conference in Amsterdam in October of that same year the designers, artists, architects and computer professionals had already adopted and were using the latest technologies in all the presentations. (See item 6 below.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(6) Invited speaker. The Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Doors of Perception,” October 30-31, 1993, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, organized by The Netherlands Design Institute and <i>Mediamatic</i> 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 <i>Wired</i> magazine (published in Europe well before moving to the US). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(7) 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 -- for discussion with other attendees. The conference handout (to be provided separately for the archive) includes 210 images with names and organizations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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; he was 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 atomic structure, and later, the discovery of the structure of 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 over five generations, many with visual occupations, many dyslexics and four winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West had several conversations with Dr. Mandelbrot at this conference. Dr. Mandelbrot 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 of computer graphics, well before others). These aspects are seen as signature indictors of the work of a classic visually-oriented dyslexic approach. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(8) 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 state of New York, the Wadsworth Center is similar to the U.S. Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Indeed, it was established long before the Federal level CDC and has a similar broad range of responsibilities and missions. (Details of mission and programs to be provided.) West was invited to speak by the Head of the Center, a virologist, who he met at a dinner of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine. The visit included an extensive tour of the Center facilities, programs and missions -- along with several Q&A discussions with Center staff. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(9) The New York Branch of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Twentieth Anniversary Conference, Language & Medical Symposia on Dyslexia, March 18-20, 1993. As the economy moves from a primarily verbal orientation to one that is visual-spatial, the talents of dyslexics will be increasingly 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 national conference of the Orton Dyslexia Society (that later became the International Dyslexia Association, as noted above). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Many of the major figures in the field spoke at this three-day meeting. This included Patience Thomson, Head of Fairley House School, London, England -- who Thomas West and his wife Margaret later came to know 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. (See item 44 and Appendix B.) 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. (Full program listing to be provided.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(10) 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(11) 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 of the talk. 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, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, into Chinese, with traditional characters. This book is to be provided to the archive along with the Japanese and Korean translations.) Discussions of dyslexia in Taiwan were especially interesting since the culture puts extreme pressure on students. They should look pale and sleep deprived -- or they are not studying hard enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(12) In November 2014, West was invited to give five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore as part of effort to take advantage of the distinctive talents exhibited by dyslexic children and adults. Long a leader in technological and commercial innovation, Singapore is leading the world with this effort as well. (Several publications and web videos are available.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">_______________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Introduction and Guide to the Archive and Listings -- May 2021<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">From 1991 to 2021, 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 significance of these invited talks, seminars and workshops by the extent to which the simple but powerful ideas he learned from two prescient neurologists have been received and given serious consideration by those interested in the strengths and talents of individuals with dyslexia and other learning differences -- together with the related advances in computer graphics, computer simulation, visual thinking and advanced information visualization technologies. Throughout his research, West has relied on the extensive primary sources made available by the National Library of Medicine archives and collections along with those of the Library of Congress. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This listing of selected events and documents, with informal brief descriptions addressed to users, is intended to show evidence of the gradual development and effectiveness of these efforts -- and provide researchers, advocates and other archive users a guide to available resources along with models for future efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West is the author of three books, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> (with editions in 1991, 1997, 2009 and 2020), <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> (2004) and <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See </i>(2017). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The first book,<i> In the Mind’s Eye,</i> was awarded a gold seal and selected as one of the “best of the best” for the year out of some 6000 reviewed books by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association (one of only 12 books in the broad “Psychology” category, including books on neuroscience, intelligence testing, language impairment, mental health and psychiatry).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 many different fields and disciplines, has been an indicator, much to West’s surprise, of the timeliness and broad impact of these research findings and publications -- largely based on the original work by the neurologists Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton in the 1920s and Dr. Norman Gechwind and his students in the 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A broad and enduring interest in these topics is further indicated by the reissue in July 2020 of a Third Edition (first time in paperback) of West’s first book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. Now with over 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 Epilogues with some 40 to 50 pages of new material. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Another indicator of continuing interest is that in recent months, West has been asked to join a global network, based in Stockholm, Sweden, of those with high interest in the strengths and talents of dyslexic children and adults. This network includes researchers, advocates and academics from Oxford, Cambridge and Sheffield universities in the UK as well as individuals associated with the Nobel Prize Foundation in Stockholm and a former advisor to the Swedish Royal Family (where three of five are dyslexic). The 8th meeting of the group was held (via Zoom) on May 10, 2021 -- including network members from Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and the US. This network provides evidence that the interest in dyslexic strengths is global and continues to be a main focus for many researchers and practitioners (although these views continue to be debated by certain groups). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West has given additional talks (via Zoom and related technologies, recorded and/or live) in October and November 2020 for groups based in Amsterdam, Holland, Cairo, Egypt, and a group associated George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia -- as well as the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) annual conference based in the U.S. (previously planned for Denver, Colorado, later made virtual). In June 2021, West is scheduled to speak via Zoom as part of a panel for a dyslexia and talent conference organized by the Dyslexia Association of Singapore. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">On June 9, 2020, West gave the commencement address (via Zoom) for graduates of Siena School, Silver Spring, Maryland, a high school for college-bound dyslexic students. (A copy of this address is provided in Appendix C, below -- providing a brief overview of these considerations for young adults, among others.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Over the years, West’s investigations have led him to look beyond dyslexia to a wider range of learning differences. In his third book, <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, 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 often quite different from conventionally trained experts. With this book, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The numbered items below provide a 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 (Appendix A).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Accordingly, this listing serves as a checklist of some of the associated materials not to be missed in the boxes and binders donated to the NLM 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 drafts, chapters, books, journal articles and other materials. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Related websites, videos, blogs, audio recordings, photographs, overhead transparency sheets, 35 mm film slides and Power Point images have been (or will be) provided separately. The West blog (below) has already been incorporated into the NLM History of Medicine digital archive system, with over 90 articles and commentaries to date. Additional information is to be provided from time to time for the numbered items and events below where only a name or brief description is currently listed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Blog: (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><u><span style="color: blue;">inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com</span></u>)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A Time of Fundamental Change: “A Return to Visual Thinking”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">It should be noted that with his early publications and talks (based on the work of Orton and Geschwind, along with what he had learned from those working with the most advanced computer graphics technologies), West found that he was swept up in a wave of fundamental change in thinking about thinking. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">He found that he was invited to participate and provide presentations for a highly varied group of high-level institutions and organizations as part of a new awareness of fundamental change with respect to visual thinkers, visual technologies, scientific data visualization and new ways of thinking about the distinctive capabilities of dyslexics and other different thinkers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This new awareness was partly based on the rapidly emerging power of the new visual technologies during this period. But it was also based on a renewed awareness of the power of the visual thinking used by earlier scientists, engineers and inventors, such as Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, Tesla and others. (Thus “A Return to Visual Thinking” was the main theme selected for of the 1993 annual meeting of the 50 Max Planck Institutes in Germany. West’s previous talks and writings on historical visual-thinking scientists were seen as well targeted for their program. See listing 5 above.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In most cases, the high interest in these topics and trends was from those who were observing these capabilities in actual operation and use “in the real world” of scientific discovery, medical innovation and entrepreneurial business. At the same time many specialist academics seemed to have found it difficult to understand and appreciate these capabilities, employing their conventional tests and measures and a conceptual framework that favored conventional verbal and numerical academic capabilities over visual thinking and “thinking in pictures” in 3D space. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In addition, West noticed over time that when he spoke of these learning differences in highly positive ways, with credible positive examples, some in his audience felt free, often for the first time, to talk about considerable strengths and hidden weaknesses in themselves, their family members and their co-workers. For example, see especially item 5, the Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, the Fifty-Year Reunion. In a striking and unexpected example, during the course of the conference, among these highly praised, award-winning physicians and medical school professors, roughly half of those attending spoke to West of their own dyslexia or the dyslexia of highly creative members of their own families. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Accordingly, the events and documents listed in the archive could serve, in part, as a reflection of a significant cultural shift -- as well as the development these fundamental ideas in various industries and various parts of the world over three decades. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">For some of the best examples of how these changes in perspective were recognized, adopted and promoted by organizations such as MIT, NASA Ames, GCHQ in the UK, the Max Planck Institutes and related institutions, see especially items 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 12. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected recent summary presentation text slides of this basic approach are provided in Appendix E. Listed in Appendix F, Acknowledgements, are the names of the people who did so much to move these ideas and insights forward by organizing the presentations, publications and events listed above and below.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Note: Full listing of 72 items available on request. -- TGW<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Contact: thomasgwest@gmail.com<o:p></o:p></span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-18813171129235349222021-03-19T19:10:00.000-04:002021-03-19T19:12:26.680-04:00Revised Listing of Materials for National Library of Medicine Archive, March 19, 2021<p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;">Selected Significant Events and Documents for the West Archive</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Updated Listing for History of Medicine, National Library of Medicine, NIH <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> Working Draft, in Process -- Revised, March 19, 2021<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 significance of these invited talks, seminars and workshops 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 given serious consideration by those interested in the strengths and talents of individuals with dyslexia and other learning differences -- together with the related advances in computer graphics, visual thinking and advanced information visualization technologies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This listing of selected events and documents, with brief descriptions, is intended to show evidence of the gradual development and effectiveness of these efforts -- and provide researchers, advocates and other archive users a guide to available resources along with models for future efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West is the author of three books, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> (with editions in 1991, 1997, 2009 and 2020), <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> (2004) and <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See </i>(2017). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The first book,<i> In the Mind’s Eye,</i> 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 (one of only 12 books in the broad “Psychology” category, including books on neuroscience, intelligence testing, language impairment, mental health and psychiatry).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 many different fields and disciplines, has been an indicator, much to West’s surprise and satisfaction, of the timeliness and broad impact of these research findings and publications -- largely based on the original work by the neurologists Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton in the 1920s and Dr. Norman Gechwind and his students in the 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often over looked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A broad and enduring interest in these topics is further indicated by the reissue in July 2020 of a Third Edition (first time in paperback) of West’s first book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. 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 Epilogues with some 40-50 pages of new material. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Another indicator of continuing interest is that in recent months, West has been asked to join a global network, based in Stockholm, Sweden, of those with high interest in the strengths and talents of dyslexic children and adults. This network includes researchers, advocates and academics from Oxford, Cambridge and Sheffield universities in the UK as well as individuals associated with the Nobel Prize Foundation in Stockholm and a former advisor to the Swedish Royal Family (where three of five are dyslexic). The 7th meeting of the group is to be held (via Zoom) on March 29, 2021 -- including network members from Europe, the Middle East, 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">More recently, West has given additional talks (via Zoom and related technologies, recorded and/or live) in October and November 2020 for groups based in Amsterdam, Holland, Cairo, Egypt, a group associated George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia -- as well as the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) annual conference based in the U.S. (previously planned for Denver, Colorado, later made virtual).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">On June 9, 2020, West gave the commencement address (via Zoom) for graduates of Siena School, Silver Spring, Maryland, a high school for college-bound dyslexic students. (A copy of this address is provided in Appendix C, below -- providing a brief overview of these considerations for young adults, among others.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Over the years, West’s investigations have led him to look beyond dyslexia to a wider range of learning differences. In his third book, <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, 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. With this book, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The numbered sections below provide a 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 (Appendix A).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Accordingly, this listing serves as a checklist of some of the associated materials not to be missed in the boxes and binders donated to the NLM 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 drafts, chapters, books, journal articles and other materials. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Related websites, videos, blogs, audio recordings, photographs, overhead sheets, 35 mm film slides and Power Point images have been (or will be) provided separately. The West blog (below) 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 brief description is currently listed. Blog: (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><u><span style="color: blue;">inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com</span></u>)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A Time of Fundamental Change: “A Return to Visual Thinking”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">It should be noted that with his early publications and talks (based on the work of Orton and Geschwind, along with what he had learned from those working with the most advanced computer graphics technologies), West found himself swept up in a wave of fundamental change in thinking about thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">He found that he was invited to participate and provide presentations for a highly varied group of high-level institutions and organizations as part of a new awareness of fundamental change with respect to visual thinkers, visual technologies, scientific data visualization and new ways of thinking about the distinctive capabilities of dyslexics and other different thinkers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This new awareness was partly based on the rapidly emerging power of the new visual technologies during this period. But it was also based on a renewed awareness of the power of the visual thinking used by earlier scientists and engineers, such as Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, Tesla and others. (Thus “A Return to Visual Thinking” was the theme of the 1993 annual meeting, and West’s presentation, for the 50 Max Planck Institutes in Germany. See item 2 below.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In most cases, the high interest in these topics and trends was from those who were observing these capabilities in actual operation and use “in the real world” of scientific discovery, medical innovation and entrepreneurial business. At the same time many specialist academics seemed to have found it difficult to understand and appreciate these capabilities, employing their conventional tests and measures and a conceptual framework that favored conventional verbal and numerical academic capabilities over visual thinking and “thinking in pictures” in 3D space. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(In addition, West noticed that when he spoke of these learning differences in highly positive ways, with credible positive examples, some in his audience felt free, for the first time, to talk about considerable strengths and hidden weaknesses in themselves, their family members and their co-workers. For example, see especially, item 24, the Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, the Fifty-Year Reunion. In a striking and unexpected example, during the course of the conference, among these highly praised, award-winning physicians and medical school professors, roughly half of those attending spoke to West of their own dyslexia or the dyslexia of highly creative members of their own families.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Accordingly, the events and documents listed below could serve, in part, as an informal survey of the development of these fundamental ideas in various industries and various parts of the world over nearly three decades. (For some of the best examples of how these changes were recognized, adopted and promoted by organizations such as MIT, NASA Ames, GCHQ in the UK, the Max Planck Institutes and related institutions, see especially items 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 22 and 25.) (Selected recent summary presentation slides of this basic approach are provided in Appendix E.) (Listed in Appendix F, Acknowledgements, are the names of the people who did so much to move these ideas and insights forward by arranging the presentations and events listed below. )<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">___________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Significant Events and Documents<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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, 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 was 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 (</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #666666; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke). </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(2) An annual meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany. See chapter in the book compiled from the proceedings of this conference: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking,” <i>Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft</i>, 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 <i>Computers and Physics</i>. The article in English and the German language proceedings volume has already been donated to the archive collection. (To be confirmed.) During informal discussions after his talk, West was told of dyslexia and other learning differences within the families of famous German physicists. It is noteworthy that this large high-level meeting in November 1993 was dominated by conventional “main frame thinking” and remarkably antiquated technologies. For example, they had to move to a small conference room to show video clips on a TV. (This is, in fact, shown in one of the photographs provided in the printed proceedings book; West is shown looking at a computer graphic image on a TV screen.) In dramatic contrast, in the conference in Amsterdam in October of that same year the designers, artists, architects and computer professionals had already adopted and were using the latest technologies in all the presentations. (See item 4 below.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(3) The New York Branch of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Twentieth Anniversary Conference, Language & Medical Symposia on Dyslexia, March 18-20, 1993. As the economy moves from a primarily verbal orientation to one that is visual-spatial, the talents of dyslexics will be increasingly 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 national conference of the Orton Dyslexia Society (that later became the International Dyslexia Association). Many of the major figures in the field spoke at this three-day meeting. This included Patience Thomson, Head of Fairley House School, London, England -- who Thomas West and his wife Margaret later came to know 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. (See item 44 and Appendix B.) 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. (Full program listing to be provided.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(4) Invited speaker. The Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Doors of Perception,” October 30-31, 1993, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, organized by The Netherlands Design Institute and <i>Mediamatic</i> 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 <i>Wired</i> magazine (published 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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(5) Invited to be the 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 highly secret intelligence for Winston Churchill), in Cheltenham, England. See section on GCHQ, pp. 147-150, in <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See,</i> 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. [More to be provided about this most important meeting -- and a subsequent informal gathering the following Saturday with a nearby village walk and pub lunch -- where one teen-aged son said, “Now I finally begin to understand my father.” At one point, after the lunch and the round the village walk, West found himself sitting with a group of seven at the edge of our host’s garden, suddenly realizing that all of those with him had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Among other things, they discussed <i>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time</i> by Mark Haddon and connections with Sherlock Holmes stories. It is apparent that GCHQ would be an excellent place to investigate and better understand extraordinarily high performance and seek positive links with visual thinking, dyslexia, autism and other forms of different thinking. To avoid lengthy reviews and security clearance, West’s section on GCHQ in <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i> is based on publicly available sources.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(6) Scientists and artists at Green College within the University of Oxford, England. [Much more information to be provided here -- as well as for the named-only listings below. -- TGW]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(7) The Royal College of Art in London<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(8) The Glasgow School of Art in Scotland<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(9) A conference at the University of Uppsala before the Queen of Sweden<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(10) T</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">he University of California at Berkeley<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(11) An education conference sponsored by Harvard and MIT<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 seen as signature indictors of the work of a classic visually-oriented dyslexic approach. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(13) Invited to participate in a</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> (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 representing varied fields and institutions, including: Larry Gonick (<i>The Cartoon History of the Universe</i>), Antonio Damasio (<i>Descartes’ Error</i>, U. Iowa), Donna Cox (National Center for Supercomputing Applications, ACM-SIGGRAPH), Ellen Winner (<i>Gifted Children</i>, 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 (<i>Scientific American</i>), and Thomas G. West (<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(14) The Arts Dyslexia Trust in London, invited presentations at 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. [More to come. -- TGW.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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 of the talk. 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, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, into Chinese. This book is to be provided to the archive along with the Japanese and Korean translations.) Discussions of dyslexia in Taiwan are especially interesting since the culture puts extreme pressure on students. They should look pale and sleep deprived -- or they are not studying hard enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(16) The international conference of computer graphic artists and technologists (ACM-SIGGRAPH) in Vancouver, BC, Canada. One of several 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 <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> (2004). (To be provided, the book <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> plus three sample copies of the in-house magazine <i>Computer Graphics</i>.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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 at the time.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(18) The U.S. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 Board of Regents meeting. [Three 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.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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.)(See Letter to Editor, <i>Washington Post</i>, about changing views and descriptions of the SAT, January 22, 2021.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(20) Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. Five visits, two talks. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> 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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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). [More info to come. -- TGW]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(22) 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(23) In November 2014, West was invited to give five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore as part of a country-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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(24) Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion, September 17-19, 1998, Arizona Biltmore Resort and Villas. Speakers included, among others: Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, National Library of Medicine; 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, as it turned out, 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. -- TGW) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(25) “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 pieces of 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 UK trips and talks for art, business and scientific groups over the following years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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. Remarkably, dyslexics are said to have the “great eye” to see what others do not see -- in radiology and in art forgery. A high-quality handmade leather-bound fundraising book for ADT, <i>Art Works</i>, 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(26) 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 (<i>Dyslexic Advantage</i>) and Thomas West. An historian from the Nobel Prize Foundation 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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(27) “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 <i>Dyslexi + Styrkor = SANT</i> (<i>Dyslexia plus Talent equals Truth</i>). 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(28) 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: <i>Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates</i>, Drake D. Duane, MD, editor, York Press, 1999. West’s talk is Chapter 11, “Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(29) To be provided, information on four 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 need to be digitized in the near future. -- TGW)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(30) 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 <i>Financial Times</i> (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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">(31) Stories about dyslexia and innovation have appeared in varied media. </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">The story below was posted on West’s Facebook page in March 2020 -- also intended for West’s blog: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">“Dyslexic Physician Discovers ARDS”<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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 <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">-- and I did not want to create a distraction from our main areas of interest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">However, in the last few days, and the last week especially, the coronavirus (Covid-19) has begun to dominate all other topics and considerations.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>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.<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">ARDS Discovery Rejected by Three US Medical Journals<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">He was buying a copy my book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">Later, they sent their paper to the British medical journal, <i>The Lancet</i>. 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 --<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>New England Journal of Medicine</i>, which promptly rejected it as documentation of inappropriate and dangerous ventilator management. A revision submitted to the <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i> was similarly rejected, as was a subsequent version sent to the <i>American Journal of Surgery</i>. Somewhat in desperation, the authors finally submitted the manuscript to <i>The Lancet</i>. 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. <i>Respiratory Care</i>, August 2014, vol. 59, no. 8, p. 1293.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">See also a book given to West by Thomas L. Petty, MD. (To be provided separately.) <i><u>Frontline Update in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease</u></i>, Co-editors, James T. Good, Jr., MD, Thomas L. Petty, MD. 2004, Snowdrift Pulmonary Conference, 899 Logan Street, Denver, Colorado 80203. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(32) 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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(33) <i>Forgotten Letters: An Anthology of Literature by Dyslexic Writers</i>, 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 <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i> titled “Amazing Shortcomings, Amazing Gifts.” The inside cover of this book has this lone quotation from West: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“The truth-talking commentator who is not caught up in the race.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“They have felt the otherness from the start.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(34) 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(35) 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The program for this Boston conference included an article by West reprinted with permission from <i>Computer Graphics</i>, 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 <i>Computer Graphics</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">[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 <i>Faust</i>, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“ ‘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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“ ‘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.’ (<i>Eight Little Piggies</i>, Norton, 1993).”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">”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.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(36) 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 state 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 of mission programs to be provided.) West was invited to speak by the Head of the Center, a virologist, who he met at a dinner of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine. The visit included an extensive tour of the Center facilities, programs and missions -- along with several Q&A discussions with Center staff. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(37) “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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(38)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> Excerpt from <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i> (Appendix B), <i>Dyslexic Advantage</i>, Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide. “In March 2011, I received an advance uncorrected manuscript for a new book that was to be published that August. I was asked to provide a recommendation. This is what I wrote: “Here I insert my recommendation for <i>The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain</i> by Brock L. Eide, MD, and Fernette F. Eide, MD, Hudson Street Press, publication date, August 18, 2011. This book is destined to become a classic. After my many years studying the talents of dyslexics, I was pleased to gain from the Eides’ systematic investigation a deeper understanding of how and why dyslexics often have a major advantage, working at high levels in many different fields -- and why there is so much misunderstanding among conventional educators and employers. Linking their broad clinical experience with the newest brain research, they illuminate many puzzles -- such as why there are so many dyslexic entrepreneurs, why so many dyslexics choose to study engineering or philosophy, why dyslexics often see the big picture and see linkages that others do not see, why they often think in stories or analogies, and why some of the most successful authors are dyslexic. They explain why reading impairments should be seen as only a small part of a larger pattern -- that dyslexia is not simply a reading problem, but a different form of brain organization, yielding remarkable strengths along with surprising difficulties. With new technologies and new business models, we can now see how the often remarkable talents of dyslexics will be in greater demand over time while their difficulties will be increasingly seen as comparatively unimportant. I am enormously grateful to the Eides for explaining why and how this is so.” -- Thomas G. West, author of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> and <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“These words still reflect my basic approach to this wonderful book, which I continue to re-read. With this book, and their previous book <i>The Mislabeled Child</i>, the Eides have continued to provide an important public service with the non-profit they founded, their websites, their conferences and their energetic advocacy. They are both physicians and have vast clinical experience. This experience is coupled with a willingness to listen at length to the stories of their patients and their families. By listening, rather than merely administering standardized tests, often they have uncovered extensive giftedness (sometimes in several generations) -- where many practitioners would only see pathologies and abnormalities that require repair and remediation. Their approach to these matters is, of course, very close to my own high interest in talents and their development. (In full disclosure, I should say that I have been working closely with the Eides for several years -- and I am currently a member the Board of Trustees for the non-profit organization they established “Dyslexic Advantage” -- along with the blog at DyslexicAdvantage.org.)”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(39) “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.) Also to come: the story of how two speakers during the same week at Chautauqua that summer had the same name: ‘Thomas G. West’ -- the other one an art historian and author from New York City -- who said he would display on his own coffee table the book <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, to be seen by visiting friends, for fun, without comment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(40) Transcripts of presentations and interviews with highly successful dyslexics -- having received high awards for innovations and discoveries in their fields: William J. Dreyer, PhD, and Marc I. Rowe, MD. [To be provided. -- TGW]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(41) </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Noted from West: “In my continuing sorting of old papers, I recently found a journal reprint that had been quite popular and was distributed widely during the 1990s. Brief excerpts are provided below. Today I would not change a word. This piece may show how advanced my thinking was at the time -- or how I have learned nothing new in the last 28 years. -- TGW”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“A Future of Reversals:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexic Talents in a World of Computer Visualization”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">by Thomas G West, Washington, DC<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The Reprint Series, The Orton Dyslexia Society. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">From the <i>Annals of Dyslexia</i>, Vol. 42, 1992. ISSN 0736 –9387, pp.124-139.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">[Excerpt:] With the recent revival of visual approaches at the forefront of several scientific, mathematical, and technological developments, this paper proposes that visually oriented dyslexics may be in an increasingly favorable position in future years. The same set of traits which have caused them so much difficulty in traditional verbally-oriented educational systems, may confer special advantages in emerging new fields which may rely heavily on visual methods of analysis –- fields which employ powerful graphic workstations and supercomputers to visualize complex scientific data. Recent trends have also led some technical professionals to become aware that their own special talents seem to be closely associated with certain dyslexic traits. It is argued that similarly mixed talents have been major factors in the accomplishments of a number of important historical figures. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Overview<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">New technologies and techniques currently being developed in computer graphics, medical imaging, and what is now called “scientific visualization” are already having important effects on our society and will in time have profound consequences for education and work at all levels. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A side effect of these advances may be that certain visual-spatial abilities often found among dyslexics may come to confer special advantages in those fields that are coming to rely more heavily on visual approaches and techniques. Ironically, these special advantages may result from the same pattern of traits that has long caused so much difficulty for visually oriented dyslexics in traditional verbally oriented educational systems. Thus, it is proposed that many dyslexics will find themselves on the right side of a major set of trend reversals -- ones that could dramatically affect their lives in the lives of their children.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Historically, some of the most original thinkers in the physical sciences, engineering, mathematics, and other areas have relied heavily on visual modes of thought, employing images instead of words or numbers. Some of these thinkers have shown evidence of a striking range of learning difficulties, including problems with the reading, spelling, writing, calculation, attention, speaking, and memory. In recent years, neurological research has suggested that some forms of early brain growth and development tend to produce verbal and other difficulties the same time they produce a variety of exceptional visual and spatial talents (Geschwind and Behan 1982; Geschwind and Galaburda 1985). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">* * * * *<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Implications<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The consequences of the coming changes maybe far greater than we can easily imagine. We need to realize that for some 400 or 500 years our schools essentially have been teaching the skills of a Medieval clerk –- reading, writing, counting, and memorizing texts. With the more pervasive influence of increasingly powerful computers of all kinds, we could be on the verge of a new era when we will be required to develop a very different set of talents and skills, those of a Renaissance man such as Leonardo da Vinci rather than those of the clerk or lay scholar of the Middle Ages.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">* * * * * <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In the future, instead of the qualities desired in a well-trained clerk, we may find far more desirable talents and traits similar to those associated with Leonardo da Vinci: a facility with visual-spatial approaches and modes of analysis instead of mainly verbal (or numerical or symbolic) fluency; a propensity to learn directly through experience (or simulated experience) rather than primarily from lectures books; a habit of continuous investigation in many different areas of study through ceaseless curiosity (perhaps with occasional but transient specialization); the more integrated perspective of the global generalist rather than the increasingly narrow specialist; a predisposition to innovation by making connections among many diverse fields; an ability to rapidly progress through many phases of research, development and design using imagination and “intuitive” mental models, now incorporating modern three-dimensional computer-aided design systems. (Aaron, Phillips and Larson, 1988; Ritchie-Calder, 1970; Sartori, 1987).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Leonardo da Vinci’s predisposition to investigation and analysis through visualization may come to serve us as well as it served him, providing innovative results well in advance of those competing groups which follow other more conventional approaches. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thus, in the foreseeable future, we may come full circle, using the most advanced technologies and techniques to draw on some of the most old-fashioned approaches and capacities to simulate reality rather than describe it in words or numbers. To learn, once again, by doing, rather than by reading. To learn, once again, by seeing and experimenting, rather than by following memorized algorithms and routines. In so doing, all of us will learn greater respect for abilities and intelligences that were always vitally important, but were generally eclipsed by a disproportionate emphasis on the traits and skills most valued by traditional schoolmen and scholars. Sometimes, the oldest pathways and most primitive patterns can be the best guides into uncharted waters. [End of excerpt.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(42) The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.. The Mission Statement: “</span><span style="background-color: #e4eff2; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #595959; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study seeks to expand scientific understanding of the mind, the brain, and intelligence by conducting research at the intersection of cognitive science, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and complex adaptive systems. These separate disciplines increasingly overlap and promise progressively deeper insight into human thought processes spanning all scales of description, from neurons to nations. The Institute also examines how new insights from this interdisciplinary research can be applied for human benefit in the areas of mental health, neurological disease, education, environmental and societal dynamics, and intelligent systems design.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Initially, West joined Krasnow to do research for his third book and to establish the Center for the Study of Dyslexia and Talent at Krasnow. Later, West was asked to join the Krasnow Advisory Board. (To be provided for the NLM archive: The Advisory Board Briefing Book for October 18, 2007, as an example of the Institute’s work; including: Institute role in the Decade of the Mind; the Director’s Vision; Grant Portfolio; Krasnow Media; Molecular Neuroscience Faculty; Social Complexity Faculty; Krasnow Faculty Publication List.) For many years, Krasnow was highly respected as the “jewel in the crown” of George Mason University -- until the University President was replaced by a new President and Provost who no longer supported Krasnow and its mission. West wrote an open letter to the Provost; the Chair of the Advisory Board agreed with the letter and requested that West read out the letter to the Provost, face to face, during a critical turning point Board meeting. The full letter follows:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">December 11, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">An open letter to Dr. David Wu,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Provost, George Mason University<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Dear Dr. Wu,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">My name is Thomas G. West. I am member of the Advisory Board of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study. I have been fortunate to be associated with the Institute from its earliest days, as it took shape under the leadership of Dr. Harold Morowitz. And, of course, as you know, all of these early developments took place separately from George Mason University -- following the advice and vision of two Nobel Prize winners, as well as the influence of the Santa Fe Institute.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">As a writer who is very much an outsider to the academic world, I feel that I must take this opportunity to speak for myself alone with honesty and candor about recent developments. I hope you will allow me to speak frankly and that you will take to heart what I have to say.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In recent years, other universities have been trying to create or develop their own Krasnow Institute. With the best of intentions, I assume, it seems to me that you are working steadily to destroy everything that is distinctive and unique about the Krasnow organization and its original vision. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">I hope that you will begin to understand this – and to work with the Krasnow faculty, the students and the Krasnow Advisory Board to work out ways of correcting this course of action and to find ways of returning to the central vision on which this Institution is based.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">It took many decades to begin to realize this vision. But, in my view, you are, perhaps unwittingly, wrecking in a few months, all that has been accomplished by some of the brightest minds over many years. Among the various sources describing the early development of these ideas, I think one of the best is M. Mitchell Waldrop’s 1992 book, <i>Complexity</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This book describes the early development of the Santa Fe Institute, “founded in the mid-1980s and which was originally housed in a rented convent in the midst of Santa Fe’s art colony along Canyon Road. The researchers who gather there are an eclectic bunch, ranging from pony-tailed graduate students to Nobel laureates such as Murray Gell-Mann and Philip Anderson in physics and Kenneth Arrow in economics. But they all share the vision of an underlying unity; a common theoretical framework for complexity that would illuminate nature and humankind alike. . . . They believe that they are forging the first rigorous alternative to the kind of linear, reductionist thinking that has dominated science since the time of Newton -- and that has now gone about as far as it can go in addressing the problems of our modern world. They believe they are creating, in the words of Santa Fe Institute founder George Cowan, ‘the sciences of the twenty-first century.’ ”(Waldrop, pp. 12-13.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In my view, your actions in recent months – indeed, your long periods of inaction, as well – have been extremely damaging to this vision and to all those who have shared it. George Mason University did not create the Krasnow Institute and it should not assume that it has the power to destroy it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Everywhere we look we see evidence of the deepening damage. Researchers will not dare to ask their wealthy friends for funds to support the sick old man. Tenured professors quietly bide their time. Morale is at an all-time low. The old excitement is gone. The sense of adventure is gone. Bright grad students look for another track. Researchers in other countries – who had come to expect so much from Krasnow – now wonder what has happened.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In the past Krasnow was seen as a leader in the “Decade of the Brain.” Under the leadership of Dr. James Olds, it has had a strong international reputation for leading-edge research. Now it seems that the lead is passing to other organizations more attuned to following government contracts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">You have claimed to support inter-disciplinary research. Yet you say that one can only do one thing well. So you have drawn and quartered the old man to suit an anachronistic vision – returning to worn-out specialist, linear, reductionist thinking. I hope that you can soon come to understand the Krasnow vision and way of working -- and why it is important. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">I fear that if your goal is to follow applied research, by whatever name, you will doom the institute, and indeed the university, to be the sad tool of the security industrial complex. It is my belief, that real science is not predictable. Genuinely new scientific knowledge is often a surprise and often comes from different ways of thinking and different kinds of minds. It is not available on demand or on contract.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In past years, Krasnow was seen as the “jewel in the crown.” George Mason University was proud to have such an organization on campus – indeed, to have been given, fully developed, such an advanced and prestigious organization. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">What will your legacy be? Will you be known as the man who turned back the clock -- exchanging new science for old -- and making the extraordinary ordinary once again, just like all the others? Or will you be known as the man who came to realize, before it was too late, the true value of the Krasnow Institute -- and then found ways to advance and support the development of this fresh new vision?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Sincerely,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomas G. West, author of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> and <i>Thinking Like Einstein </i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In January 2021, the Krasnow Institute website is still online but has not been updated since 2017. It is apparent that the Institute is largely dead. Separately, a GMU press release dated February 3rd, 2020, says: “Mason Provost S. David Wu named next president of Baruch College.” The release goes on to explain: “One of Wu’s signature achievements was to elevate multidisciplinary academic and research collaboration at Mason, which lead to the creation of the Mason Impact Initiative to enrich student learning, and the creation of multidisciplinary research institutes in BioHealth Innovation, Sustainable Earth, and Transnational Crime. During his tenure, the sponsored awards for research, scholarship and creative work increased by nearly 80 percent. During the past two years, Mason jumped 90 places in the <i>Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Ed</i> ranking based on ‘educational impact and a lifetime benefit to students.’ ”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(43) “The Creative Brain: Gifted, Talented and Dyslexic,” Annual Conference of The Southwest Branch of the International Dyslexia Association, February 11-12, 2005, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Based on ideas from his book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>, West was Chairman of the conference Symposium. His talk was titled, “Geniuses Who Hated School. Are we blind to the Einsteins in our schools?” On West’s recommendation, the organizers invited as speakers from the UK, Patience Bragg Thomson (Fairley House School, London; from prominent scientific family with a number of dyslexics, strong visual thinkers and four Nobel Prize winners) and Jo Todd (Key 4 Learning, consultant to GCHQ and other UK civil service agencies). Other speakers included Gordon Sherman (head of New Grange School, former IDA President), Jeff Gilger (Purdue University), Malcolm Alexander (dyslexic, sculptor) and Patricia Michaels (dyslexic, fashion designer, native of Taos Pueblo). DVD of conference produced by Tony Carlson and Associates (to be provided to archive). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(44) Patience Bragg Thomson and the Bragg Thomson Family. Books to be listed here along with letters and informal recorded memories, several received as personal gifts to Thomas West from Patience Bragg Thomson and David Thomson -- as well as books and articles by (and about) their adult children, Hugh Thomson, Ben Thomson, Alice Thomson and others. (See Appendix B.) Also to be included, a DVD including a talk by Patience Thomson during the conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico (a conference on the talents of dyslexics built around ideas from West’s book, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, item 43 above.) As noted, West had suggested that Patience and David Thomson be invited to the Albuquerque meeting along with Jo and Richard Todd regarding their work with GCHQ and other UK government agencies (item 5, above). See also reference to this family with four Nobel Prize winners and many visual thinkers and dyslexics (mentioned in item 3 above). Interest in how dyslexia and major visual thinking trait is manifested over five generations, often exhibiting creativity, entrepreneurial innovation, or work leading to important discoveries (such as the use of x-ray crystallography to discover the structure of DNA). Note that one book listed in Appendix B, <i>The Legacy of Sir Lawrence Bragg</i>, includes sections written by 10 Nobel Prize winners.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(45) “Visualization Research Agenda Meeting,” National Library of Medicine Meeting, NLM Board of Regents Room, February 15-16, 2000. “The purpose of the meeting is to outline a research agenda to inquire into the broad impact of new information visualization technologies -- and the kinds of special skills and talents that may be required.” Meeting participants: <u>National Library of Medicine</u>: Donald A. B. Lindberg, MD, Director NLM; Alexa McCray, Director, National Center for Biomedical Communications; Michael Ackerman, Assistant Director for High Performance Computing and Communications; Steven Phillips, MD, Assistant Director for Research and Education; Thomas G. West, MA, consultant. <u>National Institutes of Health</u>: A.I. Leshner, Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH; Michael Huerta, Associate Director, Division of Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health; Gerald Fischbach, MD, Director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; Reid Lyon, Chief, Child Development and Behavioral Branch, National Institute on Child Health and Human Development; Greg Downing, NIH Office of Science Policy. <u>Smithsonian Institution</u>: Marc J. Pachter, Counselor to the Secretary, SI; Judith Gradwohl, National Museum of American history, SI. <u>Computer Graphics, Visualization, Computer-Human Interaction</u>: Alvy Ray Smith, PhD, formerly, Microsoft, Pixar (co-founder), LucasFilm; Ben Schneiderman, University of Maryland; Jock MacKinlay, Xerox PARC. <u>Evolution and the Brain</u>: John Allman, California Institute of Technology. <u>Gifted and Talented,Visual Spatial Intelligence</u>. Carol Mills, Johns Hopkins University. <u>Neuroscience, Dyslexia, Imaging</u>: Gordon Sherman, PhD, Dyslexia Research Laboratory, Harvard Medical School; Guinevere Eden, Georgetown University. [Sherman and later Eden became presidents of the International Dyslexia Association,] <u>Molecular Biology</u>: William J. Dreyer, PhD, California Institute of Technology. <u>Institutes, Foundations, Other Organizations</u>: James Olds, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University; William H. Baker, Jr, National Dyslexia Research Foundation. See Appendix F for “Brief Quotations to Provide Background and Context” for this meeting. </span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">____________________________________________________________</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomas G. West, author of <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>, <i>Thinking Like Einstein </i>and<i> Seeing What Others Cannot See.</i> Mobile: 202-262-1266.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Blog: http://inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Emails: thomasgwest@gmail.com and thomasgwest@aol.com. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Revised and updated, February 7, 2021. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX A<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments with Biographical Sketch -- T. G. West <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Foreword to the Second Edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">by Oliver Sacks, M.D.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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, <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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’ [defective in visual thinking]. 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>Thinking in Pictures</i>), she was taken aback when I said I could hardly visualize anything: ‘How <i>do</i> you think?’ she asked. Grandin herself has very heightened spatial and visual imagination, and thinks in very concrete images.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> 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 <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Oliver Sacks, M.D., January 2, 2009. Dr. Sacks, a British neurologist residing in the US, is most widely known for his book <i>Awakenings</i> (1973) that was made into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Also well known are his books <i>An Anthropologist from Mars</i>(1995), <i>Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf</i> (1989) and <i>The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat</i> (1985). His most recent book is titled <i>The Mind’s Eye</i> (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 <i>New York Times</i> said that Sacks “has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Since he first published <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> 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."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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 <i>The Mislabeled Child </i>(Hyperion, 2006) and <i>The Dyslexic Advantage</i> (Hudson Street Press, 2011). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. . . . 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Jim Romeo, New York Academy of Sciences, <i>Update Magazine</i>, April/May 2004, “Getting Scientific about Why Johnny Can’t Read--Understanding Dyslexia.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.’ <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>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<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Blurb above sent to Thomas G. West by Dr. Oliver Sacks for use with the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, October 23, 2008. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> “Unfortunately, I did not discover this wonderful book [<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> by Thomas G. West] before I wrote <i>Thinking in Pictures</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Temple Grandin, “The List,” <i>The Week</i> magazine, March 3, 2006, describing why she has included <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> on her list of her six favorite books. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Dear Tom: Thanks for sending me your epilogue [to the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>]. 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”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Email of August 17, 2009. Dr. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Grandin is a professor of animal science and is author of the memoir <i>Thinking in Pictures</i> (dealing with her life with autism) and the best-selling book <i>Animals in Translation</i>. 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Howard Gardner, PhD, letter of October 15, 1996. Dr. Gardner is author of many books, including <i>Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences</i> (BasicBooks, 1983) and <i>Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century</i> (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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Additional Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Alvy Ray Smith, PhD, 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 <i>Tin Toy</i>, the first 3-dimensional computer animation ever to win an Academy Award. This team later produced the first completely computer-generated motion picture, <i>Toy Story</i>. 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> . . . [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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Loren Pope, “The Learning Disabled of Today Will Be the Gifted of Tomorrow,” in <i>Colleges That Change Lives</i> (Penguin, New York, 2000 and 2006).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“. . . I entirely agree with [Dr. Doris Kelly] when she says that [<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>] 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- T.R. Miles, Ph.D., in <i>Dyslexia Contact</i>, June 1993, pp. 14-15. Dr. Miles, Professor Emeritus, University College of North Wales, and Vice President of the British Dyslexia Association.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>CALCULUS&</i> <i>Mathematica</i>, 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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<i>&Mathematica</i> (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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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. . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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 <i>Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science</i>, Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1993. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Review by Joan Freeman, <i>European Journal for High Ability</i>, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 -- <i>now</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Susan Parkinson, editor, newsletter of The Arts Dyslexia Trust (United Kingdom), November 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Lord Renwick, Chairman, European Informatics Market (EURIM), Vice-President, Past Chairman, The British Dyslexia Association. Electronic mail of October 30, 1996. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“The original title is <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. The Japanese title <i>Geniuses Who Hated School</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Review in <i>Kagaku Asahi</i>, the monthly Japanese science magazine, August 1994, p. 92. Review translated by Yoshiko G. Doherty.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one’s thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Roeper Review</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">, Vol. 15, No. 1, September 1992, p. 54.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">___________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">More on the American Library Association Award<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In January 1999<i>, In the Mind’s Eye</i> by Thomas G. West was selected for the <i>Choice</i> 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). <i>Choice</i> 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<i> Choice </i>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. (<i>Choice</i>, Jan. 1999, p. 801.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Other books receiving the <i>Choice</i> gold seal award for “best of the best” in 1998 included: Lynn Margulis, <i>Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth</i> (Freeman); Steven Pinker, <i>How the Mind Works</i> (Norton); Richard Mabey, <i>Flora</i> <i>Britannica</i> (Chatto and Windus); Richard Feynman, <i>The Meaning of It All</i> (Addison-Wesley); Martin Gardner, <i>The Last Recreations: Hydras, Eggs, and Other Mathematical Mystifications</i> (Copernicus, Springer-Verlag); Per F. Dahl, <i>Flash of the Cathode Ray: A</i> <i>History of J.J. Thomson’s Electron</i> (Institute of Physics); Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau, <i>Privacy On Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption</i> (MIT Press); Victor M. Spitzer and David G. Whitlock, <i>Atlas of the Visible Human Male:</i> <i>Reverse Engineering of the Human</i> <i>Body</i> (Jones and Bartlett). (<i>Choice</i>, Jan. 1999, pp. 823-841)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Following is the full text of the original review of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> as it appeared in the April 1998 issue of <i>Choice</i> (p. 1458):<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“West, Thomas G. <b>In the mind’s eye: visual thinkers, gifted people with dyslexia and other learning difficulties, computer images and the ironies of creativity</b>. 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” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">____________________________________________________________</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX B<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> Appendix B -- Patience Bragg Thomson and Bragg Thomson Family. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Preliminary notes about the stories and materials to be provided: Quotation about WWI German guns (from the book <i>Crystal Clear</i>, below). Books about the Thomson and Bragg parents and grandparents. The Royal Institution, headed by Sir Lawrence Bragg, with the RI <i>Lecturing Guide</i>, by Bragg and by Michael Faraday, RI head long ago. Four Nobel Prizes -- especially for x-ray crystallography and the fundamental beginnings of modern molecular biology. Proposal for further research concerning this family (opportunity to fully document and develop insights based on a remarkable case study that could have shed light on the links over generations between high level creativity, professional accomplishment, visual thinking and dyslexia). The BBC documentary on the Nobel award to Sir Lawrence Bragg (many years afterward because of WWI). (“Why no Darwins invited to this party? There will be a separate party for the Darwins because there are so many in that family.”) Bragg on Nazi list of those to be arrested in UK after the planned Nazi invasion. Noted in study by Bragg (senior), political leaders at time of WWI took pride in knowing no science; top schools then taught mainly or only Greek and Latin texts (which Churchill noted that he was unable to do); this little-known adverse selection factor should be studied as well. Students stamping feet at new ideas in physics from the senior Bragg. Early Nobel Prize was awarded to J.J. Thomson, the grandfather, instead of Edison or Tesla (who were on the same short list). Members did not want the Athenaeum Club to have reciprocal access relationships with other London clubs -- but very happy to have reciprocal access arrangement with the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC. Science from observations in the real world to provide analogies and insights of significance: privy and location study of WWI guns; soap bubbles observed in ‘washing up’ behave like atoms; oil and petrol mixed for lawn mower seen to behave like metals. Oxford book club story: when West, as visitor to Bragg Thomsons, was asked to join the group meeting one evening the host was retired surgeon and famous 4 minute mile runner, Sir Roger Bannister. New leadership and adverse changes at the Royal Institution. President of the BDA conference story. Books by family members, to be provided (listed below): Hugh, Peru discoveries. Alice, origins of “Alice Springs,” Australia, <i>Telegraph</i> Friday (later <i>Times</i> again) newspaper column, help with Sue Parkinson obit. Ben, innovative entrepreneur in Scotland.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The Bragg-Thomson books and interviews. (Most are currently in use by West. To be provided to NLM-HOM archive much later.) Several examples: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Hunter, Graeme, 2001. Interview with Patience Thomson, Wallingford, March 15, 2001. Unpublished MS of 37 pp. Given to West by Patience Thomson March 7, 2003. First hand details of family life that sometime provide insights into innovative scientific work. For example, about her father, Sir Lawrence Bragg, PT says: “He needed maximum time to think about his ideas and to plan his lectures and books. Even when he was doing domestic chores like oiling the locks or doing the washing up is mind would be working on some theory in his head. I think he found that formal social engagements, to some extent, were an interruption of the life that he enjoyed. He loved all of the outdoor pursuits, but when he did go for walks, I’m sure he was pondering ideas. I mean, it’s well-known that it was when he was striding along the Backs [river banks at Cambridge University] that he had his idea of how the dots on the x-rays [photographic] plates could be interpreted in terms of the 3 dimensional arrangement of atoms in a molecule.” (p. 2)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Caroe, G. M., 1978. <i>William Henry Bragg, 1862-1942, Man and Scientist</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. An excerpt: “The research work of 1913–14 had brought the joint award to father and son the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915. . . . WL [the son] got the news in France. The old curé on whom he was billeted got up a bottle of wine cellar to celebrate with. The Prize, and the sharing of it, was instantly gratifying and encouraging; but WHB [the father] had no more time for his own research work. . . . War work was claiming him.” (Caroe, p. 81.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Glazer, A. M. and Patience [Bragg] Thomson, 2015. <i>Crystal Clear, The Autobiography of Sir Lawrence & Lady Bragg</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press. An excerpt: “In consequence of the excellent sound ranging of the English. I forbid any battery to fire alone when the whole sector is quiet, especially in east wind. Should there be any occasion to fire, the adjoining battery must always be called upon, either directly or through the Group, to fire for a few rounds.” June 23, 1917. Captured order of the day, German Army, WWI, referencing the wartime scientific work of Sir Lawrence Bragg, quoted in <i>Crystal Clear</i>, p. 92. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomas, John M., FRS, and Sir David Phillips, KBE, FRS, editors, 1990. <i>Selections and Reflections: The Legacy of Sir Lawrence Bragg,</i> <i>Including contributions by Nobel Laureates: Linus Pauling, Lord Todd, Dorothy Hodgkin, Max Perutz, Francis Crick, Sir Nevill Mott, Sir Aaron Klug, James D. Watson, Lord Porter and Sir John Kendrew. </i>London: The Royal Institution of Great Britain<i>. <o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson, Alice, 1999. <i>The Singing Line</i>. London: Chatto & Windus. “The Story of the Man who Strung the Telegraph across Australia, and the Woman who gave her Name to Alice Springs.” Written by Alice, the daughter of David Thomson and Patience Bragg Thompson -- the great-great-granddaughter of the original Alice. An account of a modern journey across Australia, from Adelaide to Darwin, following the track of the first telegraph line laid down by Charles Todd in the 1870s, the husband of the original Alice. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson, Hugh, 2003. T<i>he White Rock; An Exploration of the Inca Heartland</i>. Woodstock & New York: The Overlook Press. Written by Hugh, the son of David Thomson and Patience Bragg Thompson. A review excerpt: “It is a measure of Hugh Thompson’s skill as a writer, historian, and explorer that <i>The White Rock</i> is such a pleasure. . . . This is a moving and meticulously researched account of the Inca people’s rise, conquest of a continent, and tragic annihilation by the conquistadors of the 16th century.” – <i>The Spectator</i>, London<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Recently, West was very sad to learn of the death of a very dear friend, Patience Bragg Thomson, who did so much to help dyslexics in the UK and around the world -- and did so much to shape a positive approach to the abilities and strengths of dyslexics. The <i>Times</i> obituary is below.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">OBITUARY -- Patience Thomson obituary<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexia pioneer who taught minor royals and young offenders, founded a publishing house and helped set up a hospital unit<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Wednesday December 09 2020, 5.00 pm GMT, The <i>Times</i> Obituaries<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience Thomson knew she was on to something with her publishing company for “reluctant readers” when grateful parents sent her letters.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience Thomson had every reason to believe her children would be high achievers. Her parents and her husband’s parents were distinguished Cambridge scientists who had won Nobel prizes. She herself had taken her A-levels at 16, won an exhibition to Cambridge to study modern languages and translated Adolf Hitler’s private correspondence while working for the Foreign Office. Yet she despaired when it emerged that her son, Ben, could hardly read and write as a child.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A generation later, after Thomson had developed into one of Britain’s foremost educationists on dyslexia, Ben Thomson (her chief “guinea pig”) had read astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh, become chief executive of an investment bank, founded Scotland’s largest political think tank, Reform Scotland, and now invests in food and drink companies including</span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Planet Organic and Montezuma’s chocolate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">His mother understood better than most the different ways that dyslexic children’s brains worked because she would spend hours playing with youngsters who had the condition, which renders reading and writing difficult because of problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">David Thomson, Hugh Thomson, Patience Thomson, Ben Thomson, Alice Thomson and Katie Tait (neé Thomson) [Caption for photo, not shown.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In those days children would feel “stupid” compared with their peers, and would even be told as much. Thomson would build up their confidence, turning her house upside down as she invented games to play. Scarves would be knitted for teddies, dolls’ houses built and puppet shows put on. She would take her pupils on nature trails and spend hours talking to them “conspiratorially”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">More than 20 years of working closely with dyslexic children taught her two important lessons. The first was to accept and celebrate children as they are and not make them think they needed fixing. The second was that any dyslexic child could potentially enjoy reading just as much as any other child. This realisation led her in 1998 to found the publishing company Barrington Stoke for “reluctant readers”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The highly colourful stories she published were in a shorter format. Illustrations were not too detailed so that the children could form their own pictures in their imaginations. The key change was that the language was more visual. Most revolutionary of all, Barrington Stoke was advised by an editorial board of dyslexic children. One child told her to change the sentence, “I hate it when girls cry, I find it really embarrassing,” because, he said, “‘embarrassing’ is a hard word and it’s not a word we use anyhow. It would be better if you said ‘I hate it when girls cry, it makes me want to puke’.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson charmed authors, including Michael Morpurgo, Michael Rosen and Julia Donaldson, into writing stories for her, and knew she was on to something when she began to receive letters from grateful parents saying: “This is the first book my child has ever read from beginning to end.” Many of the parents would be dyslexic themselves because the condition is genetic and were grateful that the books helped them to read to their children for the first time. This year Lark by Anthony McGowan and published by Barrington Stoke became the first book aimed at dyslexic children to win the Carnegie Medal, known as the “children’s Booker prize”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson played a leading role in the slow transition from the condition being perceived as a learning difficulty to the championing of many dyslexic children as creatively gifted. She liked to recall showing a child a picture of a dinosaur and asking him what letter the word started with. He replied “B”, not because he mixed up B with D, but because B stood for brachiosaurus. She said that dyslexics have a propensity for lateral thinking and complex problem solving that makes their thought processes sought after in many professional fields. She was thrilled when one of her former pupils found employment as a “computer whizz kid” in the City, but liked to tell the story that he turned up several hours late for his first day at work because he got on the wrong train and ended up in Oxford.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience Mary Bragg was born in Manchester, the youngest of four children, in 1935. Her father, William Lawrence Bragg, won the Nobel prize for physics in 1915 with his father and Thomson’s grandfather, William Henry Bragg, for their work analysing structures using X-rays, which helped our understanding of many substances. They were the first father and son team to win the Nobel prize, while William Lawrence was the youngest winner in history at the age of 25. Her mother was Alice, née Hopkinson, a barrister, journalist and mayor of Cambridge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience was brought up in Cambridge, where her father was a professor of physics at the Cavendish laboratory. There, under his aegis, Francis Crick and James Watson worked on the research that led to the discovery of the helical structure of DNA.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Decades later, while munching a croissant in a park with her granddaughter Agnes, Thomson was asked by the child what she did in the war. She recalled putting pins on maps on the wall to show where the Allied armies had got to. “Our teacher’s husband was shot down and killed in a raid over Germany and we had to be especially nice to her. At home, the sitting room was piled high with musty-smelling clothes and blankets for bombed-out families. We propped them up with wooden clothes horses to make tunnels and secret dens.” She recited her times tables in an air-raid shelter at the bottom of the garden.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience was educated at the Perse School in Cambridge and from the age of 14 at Downe House School for girls in Berkshire. She sat her O-levels and A-levels together at 16 and won an exhibition to Newnham College, Cambridge (her mother’s alma mater) to read French and German.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Her future husband, David Thomson, lived next door when they were children and their families were close friends. They began dating as young adults and had only been out together four times when he proposed. The couple were married in 1959.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Her husband worked for the investment bank Lazard. He was also from a distinguished family of scientists; his father, GP Thomson, won the Nobel prize for discovering the wave properties of the electron, and his grandfather JJ Thomson won the Nobel effectively for his work discovering the electron. David survives her along with their four children: Ben; Alice, a columnist and interviewer for The Times; Hugh, an author, explorer and documentary film-maker; and Katie, who helps to run Maggie’s, a charity that provides psychological support for cancer patients. As a mother, she had a talent for turning family traumas into adventures for her children. She formed an especial bond with her 14 grandchildren.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In 1977 the Thomsons moved out of London to rural Oxfordshire, where Patience had a notion of growing her own fruit and vegetables with chickens ranging free. She soon tired of the “good life” and volunteered at Turners Court, a local young offender institute where she discovered that many of the boys could not read or write. She turned the air blue, and caused much hilarity, at a dinner party hosted by the then chancellor Denis Healey by recounting what her first pupil told her: “Miss, he called me an illiterate c***, and no one will tell me what illiterate means.” She made it her mission to teach the boys to write a letter and enlisted her children as their penpals. She was amazed at how quickly they grew in confidence after composing their first faltering missives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson in 1993 when she was the principal of Fairley House<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">DENZIL MCNEELANCE FOR THE TIMES [Caption, photo not shown.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">After taking a masters degree in special education at Bangor University Thomson was determined to gain acceptance for a condition that was still dismissed as an “excuse” for middle-class parents to cover for the “laziness” of their well-educated children. She began working in a unit at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, in the days when dyslexia was still seen as a medical problem.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Her daughter Alice wrote in <i>The Times</i>: “Dyslexics were always sitting at our kitchen table when I came home from school. There were dustmen who couldn’t read road signs, plumbers who had learnt their trade without ever resorting to a manual and chefs who had been flummoxed by French. There was minor royalty and there were the children of Greek shipping magnates.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In 1989 Thomson became principal of Fairley House, a rapidly expanding specialist school for children with dyslexia which is now based in Lambeth, south London. Here she used the latest techniques, such as “mind maps”, to help the children organise their thoughts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">She campaigned for dyslexic children to be taught the study and revision skills that would enable them to perform well in exams. “She was one of the pioneers of teaching these children beyond the rudimentary aspirations,” said Bernadette McLean, past principal of the Helen Arkell dyslexia centre.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson retired from Fairley House in 1997 to found Barrington Stoke with her daughter-in-law, and Ben’s wife, Lucy Juckes, who had worked in publishing for Bloomsbury. Thomson’s book 101 Ways to Get Your Child to Read (2009) became a bestseller.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson was close friends with the dyslexia pioneer Helen Arkell, who had taught her son, Ben. Years later, Thomson returned the favour by using her royal connections to persuade Princess Beatrice, who is dyslexic, to become an ambassador of the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity. An avid reader and enthusiastic poet, Thomson taught her last dyslexic child at the age of 83. Conspiratorial to the end, she told her pupils that she liked speaking to them more than adults.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience Thomson, teacher and dyslexia pioneer, was born on September 11, 1935. She died of natural causes on November 21, 2020, aged 85.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">___________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX C<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Overview in a Time of Change -- The Context as Outlined in a Recent Commencement Address<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Dear friends, I thought some of you might be interested in the talk I gave six months ago at a nearby high school for college bound dyslexic students. I had agreed to do the talk long before the virus changed everything. The students and teachers put together a nearly complete graduation experience via Zoom -- even including throwing caps in the air at the end. Very impressive. Again, showing talents for creative solutions in adversity. Now with vaccine programs started and a new government, we all may begin to show resilience and new hope for the future. -- TGW<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Commencement Address -- Siena School -- June 9, 2020 -- Thomas G. West<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thank you Sophie for your kind introduction. I also want to thank Jilly and all the staff of Siena School -- and especially the class of 2020. I am greatly honored to be your speaker today. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Initially, I puzzled about what to say to you today -- the first “virtual” commencement -- at a time of many difficulties and dangers. I realize that I must fully acknowledge that what you are seeing now is indeed, in so many ways, <i>The Worst of Times</i>. But I hope to be able to show that this, in some ways, may also be seen as <i>The Best of Times</i> -- for you and your class. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In <i>The Worst of Times</i> -- it is, indeed, a time for resilience and fortitude. You are having to deal with a global pandemic. You have been locked in, away from school and your friends, having to continue classes virtually, facing an uncertain future. In recent months, all over America a great many have lost their jobs. In recent days there have been protests and demonstrations in DC and all around the country -- and, indeed, all around the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">After a long wait, some places are slowly “reopening” -- but even this has many hazards and dangers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In spite of all of this, I’m going to be bold to say that these could be seen also, in some ways, as <i>The Best of Times</i>. In the long history of human kind, we are told, dyslexics seem to have had a special role. According to some researchers, dyslexics sometimes seem unusually well suited to big changes and to being able to see opportunities inside of adversity. They are particularly good at rethinking situations in an original way. They are good at not being stuck with conventional views and conventional solutions. They have trouble reading and memorizing old knowledge -- but they are often really good at creating new knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">My own story is that I came into this field (as is so often the case) with the testing of our two sons -- who started having dyslexia-related problems in school in the earliest grades. As a worried parent, I got myself tested. I did not learn to read until about the fourth year of primary school -- and have always read very slowly -- but I had been totally unaware of the larger pattern of dyslexic traits.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">I soon realized that our family included at least three generations of dyslexics. My father was a brilliant and highly skilled artist and teacher -- but with many classic dyslexic traits. My mother was also a highly skilled artist who won top prizes. They had met in art school. Both had great visual talents.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">When I began my own serious study of dyslexia -- I immediately looked to the dyslexics who were successful in various fields. I was less interested in “fixing” the problems. Rather, I was more interested in understanding areas of distinctive strength and talent. I wanted to look at the fields where dyslexics were successful. I wanted to see what we could learn from them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">First I saw that many things have been changing in fundamental ways -- many that favor dyslexics. All the things that dyslexics have difficulty with are becoming less and less important in the world of work. And the things that dyslexics are good at are becoming more and more important. Shortly, my interest in strengths and talents led me to meet some extraordinarily amazing people and directed me to looking into some new and exciting areas of work. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">One of the first places I looked was computer graphics (including simulators for airplane pilots, film animation, video games, 3-D structures for architects and surgeons and data visualization) -- the remarkable melding of ancient forms of art and story telling -- with the newest high-speed computer graphic technologies. I attended the conferences -- and there were major technical advances every year. Right away the people I met in the computer graphics conferences explained to me that probably half the people in the industry were dyslexic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">I met a woman who was responsible for the computer graphics in major films like <i>Titanic</i> and The <i>Fifth Element</i>. She told me that she had assembled a small group of the most talented computer graphic artists and technologists. They dealt with the most difficult problems in the films. She had hired them for their extreme talents based on samples of their work. She had ignored their paper credentials. Soon, she discovered that entire team was dyslexic -- one hundred percent. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This taught me a lesson -- that dyslexics can be super stars when they find their special areas of talent -- and when they find the right industry to put their talents to use.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This also taught me that one of the most important things is to be able to retain one’s spirit -- one’s resilience -- and not be beaten down by many early failures -- and not be convinced that you can’t move on to higher levels of accomplishment -- sometimes very high levels. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Indeed, when I talked to highly creative and successful dyslexic people in the sciences and business and elsewhere, they say the higher up you go in an area of strength, the easier it gets. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A wonderful example of great success after repeated failures is Jack Horner -- the famous paleontologist who has been advisor to Stephen Spielberg for his four <i>Jurassic Park</i> films. I got to know Jack over the years at several conferences and I have visited him twice at his digs in northern Montana. Jack was mostly a failure in lower school and high school. His high school English teacher gave him a grade of “D minus, minus, minus.” The teacher said you barely passed but “I never want to see you again.” Jack said he sent this teacher a copy of his first book (written with help from a co-writer, of course). Indeed, Jack says he has written more books than he has read. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Although Jack had failed a lot, he never felt a failure. Why? Because he won all the science fair prizes. He built a Tesla coil -- and he also built a rocket. When he first told me this I just assumed he used a small model rocket. But he said, “Oh no, it wasn’t a small model rocket. It was 5 feet tall and it blasted to 27,000 feet.” I said, “Jack you could have shot down an airliner!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In Montana, if you have graduated from high school you could start college. Jack failed in college 7 times but he never gave up. He took a low-level job cleaning and preparing fossils. He kept searching the dry wilds of Montana. He could not get funding from professional grants. But he asked a local beer company and got the funding he needed -- to eventually make important discoveries. In time, his work was respected and he became famous. He designed the dinosaur museum exhibits in Bozeman, received honorary degrees and started teaching paleontology.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">He would have his 19 graduate students write their papers and put them in the computer so Jack could have his computer read the papers to him. He said that his mission was to get these graduate students to “think like a dyslexic.” You didn’t want them to clutter their minds with “other people’s thoughts,” he said. He wanted them to observe nature directly and see what was there in front of them in the fossil evidence. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">He tried to teach them how to think “out of the box.” He said that normally dyslexics think “out of the box” -- because “they have never been in the box.” I think Jack’s example is a great one because it shows that he is definitely not suited to conventional academic studies. But he was very well suited to understanding nature and science -- seeing clearly what the fossil evidence revealed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Another great example is Mary Schweitzer, one of Jack’s grad students -- who is also dyslexic. One year Jack and his team had found a very large set of fossil bones from a Tyrannosaurus Rex at the face of a high cliff in northern Montana. It was in a remote area so it was hard to get people and equipment in and out. They found that the fossil femur (that is, the upper leg bone) of the T Rex (when covered with protective plaster of Paris) was so big and heavy that the loaned helicopter couldn’t lift it. So they had to cut this femur in half. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">They sent one half to Mary. They didn’t treat it with any chemicals as they normally do. Mary looked inside this bone and what she saw immediately was a deposit of calcium inside the bone -- like the deposits of calcium found inside bird bones when they are ready to make egg shells. So Mary knew right away that the T Rex had been a pregnant female. But there was more. Inside the bone Mary also found tiny flexible blood vessels and the remnants of red blood cells. Mary and her assistant said they could not sleep for weeks because they thought they would never be believed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">She published her findings in <i>Science</i> magazine and indeed she was attacked. The critics said it is not possible for such things to survive for more that 60 million years. However, later, other scientists repeated her discoveries and admitted that her work was legitimate. So, Mary Schweitzer, Jack’s dyslexic grad student, started a whole new subfield of science -- molecular paleontology -- one never imagined possible before.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Another amazing story is about William J. Dreyer, a dyslexic molecular biologist at the California Institute of Technology, “Caltech.” Some years ago Bill contacted me and said he had read my book and thought that I understood how he thinks (“no one else does,” he said). He suggested, “Next time you’re in the Los Angeles area come and visit. I want to tell you my story.” Turns out that Bill’s story was very interesting indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Bill started off as a dyslexic ski bum. But he took some tests and realized he had some areas of special ability, especially in visual thinking. He started studying biology and he soon realized that he could understand what was going on in the laboratory better than others. Because he could use his powerful dyslexic imagination to see how the molecules fit together in various ways, he developed a new theory related to the human immune system. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">He told his professors which experiments they should do and what the results would be. They helped him write his papers, based on his new theories. For 12 years, he gave talks about these new theories. Many professionals in the field were angered by these talks; it was all so new that they could not understand; they thought it was heresy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Later, another scientist, working in Switzerland doing experiments that were illegal in United States at the time, proved that Bill’s new theories were correct. And this other scientist received a Nobel Prize. Bill told me, I think honestly, that he was not upset about not receiving the Nobel Prize. He told me that once you receive the prize your life is not your own -- everybody wants a piece of you. Bill said that he was happy to be vindicated and to know that his theory was correct and was eventually accepted by everyone in the field.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">But there’s still more to Bill’s story. Bill had a dyslexic grandson named Brandon King. Brandon was in high school flunking everything, depressed, taking medication, fighting with his parents, feeling very low. So his grandfather asked him to come and visit and help with his research using Brandon’s computer skills. Each day Bill talked to Brandon and said this is what I want you to do today. Since you are good with computers, I want you to write this little search program -- but before that you need to know this biology . . . <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Shortly, Brandon started to help in the laboratory at Caltech as a volunteer. Then he was part-time employee. Eventually he was a full-time employee helping with the computer side of the biology laboratory at the Caltech. Soon, according to Bill, Brandon was doing “post doc” level work at the laboratory -- and he still hadn’t graduated from high school. Eventually Brandon went on to college at Berkeley (because they had the best LD support program) and was able to graduate with honors and start his own business. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Because of my books and talks, many stories of successful dyslexics have come my way. The field is full of paradoxes and surprises. Great writers who cannot spell. High level mathematicians who don’t know their math facts. A Nobel Prize winning biologist who had been in “special ed” and thought she was stupid. It is important for educators and test designers to understand that there are whole areas of talent that they do not know how to measure or comprehend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Over many years stories of dyslexic entrepreneurs like Richard Branson have been written about in the business press. This is not new. However, what is new is that in the last couple of years there have been formal reports written by major management consultant firms. A report by one of the big four management consultant companies (EY -- formerly Ernst and Young) states the case that what businesses want in the future are the skills and talents and strengths that are common among dyslexics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">With the new fast, powerful computers many of the clerical tasks that our educational system trains human beings to do are now being done faster and more cheaply by machines -- especially with massive data available in the cloud along with “deep learning” and artificial intelligence (AI). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Businesses realize that what they now need from their human employees is the innovation, creativity, big picture thinking and other abilities that are common among dyslexics (but seem to be rare among certain non-dyslexics). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">These are the kinds of things that some of us been saying for many years. But it is wonderful indeed to hear these from established management consulting companies. I think it is important for you, the class of 2020, to acknowledge, of course, the many great problems and stresses of our time. But along with all your own difficulties with dyslexia, remember that you have many advantages in ways of thinking that others do not have. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">So I want you to see that it may be possible to view the problems as opportunities as well -- to show the world -- and to show yourselves -- <i>what you really can do</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thank you<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">__________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX D<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Videos Online<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 videos are 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. Each with the same middle initial (G for Gifford) but different middle names. For example, one writes on politics in Texas, another is an art historian in New York City.) -- TGW<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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. 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">On YouTube.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(3) “A New World Shaped By Dysexics.” Video of one of five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS), November 2014. On YouTube.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(4) “The Power of Dyslexic Visual thinkers with Computer Data Visuaization.” DAS, Singapore, November 2014. On YouTube.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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: West’s personal experience and the early role of the kindly reading teacher when dyslexia was unknown; no diagnosis as dyslexic until he was 41 years old; late blooming pattern was apparent during late high school and early college; early memorization education was very difficut, but higher concept-based education becomes increasingly easy (or, early school was 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 become some of the best writers with clear and simple writing of substance with vivid sound of language and imagery; that it is now recognized that time is on the side of dyslexics because their strengths are more valued by employers for their creativity and big picture thinking while low level reading and clerical tasks are now being done extremely fast and extremely cheaply by the newest powerful computer systems, with “deep learning” and AI. On YouTube.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">__________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX E<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Summary Slides, Basic Approach<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Note: The slides in presentations provided by West are usually made up of images of people, places, books and other graphic material -- with just a few key words or phrases to be discussed informally by the speaker. However, occasional longer text slides, like those below, have been incorporated in recent years to emphasize certain concepts and points of view, especially when they are different from what many in the audience might expect.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Text Slides Used in Recent Talks by Thomas West, 2019 and 2020<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Some want to teach mainly reading in order to bring dyslexics up to normal levels with “basic skills.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• But, instead, some of us want to study the “super stars” to learn how they did it. <i>Indeed,</i> <i>how similar they are to ourselves</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Studying success, we hope to learn things that are useful to dyslexics and others, especially in a rapidly-changing global technological and economic context with massive data, “deep learning” & AI.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Basic skills have no market value. </span></i><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">(Norbert Weiner, <i>Cybernetics</i>, 1948.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">******************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Many dyslexics and strong visual thinkers seem poorly adapted to the old technologies of words and books, memorizing old knowledge. <br /><br />• But many seem perfectly adapted to the new technologies of complex information visualized in computer graphic images and simulation, creating new knowledge, seeing what others cannot see.<br /><br />• Need to find ways to help students identify and employ their distinctive capabilities. Look to the highly successful. What to teach. How to teach. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">***************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Tell the Young Dyslexics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Time is on your side. All the things you have had trouble with are becoming less and less important. All the things you are good at are becoming more and more important. (See EY business consultant reports.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Machines are now doing the reading and rapid recall and clerical tasks. Humans should not to do machine work. Rather, humans need to visualize, see the big picture, understand, recognize patterns, consider slowly and ponder what it all means, where to go and how to get there. (Versus narrow specialist training as basic things change -- and then change again.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">**************<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Samuel Torrey Orton in 1925, paper on “Word Blindness”<br /><br />• Iowa, Mobile Psychiatric Units (Orton almost became an engineer.)<br />• He requested to see those “failing in their school.” (142 were referred.)<br />• Patient MP, 16, “inability to read.” But Orton could see that he was bright. <br /><br />• Orton wrote: “Stanford-Binet method [then new] . . . did not do justice to the boy’s mental equipment . . . the test is inadequate to gauge . . . facile use of visual imagery of . . . complex type . . . good visualizing power . . . his replies were prompt and keen.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Desire for New Tests and Measures<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As I told a group of young dyslexic students: “We need to develop a new series of tests where the dyslexics will get the top score and the non-dyslexics will get the bottom score.” I had not been sure how many had been paying close attention. But to my surprise, my assertion brought spontaneous and enthusiastic applause. Their reaction tells us a lot about what they have been through – and how much they hunger for recognition of the things that they can do well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Often Nobel Prize winners seem to immediately understand what we are talking about when discussing visual thinking, visual technologies, dyslexia and the advantages of seeing things differently. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Many school psychologists and conventional educators do not. Often they are trained to design courses and tests that ignore or discourage difference. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexics are unlike non-dyslexics -- but they are also unlike each other, with highly varied traits -- an essentially heterogeneous group, hard to measure and categorize. (Dr. Norman Geschwind) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Stories: We should listen to individual stories in depth first, then collect data. As a good medical history tells you what to look for and what to measure and what data to collect. <i>Anecdotes, and family histories, may lead to treasures of understanding</i>.*<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Sometimes we count the wrong things. Many dyslexic talents are invisible to conventional tests and measures. (So the resulting data may appear to be solid and scientific. But, instead, the data might actually confirm errors, seen as if they were facts, or may entirely miss the point.) <i>Diversity is not a pathology.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Many talk of a “scientific survey.” In old science: researchers want to generalize based on large populations. Small percentages do not matter. However in new science: Small percents do matter. Individuals matter. Differences matter. Nano scales matter. There is sensitivity to initial conditions. The new focus of precision medicine. <i>The power of the small.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">* Of course, insights gained from anecdotes and family histories must always be tested properly using appropriate methods and measures. However, these sources should be seen as valuable in gaining insights not ordinarily available with conventional methods, especially when the findings are opposite from those expected. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*******************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Need to Return to Visual Thinking in Education </span><span lang="MR" style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">–</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> As with Engineers: <br /><br />“Until the 1960s, a student . . . was expected by his teachers to use his minds eye to examine things that engineers had designed -- to look at them, listen to them, walk around them and thus to develop an intuitive ‘feel’ for the way the material world works. . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />“By the 1980s, engineering curricula had shifted to analytical [mathematical] approaches. . . . As faculties dropped drawing and shop practice . . . working knowledge of the material world disappeared from faculty agendas. . . and the nonverbal . . . intuitive understanding essential to engineering design atrophied.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">(Eugene S. Ferguson, <i>Engineering and the Mind’s Eye</i>, MIT Press, 1992).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">**************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Visualization seen as important in new ways of teaching mathematics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“I want you to know that reading your book and the conversations we had at the SIGGRAPH [computer graphics] 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 <i>Calculus &</i> <i>Mathematica</i>, 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 [using memorized mathematics].” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span face=""ヒラギノ明朝 ProN W3"" style="font-size: 14pt;">–</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> J. Jerry Uhl, PhD, Math Department Head, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">**************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexia, visual thinking and visual technologies: varied levels of interest observed in these ideas and concepts while giving talks over more than 25 years.<br /><br />• Nobel Prize winners and high-level, creative scientists are often interested; conventionally trained educators and school psychologists are usually not interested.<br /><br />• Groups like NASA Ames, the Max Planck Institutes, Oxford and Cambridge University researchers, NLM-NIH, the Singapore Dyslexia Association, GCHQ in the UK and Hong Kong doctors are interested </span><span lang="MR" style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">–</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> these are practitioners, innovators, discoverers, practical users.<br /><br />• Many conventional tests and measures do not capture these talents. Need new tests. How to recognize and develop high potential . . . How to show the way. . . For dyslexics, for other different thinkers, for all of us -- to show the path, innovating for major problems, in a new digital age of AI . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Concerning a really revolutionary discovery in science and technology. When you seek the origins of these discoveries, you should not be surprised to find a dyslexic. They may not be full of previously memorized knowledge, Often the dyslexics can observe closely with an open mind and can see what others cannot see. (Especially an advantage for Nobel Prize winners, of course.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">___________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX F<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Brief Quotations to Provide Background and Context” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">From “Visualization Research Agenda Meeting,” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">National Library of Medicine, February 15-16, 2000.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Misconceptions Widespread --<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Concerning the question of whether technically creative people will ever be comfortable with artistically created people. I have seen two very different working environments, up close, that give two very different pictures. Pixar is an excellent example of how the two types can and do work harmoniously together -- with equal respect, dignity, salary, promotion opportunities, company ownership and mutual admiration. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">My other experience is Microsoft, which, frankly, just does not ‘get it’ about artists. The technologically creative people here are awesome and Microsoft is the best run company I’ve ever seen, but the people here don’t respect artists in that deep way I just described at Pixar. They seem to believe the really good talents in the world are technical and if you can’t cut it then you do other things, like art. In other words, the culture here doesn’t, not yet anyway, welcome the other side. I’m trying to change this, but it isn’t so yet.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Alvy Ray Smith, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, interview, in <i>ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics</i>, May 1999.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Recent trends, broad implications, now reversing talents -- <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Until the 1960s, a student in an American engineering school was expected by his teachers to use his minds eye to examine things that engineers had designed, to look at them, listen to them, walk around them and thus develop an intuitive feel for the way the material world works and sometimes doesn’t work. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“By the 1980s, engineering curricula had shifted to analytical [and mathematical] approaches, so that visual and other sensual knowledge of the world seemed less relevant. As faculties dropped drawing and shop practice from their curricula and [professors] deemed plant and factory visits unnecessary, working knowledge of the material world disappeared from faculty agendas and therefore from student agendas, and the nonverbal, tacit, and intuitive understanding essential to engineering design atrophied.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Eugene S. Ferguson, <i>Engineering and the Minds Eye</i>, the MIT press, 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Special ability, fundamental in creative science, often ignored -- <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Spatial ability has been given only token attention as an important dimension of cognitive functioning. Research on the structure, identification, and development of spatial abilities has been conducted by a few researchers around the world [but] often ignored by the psychological and educational community. In addition, special ability has played only a modest role in educational assessment and instruction. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth, Center for Talented Youth, Johns Hopkins University.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Professional implications, screening out talent -- <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The engineering profession is being denied potentially innovative engineers by the present school system. As it is now structured, it screens out and discourages students who have abilities similar to those of the large number of presently practicing engineers, most of whom graduated before 1960. That innovative group, trained on vacuum tube technology, developed semiconductor electronics lasers, optical communications, satellite communications -- and put a man on the moon. I believe that a significant portion of these engineers are right brain dominent hand or compensated dyslexics. The type of students entering engineering school now is different from the student of the 1940s and 1950s. There is far more screening out today of right brain and moderately dyslexic students. Unfortunately too many companies will only hire graduates with high grades -- which is no indication of an engineer’s ingenuity. These potential employers should instead keep an open eye keep and open mind about right brain and dyslexic students, who could fill positions where their innovative and intuitive approaches to problems could be utilized.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Walter W. Fry, retired electrical engineer formerly with the Brookhaven National laboratory, “Speak Out.” <i>IEEE Spectrum</i>, December 1990. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Note: Above observations possible in this time period because these innovative engineers were then alive. Some 30 years later, most of these engineers are gone. All the young engineers have been screened by standardized tests -- and have been trained to focus on mathematical approaches rather than “hands on” visual learning. So all are now able to memorize well and past modern tests. But perhaps few are able to do really major innovation. Similar might be said of the older doctors who attended the Markle Foundation reunion, where many told West of their own dyslexia or the dyslexia of near family members. See item 24 above. Need to provide more discussion on this speculation. Compare UK leadership prior to WWI where top government people prided themselves on knowing no science; they were all trained mainly in Greek and Latin literature and proud of reading major ancient texts in the original Greek every few years. (Get quotation on this from Bragg senior. Also, similar to observation of Prof. John Stein, below, about highly innovative dyslexic Oxford dermatology professor. Modern selection methods may effectively select out some of the most creative and individuals in various professional groups. So much depends upon what kinds of tests and section methods are used during certain historical periods.) -- TGW. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Parallel efforts, Finding Talent at Oxford University––<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Oxford University is currently mounting an effort to try to find ways to identify highly talented students who would not pass the usual screening mechanisms currently in place. One specific example given is a dyslexic dermatologist who has been a leader in his field, teaching at Oxford with many innovative papers and professional awards. Because of his weaknesses in test taking, however, he would not be admitted to Oxford today. They want to see how screening may be altered to change this situation. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Professor John Stein, lecture in physiology, Oxford University, personal communication, London, June 1999.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">A longer term expectation––<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I have often argued in my public talks that the graduate education process that produces physicists is totally skewed to selecting those with analytical [and mathematical] skills and rejecting those with visual or holistic skills. I have claimed that with the rise of scientific visualization as a new mode of discovery, a new class of minds will arise as scientists. In my own life, my guru in computational science was dyslexic and he certainly saw the world in a different and much more effective manner then his own colleagues. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">-- Larry Smart, National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Personal communication. [Get date. See his email.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">___________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX G<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 18pt;">Acknowledgements<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Most of the presentations, events and publications listed above mainly result from the vision, energy, advocacy and leadership of a small number of highly committed individuals. [Very preliminary. More to come -- along with main connections for each. -- TGW]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sue Parkinson -- Founder, the Arts Dyslexia Trust, arranged for many talks for art and scientific groups in the UK. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jo and Richard Todd -- Key 4 Learning, consultants, GCHQ, UK Government <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide -- Dyslexic Advantage, book, websites. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Patience Bragg Thompson -- Publisher, teacher, scientific family. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lord (Harry) Renwick -- advocate for dyslexics, Vice Pres. BDA. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">David and Dr. Angela Fawcett -- journal editor, author, professor. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lee Siang -- CEO, Dyslexia Association of Singapore<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Deborah Hewes, Head of Publications, Dyslexia Association of Singapore<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">William J. Dreyer, PhD -- Professor, Caltech, dyslexic molecular biologist, innovative research led to Nobel Prize, started seven biotech companies<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Marc I. Rowe, MD -- dyslexic pediatric surgeon, top award, Ladd Metal<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">John R. (Jack) Horner -- dinosaur researcher, Spielberg film consultant, Bozeman, Montana -- recently, teaching at college in California<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Kate Griggs -- co-founder with Richard Branson, Made By Dyslexia, UK, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rod Nicholson -- author, <i>Positive Dyslexia</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">John Stein -- Oxford University, Dyslexia Trust<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Susanna Cederquist -- Swedish language book, <i>Dyslexia plus Talent equals Truth; </i>former consultant on dyslexia for Swedish Royal Family<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Richard Branson -- dyslexic entrepreneur, co-founder of Made By Dyslexia<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">_____________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX H<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 18pt;">Draft Memoir for Dr. Lindberg Book<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt;">Note: Below, a requested memoir for the new book, <i>Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D.: Tributes to his Career and Contributions</i>,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt;">to be published by IOS Press, Amsterdam. Near final draft, with several changes by the volume editor before final revisions for camera-ready print version. Draft, March 10, 2021. Please do not cite or quote this draft version. -- TGW<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18pt;">Personal Memories of Donald A. B. Lindberg, MD,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18pt;">Visual Thinker and Medical Visionary<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomas G. WEST<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Keywords</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">: Donald A. B. Lindberg, visual thinking, computer graphics technology, dyslexia <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> Corresponding author: thomasgwest@gmail.com<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">From the late 1980s until his retirement in 2015, I was privileged to observe the forward thinking and astonishing depth, range, and liveliness of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) under the direction of Dr. Donald A. B. Lindberg. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As an outsider, I observed from my point of view as an ordinary library researcher. I mainly utilized NLM’s History of Medicine collections for information about early scientists like Michael Faraday and medical pioneers such as Dr. Harvey Cushing. Initially, I used the old paper index catalog cards, microfilm and the early NLM mainframe computer information systems to research and prepare the manuscript for my first book, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, published in spring 1991 [<a name="_ftnref1" title=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></a>].<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I first met Dr. Lindberg at a gathering after a lecture in NLM’s Lister Hill Building. He asked about my work. I explained that my research focus concerned the talents of dyslexic individuals -- together with visual thinking in the history medicine and science. I was surprised to discover that Dr. Lindberg also was interested in these topics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I later learned that these interests were partly a reflection of his personal history. Don’s father was an architect. Don was trained in a highly visual specialty, pathology, and some family members are dyslexic. As is often the case, this kind of personal history helps some to understand and appreciate the puzzling mixed strengths and weaknesses that accompany these life patterns. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I also was fascinated that Don’s interests included then-rapidly developing computer graphic technologies as well as the hidden talents of dyslexics -- who often see things differently, to innovate and sometimes make scientific discoveries before conventionally trained experts in some fields. Over time, I began to appreciate that Dr. Lindberg had a special ability to see where things were going and to attract highly talented and creative people for his staff, NLM’s Board of Regents, and the Library’s diverse, innovative projects.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Over the years, Dr. Lindberg assumed leadership positions in several major areas -- archiving massive amounts of genetic code information [within the National Center for Biomedical Information (NCBI)], providing research information in clinicaltrials.gov, and even leading a federal government-wide effort -- the High Performance Computing and Communications Program (HPCC). He once remarked to me how difficult it was to deal with 500 HPCC emails a day. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dr. Lindberg’s interest in visual thinking and dyslexia was evidenced when he asked me to be the after-dinner speaker at a meeting of NLM’s Board of Regents [2]. He accorded me the honor of describing the ideas I developed during my research and writing. I began my BOR speech with the following words: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“ My talk this evening is about ‘a return to visual thinking.’ My subtitle ‘new technologies, old talents and reversed expectations,’ encapsulates my main thesis -- that as we begin to use the newest technologies in really powerful ways (which we have hardly begun), we will begin to tap into some of our oldest and most ‘primitive’ neurological (visual spatial) talents. In so doing, we will begin to see ourselves and our world with very different eyes -- leading, in time, to fundamentally different attitudes towards education and concepts of intelligence, as well as the skills and talents that are considered to be the most valuable. . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Advanced Applications<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">At NLM in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I witnessed the rapid changes in computer systems happening all around us. Dr. Lindberg seemed to be simultaneously interested in newest technologies and at the same time, he respected the insights and sophisticated knowledge of early researchers and traditional cultures. For example, one morning I chanced to attend another lecture in NLM’s Lister Hill Building. The speaker was a sleepy young computer programmer and software engineer. He had been up all night, as he said, releasing to the World Wide Web thousands of copies of a new computer program he and a coworker designed -- called a ‘browser.’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As it turned out it was ‘Mosaic;’ the first web browser of its kind. The young speaker was Marc Andreessen, then working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. Later, he became famous in the computer world for the company Netscape and the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Of course, these initiatives helped enable access to the Internet and revolutionized mass communication -- and I was privileged to see the very first day -- largely because of NLM and its forward-thinking Director.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thinking Like Einstein on the Hokule’a<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">During his career, Dr. Lindberg came to be known as a major innovator in using computers in healthcare research and practice. Under his direction, NLM pioneered broad access to medical information with Medline and PubMed. But Don also promoted a deeper understanding of less well-known groups with programs such as ‘Women in Medicine’ and ‘Native Voices.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Native Voices’ exemplified how Dr. Lindberg promoted the investigation of the traditional forms of medicine, widely ignored previously. In later years, I was thrilled to see that NLM played a major role in a visit to Washington, D.C., during the round-the-world journey of the traditional Polynesian canoe the Hokule’a -- a double-hulled sailing canoe that enabled the early Polynesian peoples to travel among the islands of the broad Pacific Ocean.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I was delighted to see Dr. Lindberg’s interest in this area. Previously, I followed the renewed practice of traditional navigation methods and the significant influence of its rebirth in generating pride and reviving traditional Polynesian culture. Of course, the early traditional navigators used the stars and other natural signs. However, traditional navigators also taught themselves to feel long-distance ocean swells to maintain a heading -- and how the absence or ‘shadow’ in these swells could indicate the presence of an island, out of sight, over the horizon. I wrote about these insights in my second book<i>, </i>Thinking Like Einstein<i> </i>[3]. Indeed, the intended full title for the second book was to have been Thinking Like Einstein on the Hokule’a.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dr. Lindberg was well aware how traditional cultures used visual abilities in highly sophisticated ways -- with a minimum of technology and a sophisticated integration of deeply understood natural forces. Needless to say, I was amazed and delighted when the Hokule'a tied up for several days at the Washington Canoe Club on the Potomac River in the middle of Washington, DC. Nainoa Thompson, the chief traditional navigator, gave a major talk at NLM about traditional navigation methods. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Similar to Andreessen, NLM provided a stage for an important person (who was not well known outside of Polynesia) to provide fresh perspectives and ideas. In a way, both talks were so typical of Dr. Lindberg’s NLM. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Moreover, I enjoyed several conversations with Nainoa at the Canoe Club where he confirmed his special visual spatial skills in traditional navigation probably were linked to his dyslexia. We talked about our common dyslexia experiences and the dyslexia of some family members. It all seemed to support the theory from Harvard neurologist and dyslexia researcher, Norman Geschwind, M.D., who suggested the visual-spatial abilities often seen among dyslexics yielded an array of socio-cultural benefits [4].<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dr. Lindberg’s Prescient Leadership<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Over time, I beheld how prescient Dr. Lindberg was in providing leadership during an era of enormous change and rapid progress. Don used his broad interests and deep understanding of the potential of computer systems in the service of medical knowledge and practice. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">One especially forward-looking conference was organized in mid-February 2000. At Dr. Lindberg’s direction<i>. </i>The ‘Visualization Research Agenda Meeting -- The Impact of Visualization Technologies --Using Vision to Think’ considered how: ‘new visualization technologies are giving us new ways of seeing and understanding: bringing diverse worlds together, transforming the nature of education and work, redefining what we understand is talent and intelligence.’ The meeting focused on the implications of visualization technology for education and professional training as well as how to build an appropriate research program. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was a small but diverse meeting with only 22 attendees. NLM’s participants included Dr. Lindberg, Alexa McCray, Michael Ackerman, and Steve Phillips. Other attendees represented: five institutes at the U.S. National Institutes of Health; two from the Smithsonian Institution; three from computer graphics organizations; and six persons with knowledge and experience regarding dyslexia, giftedness and the brain’s evolution. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Among those in attendance was Alvy Ray Smith, PhD, a strong advocate for the power of computer graphics in many spheres. Dr. Smith was one of the two founders of the Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, CA. Dr. Smith was a member of NLM’s Board of Regents and helped with the Visible Human Project and other related programs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Other attendees included William J. Dreyer, Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, who provided a striking example or the power of dyslexic visual thinking in science and medicine. Dreyer had been a classic dyslexic when young; his reading, spelling and arithmetic test scores all were substandard. But having performed well on other tests, Dreyer went on to study biology -- and gradually realized he could tell his professors what experiments to do and what the results would be. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Previously, Dreyer revealed that his dyslexic imagination enabled him to visualize processes in molecular biology and chemistry that led to a new and controversial theory about the human immune system. Dreyer espoused the theory for about 12 years -- providing concepts based on data from instruments that he designed and built himself. However, Dreyer’s data was in a form so new and unconventional that almost everyone in his field could not understand what he was talking about. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Years later, Dreyer was vindicated and proven correct. When Susumu Tonegawa was awarded a Nobel Prize (physiology or medicine, 1987) for work he had done in Switzerland, his innovative sequencing work demonstrated (through experiments that were illegal in the U.S. at the time) that Dreyer’s and his colleague’s predictions were correct. In the words of two scientific historians of this period: ‘This experiment marked the point of no return for the domination of the antibody diversity question by nucleotide studies: it was Susumu Tonegawa’s final proof of the Dreyer-Bennett V-C translocation hypothesis through the use of restriction enzymes’ [5].<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dr. Lindberg’s views on dyslexic insight were summarized in a quotation he kindly provided for the back cover of my third book, <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘West argues convincingly that dyslexics . . . seem to fail in elementary school learning while excelling at the broader level of graduate school. Many whose stories he recites were smashing successes in business. West urges that this is because of extra gifts in visual learning and thinking. He goes beyond praising dyslexics’ hidden strengths in visual thinking and learning, their ability to see what others cannot see -- he demands that we stop hiding the imaginative strengths of all children under their weaknesses in reading.’ -- Donald Lindberg, M.D., Director Emeritus, National Library of Medicine [6].<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A major conference where Dr. Lindberg and I were on program provided insights into the history of medical education. The 50<sup>th</sup> reunion of Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine occurred from September 17-19, 1998 in Phoenix, Arizona.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Besides Dr. Lindberg and myself, other speakers included: Gerald M. Edelman, Scripps Research Institute (Nobel Prize winner); and Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education (MacArthur Prize winner). Markle Scholars were professors identified by their medical school deans as the best teachers in the U.S. and Canada for several decades after World War II. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In my talk, I spoke primarily about visual thinking among creative scientists and some then-recent developments in computer graphic technologies. However, I also mentioned how visual thinking and associated innovation sometimes were linked to dyslexia and other related learning differences. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Remarkably, during the course of the three-day conference, many (nearly one half of the attendees and their spouses) spoke to me about their own dyslexia (two surgeons from Johns Hopkins, for example) or told stories of dyslexia among their family members or their more creative and innovative coworkers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As I look back, I am enormously grateful for the privilege to know Dr. Lindberg and his wife Mary. It is now often said, rightly, that both presided over the Golden Age of the National Library of Medicine. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dr. Lindberg’s vision was broad and deep, often including an early consideration of diverse topics that only later became evident in the mainstream. Don took over a massive medical library primarily designed to serve various medical specialists -- and he pushed the boundaries, using the newest technologies, to serve the nation and, eventually, the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">References<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[1]. West TG. In the mind’s eye, creative visual thinkers, gifted dyslexics and the rise of visual technologies.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> 1<sup>st</sup> Ed. Amherst, NY.: Prometheus Books; 1991. 3rd Ed. Lanham, MD.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group; 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[2]. West TG. A return to visual thinking: new technologies, old talents and reversed expectations. Bethesda, MD.: NLM Board of Regents Meeting; May 26, 1993. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[3].<i> </i>West TG. Thinking like Einstein: returning to our visual roots with the emerging revolution in computer information visualization. Amherst NY.:<i> </i>Prometheus Books; 2004. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[4]. Geschwind N, Galaburda AM. Cerebral lateralization: biological mechanisms, associations, and pathology. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press; 1987, p. 97-104. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[5].<span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"> </span>Tauber, AI, Podolsky SH. The generation of diversity: clonal selection theory and the rise of molecular immunology.Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; 1997, p. 207. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">[6]. West TG. Seeing what others cannot see: the hidden advantages of visual thinkers and differently wired brains. Amherst, NY.: Prometheus Books; 2017. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">_____________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX I<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 18pt;">Short Title Listing of Numbered Topics and Events<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">1. Northern California IDA Conference, 2002<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">2. Max Planck Institutes Conference, 1993; <i>Proceedings</i>, 1994<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">3. NYC Orton Dyslexia Society Conference, 1993<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">4. Netherlands Design Conference, 1993<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">5. GCHQ, First Diversity Day, 2006<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">6. Green College, University of Oxford, ADT<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">7. Royal College of Art, London<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">8. Glasgow School of Art<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">9. Uppsala, Dyslexia Policy Conference, attended by Queen of Sweden<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">10. University of California, Berkeley<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">11. Education Conference, Harvard & MIT<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">12. MIT Image Conference, Mandelbrot, 2001<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">13. MIT at Getty, 2005<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">14. ADT London, various dates<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">15. Taiwan, 3 cities, full day program<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">16. SIGGRAPH, Canada, various dates<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">17. Hong Kong (then Taiwan)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">18. Board of Regents, NLM, speaker<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">19. Ed. Testing Service, Princeton<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">20. Pixar, 5 visits, two talks<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">21. Oxford, Magdalen talk<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">22. NASA Ames<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">23. Singapore, 2014<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">24. Markle Reunion, 1998<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">25. Mall Gallery,ADT, 1994<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">26. Sweden, June 2019<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">27. Global Summit, Made By Dyslexia, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">28. Hawaii Conference, W. Baker, 1998<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">29. Lindberg conf., BOR Room, Alvy (tapes)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">30. Confederation of British Industry, 1995<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">31. Dyslexic Doctor 2020<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">32. Japan NHK, Jack Horner<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">33. RASP Book, 2011<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">34. Italian Dyslexia Association, Rome<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">35. Orton Dyslexia Society, Boston 1996<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">36. Wadsworth Center (NY CDC), Albany<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">37. Freshman Year Experience Conf., 1994<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">38. <i>SWOCS</i> on Eide Book<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">39. Chautauqua talks, 2003<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">40. Interview docs, Dreyer, Rowe<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">41. Future Reversals, IDA reprint, 1992<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">42. Krasnow Inst., Wu letter, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">43. Southwest Branch IDA, 2005<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">44. Patience Bragg Thomson and family -- and books (below)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">45. <i>Beyond the Ivy League</i>, L. Pope chapter on LD (to come)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Appx. A. Reviews & Comments, bio<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Appx. B. Bragg family, books, <i>Crystal Clear</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Appx. C. Siena Talk, 2020<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Appx. D. Videos, on web<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Appx. E. Word slides from talks<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Appx. F. Acknowledgements<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Appx. H. Draft for Dr. Lindberg Book<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Appx. I. Short List of Numbered Topics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a name="_ftn1" title=""></a><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-11906757156754215862021-01-23T18:48:00.000-05:002021-01-23T18:48:03.591-05:00<p><br /></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Significant Events and Documents for the West Archive<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Updated Listing for History of Medicine, NLM, NIH <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> Incomplete Draft, in Process -- January 22, 2021<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 significance of these invited talks, seminars and workshops 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 considered by those interested in the strengths and talents of individuals with dyslexia and other learning differences -- as well as the related advances in computer graphics, visual thinking and advanced information visualization technologies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This listing of selected events and documents, with brief descriptions, is intended to show some evidence of the gradual development and effectiveness of these efforts -- and provide researchers, advocates and other archive users a guide to available resources along with models for future efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West is the author of three books, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> (with editions in 1991, 1997, 2009 and 2020), <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> (2004) and <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See </i>(2017). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The first book,<i> In the Mind’s Eye,</i> 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 (one of only 12 books in the broad “Psychology” category, including books on neuroscience, intelligence testing, language impairment, mental health and psychiatry).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 many different fields and disciplines, has been an indicator, much to West’s surprise and delight, of the timeliness and broad impact of these research findings and publications -- largely based on the original work by the neurologists Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton in the 1920s and Dr. Norman Gechwind and his students in the 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often over looked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. 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 Epilogues with some 40-50 pages of new material. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Another indicator of continuing interest is that in recent months, West has been asked to join a global network, based in Stockholm, Sweden, of those with high interest in the strengths and talents of dyslexic children and adults. This network includes researchers, advocates and academics from Oxford, Cambridge and Sheffield universities in the UK as well as individuals associated with the Nobel Prize Foundation in Stockholm and a former advisor to the Swedish Royal Family (where three of five are dyslexic). The 7th meeting of the group is to be held (via Zoom) on February 15, 2021 -- 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West has given additional talks (via Zoom and related technologies, recorded and/or live) in October and November 2020 for groups based in Amsterdam, Holland, Cairo, Egypt, a group associated George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia -- as well as the International Dyslexia Association annual conference based in the US (previously planned for Denver, Colorado, later made virtual). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">On June 9, 2020, West gave the commencement address (via Zoom) for graduates of Siena School, Silver Spring, Maryland, a high school for college-bound dyslexic students. (A copy of this address is provided in Appendix C, below, as a brief overview to outline the larger context of these considerations for young adults, among others.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Over the years, West’s investigations have led him to look beyond dyslexia to a wider range of learning differences. In his third book, <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, 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. With this book, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The numbered sections below provide a 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 (Appendix A).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Accordingly, this listing serves as a checklist of some of the associated materials not to be missed in the boxes and binders donated to the NLM 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 drafts, chapters, books, journal articles and other materials. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Related websites, videos, blogs, audio recordings, photographs, overhead sheets, 35 mm film slides and Power Point images have been (or will be) provided separately. The West blog (below) 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 brief description is currently listed. Blog: (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><u><span style="color: blue;">inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com</span></u>)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A Time of Fundamental Change: “A Return to Visual Thinking”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">It should be noted that with his early publications and talks (based on the work of Orton and Geschwind, along with what he had learned from those working with the new computer graphics technologies), West found himself swept up in a wave of fundamental change in thinking about thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">He found that he was invited to participate and provide presentations for a highly varied group of high-level institutions and organizations as part of a new awareness of fundamental change with respect to visual thinkers, visual technologies, scientific data visualization and new ways of thinking about the distinctive capabilities of dyslexics and other different thinkers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This new awareness was partly based on the rapidly emerging power of the new visual technologies during this period. But it was also based on a renewed awareness of the power of the visual thinking used by earlier scientists and engineers, such as Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, Tesla and others. (Thus “A Return to Visual Thinking” was the theme of the 1993 annual meeting, and West’s presentation, for the 50 Max Planck Institutes, item 2 below.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In most cases, the high interest in these topics and trends was from those who were observing these capabilities in actual operation and use “in the real world” of scientific discovery, medical innovation and entrepreneurial business. At the same time many specialist academics seemed to have found it difficult to understand and appreciate these capabilities, employing their conventional tests and measures and a conceptual framework that favored conventional verbal and numerical academic capabilities over visual thinking and “thinking in pictures” in 3D space. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(In addition, West noticed that when he spoke of these learning differences in highly positive ways, with credible positive examples, some in his audience felt free, for the first time, to talk about considerable strengths and hidden weaknesses in themselves, their family members and their co-workers. For example, see especially, item 24, the Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, the Fifty-Year Reunion. In a striking and unexpected example, during the course of the conference, among these highly praised, award-winning physicians and medical school professors, roughly half of those attending spoke to West of their own dyslexia or the dyslexia of highly creative members of their own families.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Accordingly, the events and documents listed below could serve, in part, as an informal survey of the development of these fundamental ideas in various industries and various parts of the world over nearly three decades. (For some of the best examples of how these changes were recognized, adopted and promoted by organizations such as MIT, NASA Ames, GCHQ in the UK, the Max Planck Institutes and related institutions, see especially items 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 22 and 25.) (Selected recent summary slides of this basic approach provided in Appendix E.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">_____________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Significant Events and Documents<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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, 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 was 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(2) An annual meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany. See chapter in the book compiled from the proceedings of this conference: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking,” <i>Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft</i>, 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 <i>Computers and Physics</i>. (The article in English and the German language proceedings volume have already been donated to the archive collection. To be confirmed.) During informal discussions after his talk, West was told of dyslexia and other learning differences within the families of famous German physicists. It is noteworthy that this large high-level meeting in November 1993 was dominated by conventional “main frame thinking” and remarkably antiquated technologies. For example, they had to move to a small conference room to show video clips on a TV. (This is, in fact, shown in one of the photographs provided in the printed proceedings book; West is shown looking at a computer graphic image on a TV screen.) In dramatic contrast, in the conference in Amsterdam in October of that same year the designers, artists, architects and computer professionals had already adopted and were using the latest technologies in all the presentations. (See item 4 below.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(3) The New York Branch of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Twentieth Anniversary Conference, Language & Medical Symposia on Dyslexia, March 18-20, 1993. As the economy moves from a primarily verbal orientation to one that is visual-spatial, the talents of dyslexics will be increasingly 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 national conference of the Orton Dyslexia Society (that later became the International Dyslexia Association). Many of the major figures in the field spoke at this three-day meeting. This included Patience Thomson, Head of Fairley House School, London, England -- who Thomas West and his wife Margaret later came to know 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. (See item 44 and Appendix B.) 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. (Full program listing to be provided.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(4) Invited speaker. The Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Doors of Perception,” October 30-31, 1993, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, organized by The Netherlands Design Institute and <i>Mediamatic</i> 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 <i>Wired</i> magazine (published 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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(5) Invited to be the 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 highly secret intelligence for Winston Churchill), in Cheltenham, England. See section on GCHQ, pp. 147-150, in <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See,</i> 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. [More to be provided about this most important meeting -- and a subsequent informal gathering the following Saturday with a nearby village walk and pub lunch -- where one teen-aged son said, “Now I finally begin to understand my father.” At one point, after the lunch and the round the village walk, West found himself sitting with a group of seven at the edge of our host’s garden, suddenly realizing that all of those with him had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Among other things, they discussed <i>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time</i> by Mark Haddon and connections with Sherlock Holmes stories. It is apparent that GCHQ would be an excellent place to investigate and better understand extraordinarily high performance and seek positive links with visual thinking, dyslexia, autism and other forms of different thinking. To avoid lengthy reviews and security clearance, West’s section on GCHQ in <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i> is based on publicly available sources.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(6) Scientists and artists at Green College within the University of Oxford, England. [Much more information to be provided here -- as well as for the named-only listings below. -- TGW]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(7) The Royal College of Art in London<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(8) The Glasgow School of Art in Scotland<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(9) A conference at the University of Uppsala before the Queen of Sweden<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(10) T</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">he University of California at Berkeley<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(11) An education conference sponsored by Harvard and MIT<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 seen as signature indictors of the work of a classic visually-oriented dyslexic approach. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(13) Invited to participate in a</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> (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 representing varied fields and institutions, including: Larry Gonick (<i>The Cartoon History of the Universe</i>), Antonio Damasio (<i>Descartes’ Error</i>, U. Iowa), Donna Cox (National Center for Supercomputing Applications, ACM-SIGGRAPH), Ellen Winner (<i>Gifted Children</i>, 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 (<i>Scientific American</i>), and Thomas G. West (<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(14) The Arts Dyslexia Trust in London, invited presentations at 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. [More to come. -- TGW.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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 of the talk. 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, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, into Chinese. This book is to be provided to the archive along with the Japanese and Korean translations.) Discussions of dyslexia in Taiwan are especially interesting since the culture puts extreme pressure on students. They should look pale and sleep deprived -- or they are not studying hard enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(16) The international conference of computer graphic artists and technologists (ACM-SIGGRAPH) in Vancouver, BC, Canada. One of several 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 <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> (2004). (To be provided, the book <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> plus three sample copies of the in-house magazine <i>Computer Graphics</i>.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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 at the time.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(18) The U.S. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 Board of Regents meeting. [Three 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.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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.)(See Letter to Editor, <i>Washington Post</i>, about changing views and descriptions of the SAT, January 22, 2021.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(20) Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. Five visits, two talks. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> 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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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). [More info to come. -- TGW]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(22) 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(23) In November 2014, West was invited to give five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore as part of a country-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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(24) Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion, September 17-19, 1998, Arizona Biltmore Resort and Villas. Speakers included, among others: Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, National Library of Medicine; 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, as it turned out, 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. -- TGW) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(25) “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 pieces of 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 UK trips and talks for art, business and scientific groups over the following years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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. Remarkably, dyslexics are said to have the “great eye” to see what others do not see -- in radiology and in art forgery. A high-quality handmade leather-bound fundraising book for ADT, <i>Art Works</i>, 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(26) 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 (<i>Dyslexic Advantage</i>) and Thomas West. An historian from the Nobel Prize Foundation 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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(27) “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 <i>Dyslexi + Styrkor = SANT</i> (<i>Dyslexia plus Talent equals Truth</i>). 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(28) 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: <i>Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates</i>, Drake D. Duane, MD, editor, York Press, 1999. West’s talk is Chapter 11, “Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(29) To be provided, information on four 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 need to be digitized in the near future. -- TGW)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(30) 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 <i>Financial Times</i> (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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">(31) Stories about dyslexia and innovation have appeared in varied media. </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">The story below was posted on West’s Facebook page in March 2020 -- also intended for West’s blog: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">“Dyslexic Physician Discovers ARDS”<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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 <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">-- and I did not want to create a distraction from our main areas of interest.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">However, in the last few days, and the last week especially, the coronavirus (Covid-19) has begun to dominate all other topics and considerations.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>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.<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">ARDS Discovery Rejected by Three US Medical Journals<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">He was buying a copy my book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">Later, they sent their paper to the British medical journal, <i>The Lancet</i>. 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 --<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>New England Journal of Medicine</i>, which promptly rejected it as documentation of inappropriate and dangerous ventilator management. A revision submitted to the <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i> was similarly rejected, as was a subsequent version sent to the <i>American Journal of Surgery</i>. Somewhat in desperation, the authors finally submitted the manuscript to <i>The Lancet</i>. 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. <i>Respiratory Care</i>, August 2014, vol. 59, no. 8, p. 1293.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 14pt;">See also a book given to West by Thomas L. Petty, MD. (To be provided separately.) <i><u>Frontline Update in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease</u></i>, Co-editors, James T. Good, Jr., MD, Thomas L. Petty, MD. 2004, Snowdrift Pulmonary Conference, 899 Logan Street, Denver, Colorado 80203. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(32) 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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(33) <i>Forgotten Letters: An Anthology of Literature by Dyslexic Writers</i>, 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 <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i> titled “Amazing Shortcomings, Amazing Gifts.” The inside cover of this book has this lone quotation from West: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“The truth-talking commentator who is not caught up in the race.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“They have felt the otherness from the start.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(34) 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(35) 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The program for this Boston conference included an article by West reprinted with permission from <i>Computer Graphics</i>, 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 <i>Computer Graphics</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">[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 <i>Faust</i>, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“ ‘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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“ ‘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.’ (<i>Eight Little Piggies</i>, Norton, 1993).”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">”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.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(36) 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 state 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 of mission programs to be provided.) West was invited to speak by the Head of the Center, a virologist, who he met at a dinner of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine. The visit included an extensive tour of the Center facilities, programs and missions -- along with several Q&A discussions with Center staff. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(37) “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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(38)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> Excerpt from <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i> (Appendix B), <i>Dyslexic Advantage</i>, Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide. “In March 2011, I received an advance uncorrected manuscript for a new book that was to be published that August. I was asked to provide a recommendation. This is what I wrote: “Here I insert my recommendation for <i>The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain</i> by Brock L. Eide, MD, and Fernette F. Eide, MD, Hudson Street Press, publication date, August 18, 2011. This book is destined to become a classic. After my many years studying the talents of dyslexics, I was pleased to gain from the Eides’ systematic investigation a deeper understanding of how and why dyslexics often have a major advantage, working at high levels in many different fields -- and why there is so much misunderstanding among conventional educators and employers. Linking their broad clinical experience with the newest brain research, they illuminate many puzzles -- such as why there are so many dyslexic entrepreneurs, why so many dyslexics choose to study engineering or philosophy, why dyslexics often see the big picture and see linkages that others do not see, why they often think in stories or analogies, and why some of the most successful authors are dyslexic. They explain why reading impairments should be seen as only a small part of a larger pattern -- that dyslexia is not simply a reading problem, but a different form of brain organization, yielding remarkable strengths along with surprising difficulties. With new technologies and new business models, we can now see how the often remarkable talents of dyslexics will be in greater demand over time while their difficulties will be increasingly seen as comparatively unimportant. I am enormously grateful to the Eides for explaining why and how this is so.” -- Thomas G. West, author of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> and <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“These words still reflect my basic approach to this wonderful book, which I continue to re-read. With this book, and their previous book <i>The Mislabeled Child</i>, the Eides have continued to provide an important public service with the non-profit they founded, their websites, their conferences and their energetic advocacy. They are both physicians and have vast clinical experience. This experience is coupled with a willingness to listen at length to the stories of their patients and their families. By listening, rather than merely administering standardized tests, often they have uncovered extensive giftedness (sometimes in several generations) -- where many practitioners would only see pathologies and abnormalities that require repair and remediation. Their approach to these matters is, of course, very close to my own high interest in talents and their development. (In full disclosure, I should say that I have been working closely with the Eides for several years -- and I am currently a member the Board of Trustees for the non-profit organization they established “Dyslexic Advantage” -- along with the blog at DyslexicAdvantage.org.)”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(39) “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.) Also to come: the story of how two speakers during the same week at Chautauqua that summer had the same name: ‘Thomas G. West’ -- the other one an art historian and author from New York City -- who said he would display on his own coffee table the book <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, to be seen by visiting friends, for fun, without comment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(40) Transcripts of presentations and interviews with highly successful dyslexics -- having received high awards for innovations and discoveries in their fields: William J. Dreyer, PhD, and Marc I. Rowe, MD. [To be provided. -- TGW]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(41) </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Noted from West: “In my continuing sorting of old papers, I recently found a journal reprint that had been quite popular and was distributed widely during the 1990s. Brief excerpts are provided below. Today I would not change a word. This piece may show how advanced my thinking was at the time -- or how I have learned nothing new in the last 28 years. -- TGW”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“A Future of Reversals:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexic Talents in a World of Computer Visualization”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">by Thomas G West, Washington, DC<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The Reprint Series, The Orton Dyslexia Society. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">From the <i>Annals of Dyslexia</i>, Vol. 42, 1992. ISSN 0736 –9387, pp.124-139.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">[Excerpt:] With the recent revival of visual approaches at the forefront of several scientific, mathematical, and technological developments, this paper proposes that visually oriented dyslexics may be in an increasingly favorable position in future years. The same set of traits which have caused them so much difficulty in traditional verbally-oriented educational systems, may confer special advantages in emerging new fields which may rely heavily on visual methods of analysis –- fields which employ powerful graphic workstations and supercomputers to visualize complex scientific data. Recent trends have also led some technical professionals to become aware that their own special talents seem to be closely associated with certain dyslexic traits. It is argued that similarly mixed talents have been major factors in the accomplishments of a number of important historical figures. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Overview<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">New technologies and techniques currently being developed in computer graphics, medical imaging, and what is now called “scientific visualization” are already having important effects on our society and will in time have profound consequences for education and work at all levels. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A side effect of these advances may be that certain visual-spatial abilities often found among dyslexics may come to confer special advantages in those fields that are coming to rely more heavily on visual approaches and techniques. Ironically, these special advantages may result from the same pattern of traits that has long caused so much difficulty for visually oriented dyslexics in traditional verbally oriented educational systems. Thus, it is proposed that many dyslexics will find themselves on the right side of a major set of trend reversals -- ones that could dramatically affect their lives in the lives of their children.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Historically, some of the most original thinkers in the physical sciences, engineering, mathematics, and other areas have relied heavily on visual modes of thought, employing images instead of words or numbers. Some of these thinkers have shown evidence of a striking range of learning difficulties, including problems with the reading, spelling, writing, calculation, attention, speaking, and memory. In recent years, neurological research has suggested that some forms of early brain growth and development tend to produce verbal and other difficulties the same time they produce a variety of exceptional visual and spatial talents (Geschwind and Behan 1982; Geschwind and Galaburda 1985). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">* * * * *<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Implications<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The consequences of the coming changes maybe far greater than we can easily imagine. We need to realize that for some 400 or 500 years our schools essentially have been teaching the skills of a Medieval clerk –- reading, writing, counting, and memorizing texts. With the more pervasive influence of increasingly powerful computers of all kinds, we could be on the verge of a new era when we will be required to develop a very different set of talents and skills, those of a Renaissance man such as Leonardo da Vinci rather than those of the clerk or lay scholar of the Middle Ages.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">* * * * * <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In the future, instead of the qualities desired in a well-trained clerk, we may find far more desirable talents and traits similar to those associated with Leonardo da Vinci: a facility with visual-spatial approaches and modes of analysis instead of mainly verbal (or numerical or symbolic) fluency; a propensity to learn directly through experience (or simulated experience) rather than primarily from lectures books; a habit of continuous investigation in many different areas of study through ceaseless curiosity (perhaps with occasional but transient specialization); the more integrated perspective of the global generalist rather than the increasingly narrow specialist; a predisposition to innovation by making connections among many diverse fields; an ability to rapidly progress through many phases of research, development and design using imagination and “intuitive” mental models, now incorporating modern three-dimensional computer-aided design systems. (Aaron, Phillips and Larson, 1988; Ritchie-Calder, 1970; Sartori, 1987).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Leonardo da Vinci’s predisposition to investigation and analysis through visualization may come to serve us as well as it served him, providing innovative results well in advance of those competing groups which follow other more conventional approaches. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thus, in the foreseeable future, we may come full circle, using the most advanced technologies and techniques to draw on some of the most old-fashioned approaches and capacities to simulate reality rather than describe it in words or numbers. To learn, once again, by doing, rather than by reading. To learn, once again, by seeing and experimenting, rather than by following memorized algorithms and routines. In so doing, all of us will learn greater respect for abilities and intelligences that were always vitally important, but were generally eclipsed by a disproportionate emphasis on the traits and skills most valued by traditional schoolmen and scholars. Sometimes, the oldest pathways and most primitive patterns can be the best guides into uncharted waters. [End of excerpt.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(42) The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.. The Mission Statement: “</span><span style="background-color: #e4eff2; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #595959; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study seeks to expand scientific understanding of the mind, the brain, and intelligence by conducting research at the intersection of cognitive science, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and complex adaptive systems. These separate disciplines increasingly overlap and promise progressively deeper insight into human thought processes spanning all scales of description, from neurons to nations. The Institute also examines how new insights from this interdisciplinary research can be applied for human benefit in the areas of mental health, neurological disease, education, environmental and societal dynamics, and intelligent systems design.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Initially, West joined Krasnow to do research for his third book and to establish the Center for the Study of Dyslexia and Talent at Krasnow. Later, West was asked to join the Krasnow Advisory Board. (To be provided for the NLM archive: The Advisory Board Briefing Book for October 18, 2007, as an example of the Institute’s work; including: Institute role in the Decade of the Mind; the Director’s Vision; Grant Portfolio; Krasnow Media; Molecular Neuroscience Faculty; Social Complexity Faculty; Krasnow Faculty Publication List.) For many years, Krasnow was highly respected as the “jewel in the crown” of George Mason University -- until the University President was replaced by a new President and Provost who no longer supported Krasnow and its mission. West wrote an open letter to the Provost; the Chair of the Advisory Board agreed with the letter and requested that West read out the letter to the Provost, face to face, during a critical turning point Board meeting. The full letter follows:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">December 11, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">An open letter to Dr. David Wu,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Provost, George Mason University<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Dear Dr. Wu,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">My name is Thomas G. West. I am member of the Advisory Board of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study. I have been fortunate to be associated with the Institute from its earliest days, as it took shape under the leadership of Dr. Harold Morowitz. And, of course, as you know, all of these early developments took place separately from George Mason University -- following the advice and vision of two Nobel Prize winners, as well as the influence of the Santa Fe Institute.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">As a writer who is very much an outsider to the academic world, I feel that I must take this opportunity to speak for myself alone with honesty and candor about recent developments. I hope you will allow me to speak frankly and that you will take to heart what I have to say.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In recent years, other universities have been trying to create or develop their own Krasnow Institute. With the best of intentions, I assume, it seems to me that you are working steadily to destroy everything that is distinctive and unique about the Krasnow organization and its original vision. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">I hope that you will begin to understand this – and to work with the Krasnow faculty, the students and the Krasnow Advisory Board to work out ways of correcting this course of action and to find ways of returning to the central vision on which this Institution is based.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">It took many decades to begin to realize this vision. But, in my view, you are, perhaps unwittingly, wrecking in a few months, all that has been accomplished by some of the brightest minds over many years. Among the various sources describing the early development of these ideas, I think one of the best is M. Mitchell Waldrop’s 1992 book, <i>Complexity</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This book describes the early development of the Santa Fe Institute, “founded in the mid-1980s and which was originally housed in a rented convent in the midst of Santa Fe’s art colony along Canyon Road. The researchers who gather there are an eclectic bunch, ranging from pony-tailed graduate students to Nobel laureates such as Murray Gell-Mann and Philip Anderson in physics and Kenneth Arrow in economics. But they all share the vision of an underlying unity; a common theoretical framework for complexity that would illuminate nature and humankind alike. . . . They believe that they are forging the first rigorous alternative to the kind of linear, reductionist thinking that has dominated science since the time of Newton -- and that has now gone about as far as it can go in addressing the problems of our modern world. They believe they are creating, in the words of Santa Fe Institute founder George Cowan, ‘the sciences of the twenty-first century.’ ”(Waldrop, pp. 12-13.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In my view, your actions in recent months – indeed, your long periods of inaction, as well – have been extremely damaging to this vision and to all those who have shared it. George Mason University did not create the Krasnow Institute and it should not assume that it has the power to destroy it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Everywhere we look we see evidence of the deepening damage. Researchers will not dare to ask their wealthy friends for funds to support the sick old man. Tenured professors quietly bide their time. Morale is at an all-time low. The old excitement is gone. The sense of adventure is gone. Bright grad students look for another track. Researchers in other countries – who had come to expect so much from Krasnow – now wonder what has happened.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In the past Krasnow was seen as a leader in the “Decade of the Brain.” Under the leadership of Dr. James Olds, it has had a strong international reputation for leading-edge research. Now it seems that the lead is passing to other organizations more attuned to following government contracts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">You have claimed to support inter-disciplinary research. Yet you say that one can only do one thing well. So you have drawn and quartered the old man to suit an anachronistic vision – returning to worn-out specialist, linear, reductionist thinking. I hope that you can soon come to understand the Krasnow vision and way of working -- and why it is important. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">I fear that if your goal is to follow applied research, by whatever name, you will doom the institute, and indeed the university, to be the sad tool of the security industrial complex. It is my belief, that real science is not predictable. Genuinely new scientific knowledge is often a surprise and often comes from different ways of thinking and different kinds of minds. It is not available on demand or on contract.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In past years, Krasnow was seen as the “jewel in the crown.” George Mason University was proud to have such an organization on campus – indeed, to have been given, fully developed, such an advanced and prestigious organization. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">What will your legacy be? Will you be known as the man who turned back the clock -- exchanging new science for old -- and making the extraordinary ordinary once again, just like all the others? Or will you be known as the man who came to realize, before it was too late, the true value of the Krasnow Institute -- and then found ways to advance and support the development of this fresh new vision?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Sincerely,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomas G. West, author of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> and <i>Thinking Like Einstein </i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In January 2021, the Krasnow Institute website is still online but has not been updated since 2017. It is apparent that the Institute is largely dead. Separately, a GMU press release dated February 3rd, 2020, says: “Mason Provost S. David Wu named next president of Baruch College.” The release goes on to explain: “One of Wu’s signature achievements was to elevate multidisciplinary academic and research collaboration at Mason, which lead to the creation of the Mason Impact Initiative to enrich student learning, and the creation of multidisciplinary research institutes in BioHealth Innovation, Sustainable Earth, and Transnational Crime. During his tenure, the sponsored awards for research, scholarship and creative work increased by nearly 80 percent. During the past two years, Mason jumped 90 places in the <i>Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Ed</i> ranking based on ‘educational impact and a lifetime benefit to students.’ ”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(43) “The Creative Brain: Gifted, Talented and Dyslexic,” Annual Conference of The Southwest Branch of the International Dyslexia Association, February 11-12, 2005, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Based on ideas from his book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>, West was Chairman of the conference Symposium. His talk was titled, “Geniuses Who Hated School. Are we blind to the Einsteins in our schools?” On West’s recommendation, the organizers invited as speakers from the UK, Patience Bragg Thomson (Fairley House School, London; from prominent scientific family with a number of dyslexics, strong visual thinkers and four Nobel Prize winners) and Jo Todd (Key 4 Learning, consultant to GCHQ and other UK civil service agencies). Other speakers included Gordon Sherman (head of New Grange School, former IDA President), Jeff Gilger (Purdue University), Malcolm Alexander (dyslexic, sculptor) and Patricia Michaels (dyslexic, fashion designer, native of Taos Pueblo). DVD of conference produced by Tony Carlson and Associates (to be provided to archive). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(44) Patience Bragg Thomson and Bragg Thomson Family. Books to be listed here along with letters and informal recorded memories, several received as personal gifts to Thomas West from Patience Bragg Thomson and David Thomson -- as well as books and articles by (and about) their adult children, Hugh Thomson, Ben Thomson, Alice Thomson and others. (See Appendix B.) Also to be included, a DVD including a talk by Patience Thomson during the conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico (a conference on the talents of dyslexics built around ideas from West’s book, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, item 43 above.) As noted, West had suggested that Patience and David Thomson be invited to the Albuquerque meeting along with Jo and Richard Todd regarding their work with GCHQ and other UK government agencies (item 5, above). See also reference to this family with four Nobel Prize winners and many visual thinkers and dyslexics (mentioned in item 3 above). Interest in how dyslexia and major visual thinking trait is manifested over five generations, often exhibiting creativity, entrepreneurial innovation, or work leading to important discoveries (such as the use of x-ray crystallography to discover the structure of DNA). Note that one book listed in Appendix B, <i>The Legacy of Sir Lawrence Bragg</i>, includes sections written by 10 Nobel Prize winners.</span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">___________________________________</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomas G. West, author of <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>, <i>Thinking Like Einstein </i>and<i> Seeing What Others Cannot See.</i> Mobile: 202-262-1266.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Blog: http://inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Emails: thomasgwest@gmail.com and thomasgwest@aol.com. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Revised and updated, January 22, 2021. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX A<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments with Biographical Sketch -- T. G. West <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Foreword to the Second Edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">by Oliver Sacks, M.D.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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, <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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’ [defective in visual thinking]. 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>Thinking in Pictures</i>), she was taken aback when I said I could hardly visualize anything: ‘How <i>do</i> you think?’ she asked. Grandin herself has very heightened spatial and visual imagination, and thinks in very concrete images.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> 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 <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Oliver Sacks, M.D., January 2, 2009. Dr. Sacks, a British neurologist residing in the US, is most widely known for his book <i>Awakenings</i> (1973) that was made into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Also well known are his books <i>An Anthropologist from Mars</i>(1995), <i>Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf</i> (1989) and <i>The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat</i> (1985). His most recent book is titled <i>The Mind’s Eye</i> (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 <i>New York Times</i> said that Sacks “has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Since he first published <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> 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."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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 <i>The Mislabeled Child </i>(Hyperion, 2006) and <i>The Dyslexic Advantage</i> (Hudson Street Press, 2011). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. . . . 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Jim Romeo, New York Academy of Sciences, <i>Update Magazine</i>, April/May 2004, “Getting Scientific about Why Johnny Can’t Read--Understanding Dyslexia.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.’ <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>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<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Blurb above sent to Thomas G. West by Dr. Oliver Sacks for use with the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, October 23, 2008. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> “Unfortunately, I did not discover this wonderful book [<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> by Thomas G. West] before I wrote <i>Thinking in Pictures</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Temple Grandin, “The List,” <i>The Week</i> magazine, March 3, 2006, describing why she has included <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> on her list of her six favorite books. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Dear Tom: Thanks for sending me your epilogue [to the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>]. 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”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Email of August 17, 2009. Dr. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Grandin is a professor of animal science and is author of the memoir <i>Thinking in Pictures</i> (dealing with her life with autism) and the best-selling book <i>Animals in Translation</i>. 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Howard Gardner, PhD, letter of October 15, 1996. Dr. Gardner is author of many books, including <i>Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences</i> (BasicBooks, 1983) and <i>Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century</i> (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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Additional Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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 <i>Tin Toy</i>, the first 3-dimensional computer animation ever to win an Academy Award. This team later produced the first completely computer-generated motion picture, <i>Toy Story</i>. 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> . . . [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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Loren Pope, “The Learning Disabled of Today Will Be the Gifted of Tomorrow,” in <i>Colleges That Change Lives</i> (Penguin, New York, 2000 and 2006).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“. . . I entirely agree with [Dr. Doris Kelly] when she says that [<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>] 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- T.R. Miles, Ph.D., in <i>Dyslexia Contact</i>, June 1993, pp. 14-15. Dr. Miles, Professor Emeritus, University College of North Wales, and Vice President of the British Dyslexia Association.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 <i>CALCULUS&</i> <i>Mathematica</i>, 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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<i>&Mathematica</i> (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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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. . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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 <i>Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science</i>, Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1993. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Review by Joan Freeman, <i>European Journal for High Ability</i>, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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 -- <i>now</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Susan Parkinson, editor, newsletter of The Arts Dyslexia Trust (United Kingdom), November 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Lord Renwick, Chairman, European Informatics Market (EURIM), Vice-President, Past Chairman, The British Dyslexia Association. Electronic mail of October 30, 1996. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“The original title is <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. The Japanese title <i>Geniuses Who Hated School</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Review in <i>Kagaku Asahi</i>, the monthly Japanese science magazine, August 1994, p. 92. Review translated by Yoshiko G. Doherty.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one’s thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">-- Roeper Review</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">, Vol. 15, No. 1, September 1992, p. 54.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">_______________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">More on the American Library Association Award<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In January 1999<i>, In the Mind’s Eye</i> by Thomas G. West was selected for the <i>Choice</i> 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). <i>Choice</i> 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<i> Choice </i>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. (<i>Choice</i>, Jan. 1999, p. 801.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Other books receiving the <i>Choice</i> gold seal award for “best of the best” in 1998 included: Lynn Margulis, <i>Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth</i> (Freeman); Steven Pinker, <i>How the Mind Works</i> (Norton); Richard Mabey, <i>Flora</i> <i>Britannica</i> (Chatto and Windus); Richard Feynman, <i>The Meaning of It All</i> (Addison-Wesley); Martin Gardner, <i>The Last Recreations: Hydras, Eggs, and Other Mathematical Mystifications</i> (Copernicus, Springer-Verlag); Per F. Dahl, <i>Flash of the Cathode Ray: A</i> <i>History of J.J. Thomson’s Electron</i> (Institute of Physics); Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau, <i>Privacy On Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption</i> (MIT Press); Victor M. Spitzer and David G. Whitlock, <i>Atlas of the Visible Human Male:</i> <i>Reverse Engineering of the Human</i> <i>Body</i> (Jones and Bartlett). (<i>Choice</i>, Jan. 1999, pp. 823-841)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Following is the full text of the original review of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> as it appeared in the April 1998 issue of <i>Choice</i> (p. 1458):<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">“West, Thomas G. <b>In the mind’s eye: visual thinkers, gifted people with dyslexia and other learning difficulties, computer images and the ironies of creativity</b>. 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” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">___________________________________</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX B<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> Appendix B -- Patience Bragg Thomson and Bragg Thomson Family. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Preliminary notes about the stories and materials to be provided: Quotation about WWI German guns (from the book <i>Crystal Clear</i>, below). Books about the Thomson and Bragg parents and grandparents. The Royal Institution, headed by Sir Lawrence Bragg, with the RI <i>Lecturing Guide</i>, by Bragg and by Michael Faraday, RI head long ago. Four Nobel Prizes -- especially for x-ray crystallography and the fundamental beginnings of modern molecular biology. Proposal for further research concerning this family (opportunity to fully document and develop insights based on a remarkable case study that could have shed light on the links over generations between high level creativity, professional accomplishment, visual thinking and dyslexia). The BBC documentary on the Nobel award to Sir Lawrence Bragg (many years afterward because of WWI). (“Why no Darwins invited to this party? There will be a separate party for the Darwins because there are so many in that family.”) Bragg on Nazi list of those to be arrested in UK after the planned Nazi invasion. Noted in study by Bragg (senior), political leaders at time of WWI took pride in knowing no science; top schools then taught mainly or only Greek and Latin texts (which Churchill noted that he was unable to do); this little-known adverse selection factor should be studied as well. Students stamping feet at new ideas in physics from the senior Bragg. Early Nobel Prize was awarded to J.J. Thomson, the grandfather, instead of Edison or Tesla (who were on the same short list). Members did not want the Athenaeum Club to have reciprocal access relationships with other London clubs -- but very happy to have reciprocal access arrangement with the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC. Science from observations in the real world to provide analogies and insights of significance: privy and location study of WWI guns; soap bubbles observed in ‘washing up’ behave like atoms; oil and petrol mixed for lawn mower seen to behave like metals. Oxford book club story: when West, as visitor to Bragg Thomsons, was asked to join the group meeting one evening the host was retired surgeon and famous 4 minute mile runner, Sir Roger Bannister. New leadership and adverse changes at the Royal Institution. President of the BDA conference story. Books by family members, to be provided (listed below): Hugh, Peru discoveries. Alice, origins of “Alice Springs,” Australia, <i>Telegraph</i> Friday (later <i>Times</i> again) newspaper column, help with Sue Parkinson obit. Ben, innovative entrepreneur in Scotland.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The Bragg-Thomson books and interviews. (Most are currently in use by West. To be provided to NLM-HOM archive much later.) Several examples: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Hunter, Graeme, 2001. Interview with Patience Thomson, Wallingford, March 15, 2001. Unpublished MS of 37 pp. Given to West by Patience Thomson March 7, 2003. First hand details of family life that sometime provide insights into innovative scientific work. For example, about her father, Sir Lawrence Bragg, PT says: “He needed maximum time to think about his ideas and to plan his lectures and books. Even when he was doing domestic chores like oiling the locks or doing the washing up is mind would be working on some theory in his head. I think he found that formal social engagements, to some extent, were an interruption of the life that he enjoyed. He loved all of the outdoor pursuits, but when he did go for walks, I’m sure he was pondering ideas. I mean, it’s well-known that it was when he was striding along the Backs [river banks at Cambridge University] that he had his idea of how the dots on the x-rays [photographic] plates could be interpreted in terms of the 3 dimensional arrangement of atoms in a molecule.” (p. 2)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Caroe, G. M., 1978. <i>William Henry Bragg, 1862-1942, Man and Scientist</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. An excerpt: “The research work of 1913–14 had brought the joint award to father and son the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915. . . . WL [the son] got the news in France. The old curé on whom he was billeted got up a bottle of wine cellar to celebrate with. The Prize, and the sharing of it, was instantly gratifying and encouraging; but WHB [the father] had no more time for his own research work. . . . War work was claiming him.” (Caroe, p. 81.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Glazer, A. M. and Patience [Bragg] Thomson, 2015. <i>Crystal Clear, The Autobiography of Sir Lawrence & Lady Bragg</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press. An excerpt: “In consequence of the excellent sound ranging of the English. I forbid any battery to fire alone when the whole sector is quiet, especially in east wind. Should there be any occasion to fire, the adjoining battery must always be called upon, either directly or through the Group, to fire for a few rounds.” June 23, 1917. Captured order of the day, German Army, WWI, referencing the wartime scientific work of Sir Lawrence Bragg, quoted in <i>Crystal Clear</i>, p. 92. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomas, John M., FRS, and Sir David Phillips, KBE, FRS, editors, 1990. <i>Selections and Reflections: The Legacy of Sir Lawrence Bragg,</i> <i>Including contributions by Nobel Laureates: Linus Pauling, Lord Todd, Dorothy Hodgkin, Max Perutz, Francis Crick, Sir Nevill Mott, Sir Aaron Klug, James D. Watson, Lord Porter and Sir John Kendrew. </i>London: The Royal Institution of Great Britain<i>. <o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson, Alice, 1999. <i>The Singing Line</i>. London: Chatto & Windus. “The Story of the Man who Strung the Telegraph across Australia, and the Woman who gave her Name to Alice Springs.” Written by Alice, the daughter of David Thomson and Patience Bragg Thompson -- the great-great-granddaughter of the original Alice. An account of a modern journey across Australia, from Adelaide to Darwin, following the track of the first telegraph line laid down by Charles Todd in the 1870s, the husband of the original Alice. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson, Hugh, 2003. T<i>he White Rock; An Exploration of the Inca Heartland</i>. Woodstock & New York: The Overlook Press. Written by Hugh, the son of David Thomson and Patience Bragg Thompson. A review excerpt: “It is a measure of Hugh Thompson’s skill as a writer, historian, and explorer that <i>The White Rock</i> is such a pleasure. . . . This is a moving and meticulously researched account of the Inca people’s rise, conquest of a continent, and tragic annihilation by the conquistadors of the 16th century.” – <i>The Spectator</i>, London<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Recently, West was very sad to learn of the death of a very dear friend, Patience Bragg Thomson, who did so much to help dyslexics in the UK and around the world -- and did so much to shape a positive approach to the abilities and strengths of dyslexics. The <i>Times</i> obituary is below.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">OBITUARY -- Patience Thomson obituary<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexia pioneer who taught minor royals and young offenders, founded a publishing house and helped set up a hospital unit<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Wednesday December 09 2020, 5.00 pm GMT, The <i>Times</i> Obituaries<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience Thomson knew she was on to something with her publishing company for “reluctant readers” when grateful parents sent her letters.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience Thomson had every reason to believe her children would be high achievers. Her parents and her husband’s parents were distinguished Cambridge scientists who had won Nobel prizes. She herself had taken her A-levels at 16, won an exhibition to Cambridge to study modern languages and translated Adolf Hitler’s private correspondence while working for the Foreign Office. Yet she despaired when it emerged that her son, Ben, could hardly read and write as a child.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A generation later, after Thomson had developed into one of Britain’s foremost educationists on dyslexia, Ben Thomson (her chief “guinea pig”) had read astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh, become chief executive of an investment bank, founded Scotland’s largest political think tank, Reform Scotland, and now invests in food and drink companies including</span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Planet Organic and Montezuma’s chocolate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">His mother understood better than most the different ways that dyslexic children’s brains worked because she would spend hours playing with youngsters who had the condition, which renders reading and writing difficult because of problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">David Thomson, Hugh Thomson, Patience Thomson, Ben Thomson, Alice Thomson and Katie Tait (neé Thomson) [Caption for photo, not shown.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In those days children would feel “stupid” compared with their peers, and would even be told as much. Thomson would build up their confidence, turning her house upside down as she invented games to play. Scarves would be knitted for teddies, dolls’ houses built and puppet shows put on. She would take her pupils on nature trails and spend hours talking to them “conspiratorially”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">More than 20 years of working closely with dyslexic children taught her two important lessons. The first was to accept and celebrate children as they are and not make them think they needed fixing. The second was that any dyslexic child could potentially enjoy reading just as much as any other child. This realisation led her in 1998 to found the publishing company Barrington Stoke for “reluctant readers”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">The highly colourful stories she published were in a shorter format. Illustrations were not too detailed so that the children could form their own pictures in their imaginations. The key change was that the language was more visual. Most revolutionary of all, Barrington Stoke was advised by an editorial board of dyslexic children. One child told her to change the sentence, “I hate it when girls cry, I find it really embarrassing,” because, he said, “‘embarrassing’ is a hard word and it’s not a word we use anyhow. It would be better if you said ‘I hate it when girls cry, it makes me want to puke’.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson charmed authors, including Michael Morpurgo, Michael Rosen and Julia Donaldson, into writing stories for her, and knew she was on to something when she began to receive letters from grateful parents saying: “This is the first book my child has ever read from beginning to end.” Many of the parents would be dyslexic themselves because the condition is genetic and were grateful that the books helped them to read to their children for the first time. This year Lark by Anthony McGowan and published by Barrington Stoke became the first book aimed at dyslexic children to win the Carnegie Medal, known as the “children’s Booker prize”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson played a leading role in the slow transition from the condition being perceived as a learning difficulty to the championing of many dyslexic children as creatively gifted. She liked to recall showing a child a picture of a dinosaur and asking him what letter the word started with. He replied “B”, not because he mixed up B with D, but because B stood for brachiosaurus. She said that dyslexics have a propensity for lateral thinking and complex problem solving that makes their thought processes sought after in many professional fields. She was thrilled when one of her former pupils found employment as a “computer whizz kid” in the City, but liked to tell the story that he turned up several hours late for his first day at work because he got on the wrong train and ended up in Oxford.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience Mary Bragg was born in Manchester, the youngest of four children, in 1935. Her father, William Lawrence Bragg, won the Nobel prize for physics in 1915 with his father and Thomson’s grandfather, William Henry Bragg, for their work analysing structures using X-rays, which helped our understanding of many substances. They were the first father and son team to win the Nobel prize, while William Lawrence was the youngest winner in history at the age of 25. Her mother was Alice, née Hopkinson, a barrister, journalist and mayor of Cambridge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience was brought up in Cambridge, where her father was a professor of physics at the Cavendish laboratory. There, under his aegis, Francis Crick and James Watson worked on the research that led to the discovery of the helical structure of DNA.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Decades later, while munching a croissant in a park with her granddaughter Agnes, Thomson was asked by the child what she did in the war. She recalled putting pins on maps on the wall to show where the Allied armies had got to. “Our teacher’s husband was shot down and killed in a raid over Germany and we had to be especially nice to her. At home, the sitting room was piled high with musty-smelling clothes and blankets for bombed-out families. We propped them up with wooden clothes horses to make tunnels and secret dens.” She recited her times tables in an air-raid shelter at the bottom of the garden.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience was educated at the Perse School in Cambridge and from the age of 14 at Downe House School for girls in Berkshire. She sat her O-levels and A-levels together at 16 and won an exhibition to Newnham College, Cambridge (her mother’s alma mater) to read French and German.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Her future husband, David Thomson, lived next door when they were children and their families were close friends. They began dating as young adults and had only been out together four times when he proposed. The couple were married in 1959.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Her husband worked for the investment bank Lazard. He was also from a distinguished family of scientists; his father, GP Thomson, won the Nobel prize for discovering the wave properties of the electron, and his grandfather JJ Thomson won the Nobel effectively for his work discovering the electron. David survives her along with their four children: Ben; Alice, a columnist and interviewer for The Times; Hugh, an author, explorer and documentary film-maker; and Katie, who helps to run Maggie’s, a charity that provides psychological support for cancer patients. As a mother, she had a talent for turning family traumas into adventures for her children. She formed an especial bond with her 14 grandchildren.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In 1977 the Thomsons moved out of London to rural Oxfordshire, where Patience had a notion of growing her own fruit and vegetables with chickens ranging free. She soon tired of the “good life” and volunteered at Turners Court, a local young offender institute where she discovered that many of the boys could not read or write. She turned the air blue, and caused much hilarity, at a dinner party hosted by the then chancellor Denis Healey by recounting what her first pupil told her: “Miss, he called me an illiterate c***, and no one will tell me what illiterate means.” She made it her mission to teach the boys to write a letter and enlisted her children as their penpals. She was amazed at how quickly they grew in confidence after composing their first faltering missives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson in 1993 when she was the principal of Fairley House<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">DENZIL MCNEELANCE FOR THE TIMES [Caption, photo not shown.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">After taking a masters degree in special education at Bangor University Thomson was determined to gain acceptance for a condition that was still dismissed as an “excuse” for middle-class parents to cover for the “laziness” of their well-educated children. She began working in a unit at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, in the days when dyslexia was still seen as a medical problem.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Her daughter Alice wrote in <i>The Times</i>: “Dyslexics were always sitting at our kitchen table when I came home from school. There were dustmen who couldn’t read road signs, plumbers who had learnt their trade without ever resorting to a manual and chefs who had been flummoxed by French. There was minor royalty and there were the children of Greek shipping magnates.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In 1989 Thomson became principal of Fairley House, a rapidly expanding specialist school for children with dyslexia which is now based in Lambeth, south London. Here she used the latest techniques, such as “mind maps”, to help the children organise their thoughts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">She campaigned for dyslexic children to be taught the study and revision skills that would enable them to perform well in exams. “She was one of the pioneers of teaching these children beyond the rudimentary aspirations,” said Bernadette McLean, past principal of the Helen Arkell dyslexia centre.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson retired from Fairley House in 1997 to found Barrington Stoke with her daughter-in-law, and Ben’s wife, Lucy Juckes, who had worked in publishing for Bloomsbury. Thomson’s book 101 Ways to Get Your Child to Read (2009) became a bestseller.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thomson was close friends with the dyslexia pioneer Helen Arkell, who had taught her son, Ben. Years later, Thomson returned the favour by using her royal connections to persuade Princess Beatrice, who is dyslexic, to become an ambassador of the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity. An avid reader and enthusiastic poet, Thomson taught her last dyslexic child at the age of 83. Conspiratorial to the end, she told her pupils that she liked speaking to them more than adults.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Patience Thomson, teacher and dyslexia pioneer, was born on September 11, 1935. She died of natural causes on November 21, 2020, aged 85.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">_____________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX C<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Overview in a Time of Change -- The Context as Outlined in a Recent Commencement Address<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Dear friends, I thought some of you might be interested in the talk I gave six months ago at a nearby high school for college bound dyslexic students. I had agreed to do the talk long before the virus changed everything. The students and teachers put together a nearly complete graduation experience via Zoom -- even including throwing caps in the air at the end. Very impressive. Again, showing talents for creative solutions in adversity. Now with vaccine programs started and a new government, we all may begin to show resilience and new hope for the future. -- TGW<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Commencement Address -- Siena School -- June 9, 2020 -- Thomas G. West<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thank you Sophie for your kind introduction. I also want to thank Jilly and all the staff of Siena School -- and especially the class of 2020. I am greatly honored to be your speaker today. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Initially, I puzzled about what to say to you today -- the first “virtual” commencement -- at a time of many difficulties and dangers. I realize that I must fully acknowledge that what you are seeing now is indeed, in so many ways, <i>The Worst of Times</i>. But I hope to be able to show that this, in some ways, may also be seen as <i>The Best of Times</i> -- for you and your class. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In <i>The Worst of Times</i> -- it is, indeed, a time for resilience and fortitude. You are having to deal with a global pandemic. You have been locked in, away from school and your friends, having to continue classes virtually, facing an uncertain future. In recent months, all over America a great many have lost their jobs. In recent days there have been protests and demonstrations in DC and all around the country -- and, indeed, all around the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">After a long wait, some places are slowly “reopening” -- but even this has many hazards and dangers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In spite of all of this, I’m going to be bold to say that these could be seen also, in some ways, as <i>The Best of Times</i>. In the long history of human kind, we are told, dyslexics seem to have had a special role. According to some researchers, dyslexics sometimes seem unusually well suited to big changes and to being able to see opportunities inside of adversity. They are particularly good at rethinking situations in an original way. They are good at not being stuck with conventional views and conventional solutions. They have trouble reading and memorizing old knowledge -- but they are often really good at creating new knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">My own story is that I came into this field (as is so often the case) with the testing of our two sons -- who started having dyslexia-related problems in school in the earliest grades. As a worried parent, I got myself tested. I did not learn to read until about the fourth grade [about 9 years old] -- and have always read very slowly -- but I had been totally unaware of the larger pattern of dyslexic traits.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">I soon realized that our family included at least three generations of dyslexics. My father was a brilliant and highly skilled artist and teacher -- but with many classic dyslexic traits. My mother was also a highly skilled artist who won top prizes. They had met in art school. Both had great visual talents.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">When I began my own serious study of dyslexia -- I immediately looked to the dyslexics who were successful in various fields. I was less interested in fixing the problems. Rather, I was more interested in understanding areas of distinctive strength and talent. I wanted to look at the fields where dyslexics were successful. I wanted to see what we could learn from them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">First I saw that many things have been changing in fundamental ways -- many that favor dyslexics. All the things that dyslexics have difficulty with are becoming less and less important in the world of work. And the things that dyslexics are good at are becoming more and more important. Shortly, my interest in strengths and talents led me to meet some extraordinarily amazing people and directed me to looking into some new and exciting areas of work. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">One of the first places I looked was computer graphics (including simulators [for airplane pilots], film animation, video games, 3-D structures [for architects and surgeons]and data visualization) -- the remarkable melding of ancient forms of art and story telling -- with the newest high-speed computer graphic technologies. I attended the conferences -- and there were major technical advances every year. Right away the people I met in the computer graphics conferences explained to me that probably half the people in the industry were dyslexic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">I met a woman who was responsible for the computer graphics in major films like <i>Titanic</i> and The <i>Fifth Element</i>. She told me that she had assembled a small group of the most talented computer graphic artists and technologists. They dealt with the most difficult problems in the films. She had hired them for their extreme talents based on samples of their work. She had ignored their paper credentials. Soon, she discovered that entire team was dyslexic -- one hundred percent. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This taught me a lesson -- that dyslexics can be super stars when they find their special areas of talent -- and when they find the right industry to put their talents to use.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">This also taught me that one of the most important things is to be able to retain one’s spirit -- one’s resilience -- and not be beaten down by many early failures -- and not be convinced that you can’t move on to higher levels of accomplishment -- sometimes very high levels. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Indeed, when I talked to highly creative and successful dyslexic people in the sciences and business and elsewhere, they say the higher up you go in an area of strength, the easier it gets. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">A wonderful example of great success after repeated failures is Jack Horner -- the famous paleontologist who has been advisor to Stephen Spielberg for his four <i>Jurassic Park</i> films. I got to know Jack over the years at several conferences and I have visited him twice at his digs in northern Montana. Jack was mostly a failure in lower school and high school. His high school English teacher gave him a grade of “D minus, minus, minus.” The teacher said you barely passed but “I never want to see you again.” Jack said he sent this teacher a copy of his first book (written with help from a co-writer, of course). Indeed, Jack says he has written more books than he has read. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Although Jack had failed a lot, he never felt a failure. Why? Because he won all the science fair prizes. He built a Tesla coil -- and he also built a rocket. When he first told me this I just assumed he used a small model rocket. But he said, “Oh no, it wasn’t a small model rocket. It was 5 feet tall and it blasted to 27,000 feet.” I said, “Jack you could have shot down an airliner!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">In Montana, if you have graduated from high school you could start college. Jack failed in college 7 times but he never gave up. He took a low-level job cleaning and preparing fossils. He kept searching the dry wilds of Montana. He could not get funding from professional grants. But he asked a local beer company and got the funding he needed -- to eventually make important discoveries. In time, his work was respected and he became famous. He designed the dinosaur museum exhibits in Bozeman, received honorary degrees and started teaching paleontology.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">He would have his 19 graduate students write their papers and put them in the computer so Jack could have his computer read the papers to him. He said that his mission was to get these graduate students to “think like a dyslexic.” You didn’t want them to clutter their minds with “other people’s thoughts,” he said. He wanted them to observe nature directly and see what was there in front of them in the fossil evidence. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">He tried to teach them how to think “out of the box.” He said that normally dyslexics think “out of the box” -- because “they have never been in the box.” I think Jack’s example is a great one because it shows that he is definitely not suited to conventional academic studies. But he was very well suited to understanding nature and science -- seeing clearly what the fossil evidence revealed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Another great example is Mary Schweitzer, one of Jack’s grad students -- who is also dyslexic. One year Jack and his team had found a very large set of fossil bones from a Tyrannosaurus Rex at the face of a high cliff in northern Montana. It was in a remote area so it was hard to get people and equipment in and out. They found that the fossil femur (that is, the upper leg bone) of the T Rex (when covered with protective plaster of Paris) was so big and heavy that the loaned helicopter couldn’t lift it. So they had to cut this femur in half. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">They sent one half to Mary. They didn’t treat it with any chemicals as they normally do. Mary looked inside this bone and what she saw immediately was a deposit of calcium inside the bone -- like the deposits of calcium found inside bird bones when they are ready to make egg shells. So Mary knew right away that the T Rex had been a pregnant female. But there was more. Inside the bone Mary also found tiny flexible blood vessels and the remnants of red blood cells. Mary and her assistant said they could not sleep for weeks because they thought they would never be believed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">She published her findings in <i>Science</i> magazine and indeed she was attacked. The critics said it is not possible for such things to survive for more that 60 million years. However, later, other scientists repeated her discoveries and admitted that her work was legitimate. So, Mary Schweitzer, Jack’s dyslexic grad student, started a whole new subfield of science -- molecular paleontology -- one never imagined possible before.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Another amazing story is about William J. Dreyer, a dyslexic molecular biologist at the California Institute of Technology, “Caltech.” Some years ago Bill contacted me and said he had read my book and thought that I understood how he thinks (“no one else does,” he said). He suggested, “Next time you’re in the Los Angeles area come and visit. I want to tell you my story.” Turns out that Bill’s story was very interesting indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Bill started off as a dyslexic ski bum. But he took some tests and realized he had some areas of special ability, especially in visual thinking. He started studying biology and he soon realized that he could understand what was going on in the laboratory better than others. Because he could use his powerful dyslexic imagination to see how the molecules fit together in various ways, he developed a new theory related to the human immune system. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">He told his professors which experiments they should do and what the results would be. They helped him write his papers, based on his new theories. For 12 years, he gave talks about these new theories. Many professionals in the field were angered by these talks; it was all so new that they could not understand; they thought it was heresy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Later, another scientist, working in Switzerland doing experiments that were illegal in United States at the time, proved that Bill’s new theories were correct. And this other scientist received a Nobel Prize. Bill told me, I think honestly, that he was not upset about not receiving the Nobel Prize. He told me that once you receive the prize your life is not your own -- everybody wants a piece of you. Bill said that he was happy to be vindicated and to know that his theory was correct and was eventually accepted by everyone in the field.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">But there’s still more to Bill’s story. Bill had a dyslexic grandson named Brandon King. Brandon was in high school flunking everything, depressed, taking medication, fighting with his parents, feeling very low. So his grandfather asked him to come and visit and help with his research using Brandon’s computer skills. Each day Bill talked to Brandon and said this is what I want you to do today. Since you are good with computers, I want you to write this little search program -- but before that you need to know this biology . . . <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Shortly, Brandon started to help in the laboratory at Caltech as a volunteer. Then he was part-time employee. Eventually he was a full-time employee helping with the computer side of the biology laboratory at the Caltech. Soon, according to Bill, Brandon was doing “post doc” level work at the laboratory -- and he still hadn’t graduated from high school. Eventually Brandon went on to college at Berkeley (because they had the best LD support program) and was able to graduate with honors and start his own business. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Because of my books and talks, many stories of successful dyslexics have come my way. The field is full of paradoxes and surprises. Great writers who cannot spell. High level mathematicians who don’t know their math facts. A Nobel Prize winning biologist who had been in “special ed” and thought she was stupid. It is important for educators and test designers to understand that there are whole areas of talent that they do not know how to measure or comprehend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Over many years stories of dyslexic entrepreneurs like Richard Branson have been written about in the business press. This is not new. However, what is new is that in the last couple of years there have been formal reports written by major management consultant firms. A report by one of the big four management consultant companies (EY -- formerly Ernst and Young) states the case that what businesses want in the future are the skills and talents and strengths that are common among dyslexics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">With the new fast, powerful computers many of the clerical tasks that our educational system trains human beings to do are now being done faster and more cheaply by machines -- especially with massive data available in the cloud along with “deep learning” and artificial intelligence (AI). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Businesses realize that what they now need from their human employees is the innovation, creativity, big picture thinking and other abilities that are common among dyslexics (but seem to be rare among certain non-dyslexics). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">These are the kinds of things that some of us been saying for many years. But it is wonderful indeed to hear these from established management consulting companies. I think it is important for you, the class of 2020, to acknowledge, of course, the many great problems and stresses of our time. But along with all your own difficulties with dyslexia, remember that you have many advantages in ways of thinking that others do not have. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">So I want you to see that it may be possible to view the problems as opportunities as well -- to show the world -- and to show yourselves -- <i>what you really can do</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Thank you<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">___________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX D<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Videos Online<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">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 videos are 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. Each with the same middle initial (G for Gifford) but different middle names. For example, one writes on politics in Texas, another is an art historian in New York City.) -- TGW<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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. 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">On YouTube.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(3) “A New World Shaped By Dysexics.” Video of one of five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS), November 2014. On YouTube.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(4) “The Power of Dyslexic Visual thinkers with Computer Data Visuaization.” DAS, Singapore, November 2014. On YouTube.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">(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: West’s personal experience and the early role of the kindly reading teacher when dyslexia was unknown; no diagnosis as dyslexic until he was 41 years old; late blooming pattern was apparent during late high school and early college; early memorization education was very difficut, but higher concept-based education becomes increasingly easy (or, early school was 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 become some of the best writers with clear and simple writing of substance with vivid sound of language and imagery; that it is now recognized that time is on the side of dyslexics because their strengths are more valued by employers for their creativity and big picture thinking while low level reading and clerical tasks are now being done extremely fast and extremely cheaply by the newest powerful computer systems, with “deep learning” and AI. On YouTube.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">____________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">APPENDIX E<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Summary Slides, Basic Approach<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Note: The slides in presentations provided by West are usually made up of images of people, places, books and other graphic material -- with just a few key words or phrases to be discussed informally by the speaker. However, occasional longer text slides, like those below, have been incorporated in recent years to emphasize certain concepts and points of view, especially when they are different from what many in the audience might expect.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Selected Text Slides Used in Recent Talks by Thomas West, 2019 and 2020<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Some want to teach mainly reading in order to bring dyslexics up to normal levels with “basic skills.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• But, instead, some of us want to study the “super stars” to learn how they did it. <i>Indeed,</i> <i>how similar they are to ourselves</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Studying success, we hope to learn things that are useful to dyslexics and others, especially in a rapidly-changing global technological and economic context with massive data, “deep learning” & AI.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Basic skills have no market value. </span></i><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">(Norbert Weiner, <i>Cybernetics</i>, 1948.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">******************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Many dyslexics and strong visual thinkers seem poorly adapted to the old technologies of words and books, memorizing old knowledge. <br /><br />• But many seem perfectly adapted to the new technologies of complex information visualized in computer graphic images and simulation, creating new knowledge, seeing what others cannot see.<br /><br />• Need to find ways to help students identify and employ their distinctive capabilities. Look to the highly successful. What to teach. How to teach. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">***************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Tell the Young Dyslexics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Time is on your side. All the things you have had trouble with are becoming less and less important. All the things you are good at are becoming more and more important. (See EY business consultant reports.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Machines are now doing the reading and rapid recall and clerical tasks. Humans should not to do machine work. Rather, humans need to visualize, see the big picture, understand, recognize patterns, consider slowly and ponder what it all means, where to go and how to get there. (Versus narrow specialist training as basic things change -- and then change again.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">**************<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Samuel Torrey Orton in 1925, paper on “Word Blindness”<br /><br />• Iowa, Mobile Psychiatric Units (Orton almost became an engineer.)<br />• He requested to see those “failing in their school.” (142 were referred.)<br />• Patient MP, 16, “inability to read.” But Orton could see that he was bright. <br /><br />• Orton wrote: “Stanford-Binet method [then new] . . . did not do justice to the boy’s mental equipment . . . the test is inadequate to gauge . . . facile use of visual imagery of . . . complex type . . . good visualizing power . . . his replies were prompt and keen.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Desire for New Tests and Measures<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As I told a group of young dyslexic students: “We need to develop a new series of tests where the dyslexics will get the top score and the non-dyslexics will get the bottom score.” I had not been sure how many had been paying close attention. But to my surprise, my assertion brought spontaneous and enthusiastic applause. Their reaction tells us a lot about what they have been through – and how much they hunger for recognition of the things that they can do well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Often Nobel Prize winners seem to immediately understand what we are talking about when discussing visual thinking, visual technologies, dyslexia and the advantages of seeing things differently. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Many school psychologists and conventional educators do not. Often they are trained to design courses and tests that ignore or discourage difference. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">****************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexics are unlike non-dyslexics -- but they are also unlike each other, with highly varied traits -- an essentially heterogeneous group, hard to measure and categorize. (Dr. Norman Geschwind) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Stories: We should listen to individual stories in depth first, then collect data. As a good medical history tells you what to look for and what to measure and what data to collect. <i>Anecdotes, and personal histories, may lead to treasures of understanding. </i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Sometimes we count the wrong things. Many dyslexic talents are invisible to conventional tests and measures. (So the resulting data may appear to be solid and scientific. But, instead, the data might actually confirm errors, seen as if they were facts, or may entirely miss the point.) <i>Diversity is not a pathology.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Many talk of a “scientific survey.” In old science: researchers want to generalize based on large populations. Small percentages do not matter. However in new science: Small percents do matter. Individuals matter. Differences matter. Nano scales matter. There is sensitivity to initial conditions. The new focus of precision medicine. <i>The power of the small.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">*******************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Need to Return to Visual Thinking in Education </span><span lang="MR" style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">–</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> As with Engineers: <br /><br />“Until the 1960s, a student . . . was expected by his teachers to use his minds eye to examine things that engineers had designed -- to look at them, listen to them, walk around them and thus to develop an intuitive ‘feel’ for the way the material world works. . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />“By the 1980s, engineering curricula had shifted to analytical [mathematical] approaches. . . . As faculties dropped drawing and shop practice . . . working knowledge of the material world disappeared from faculty agendas. . . and the nonverbal . . . intuitive understanding essential to engineering design atrophied.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">(Eugene S. Ferguson, <i>Engineering and the Mind’s Eye</i>, MIT Press, 1992).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">**************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Visualization seen as important in new ways of teaching mathematics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“I want you to know that reading your book and the conversations we had at the SIGGRAPH [computer graphics] 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 <i>Calculus &</i> <i>Mathematica</i>, 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 [using memorized mathematics].” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "ヒラギノ明朝 ProN W3"; font-size: 14pt;">–</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> J. Jerry Uhl, PhD, Math Department Head, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">**************<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dyslexia, visual thinking and visual technologies: varied levels of interest observed in these ideas and concepts while giving talks over more than 25 years.<br /><br />• Nobel Prize winners and high-level, creative scientists are often interested; conventionally trained educators and school psychologists are usually not interested.<br /><br />• Groups like NASA Ames, the Max Planck Institutes, Oxford and Cambridge University researchers, NLM-NIH, the Singapore Dyslexia Association, GCHQ in the UK and Hong Kong doctors are interested </span><span lang="MR" style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">–</span><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> these are practitioners, innovators, discoverers, practical users.<br /><br />• Many conventional tests and measures do not capture these talents. Need new tests. How to recognize and develop high potential . . . How to show the way. . . For dyslexics, for other different thinkers, for all of us -- to show the path, innovating for major problems, in a new digital age of AI . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">• Concerning a really revolutionary discovery in science and technology. When you seek the origins of these discoveries, you should not be surprised to find a dyslexic. They may not be full of previously memorized knowledge, Often the dyslexics can observe closely with an open mind and can see what others cannot see. (Especially an advantage for Nobel Prize winners, of course.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">End<o:p></o:p></span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-21174781783372745352020-12-22T11:20:00.001-05:002020-12-22T11:20:18.413-05:00<p> <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;">Selected Significant Events and Documents for the West Archive</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;">Updated Listing for History of Medicine, NLM, NIH</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;">Incomplete Draft, in Process -- December 19, 2020</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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 invited talks, seminars and workshops 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 trends in computer graphics and advanced information visualization technologies.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">This listing of selected events and documents, with brief descriptions, is intended to show some evidence of the gradual development and effectiveness of these efforts -- and provide researchers, advocates and other archive users with models for future efforts in this direction.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West is the author of three books, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> (with editions in 1991, 1997, 2009 and 2020), <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i>(2004) and <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See </i>(2017). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">The first book,<i> In the Mind’s Eye,</i> was awarded a gold seal and selected as one of the “best of the best” for the year out of about 6000 reviewed books</span> (one of only 12 books within the broad “Psychology” category, including books on neuroscience, intelligence testing, language impairment, mental health and psychiatry<span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">) by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association</span>.<span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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 these research findings and publications -- largely based on the original work by the neurologists Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton in the 1920s and Dr. Norman Gechwind and his students in the 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often over looked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"></span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. 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 Epilogues with some 40-50 pages of new material. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Another indicator of continuing interest is that in recent weeks, West has been asked to join a global network, based in Stockholm, Sweden, of those with high interest in the strengths and talents of dyslexic children and adults. This network includes advocates, 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 6th meeting of the group was held (via Zoom) on December 14, 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West has given additional talks (via Zoom and related technologies, recorded and/or live) in October and November 2020 for groups based in Amsterdam, Holland, Cairo, Egypt, a group associated George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia -- as well as the International Dyslexia Association annual conference based in the US (recently made virtual). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">On June 9, 2020, West gave the commencement address (via Zoom) for graduates of Siena School, Silver Spring, Maryland, a high school for college-bound dyslexic students. (A copy of this address is provided below -- as a brief overview to outline the larger context for young adults, among others.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Over the years, West’s investigations have led him to look beyond dyslexia to a wider range of learning differences. In his third book, <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, 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. With this book, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">The numbered sections below provide a 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">This listing serves as a checklist of some of the associated materials not to be missed in the boxes and binders donated to the NLM 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Related websites, videos, blogs, audio recordings, photographs, overhead sheets, 35 mm film slides and Power Point images have been (or will be) provided separately. The West blog (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt;">inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com</span></u>) </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">has already been in</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">corporated 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 brief description is currently listed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">A Time of Fundamental Change: “A Return to Visual Thinking”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">It should be noted that with his early publications and talks (based on the work of Orton and Geschwind, along with what he had learned from those working with the new computer graphics technologies), West found himself swept up in a wave of change. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">He found that he was invited to participate and provide presentations for a highly varied group of institutions and organizations as part of a new awareness of fundamental change with respect to visual thinkers, visual technologies, scientific data visualization and new ways of thinking about the capabilities of dyslexics and other different thinkers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">This new awareness was partly based on the rapidly emerging power of the new visual technologies. But it was also based on a renewed awareness of the power of the visual thinking used by earlier scientists and engineers, such as Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, Tesla and others. (Thus “A Return to Visual Thinking” as the theme of the 1993 annual meeting and West’s presentation for the 50 Max Planck Institutes, item 2 below.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">In most cases, the high interest in these topics and trends was from those who were observing these capabilities in actual operation and use “in the real world” of scientific discovery, medical innovation and entrepreneurial business. At the same time many specialist academics seemed to have found it difficult to understand and appreciate these capabilities, employing their conventional tests and measures and a conceptual framework that favored conventional academic capabilities over “thinking in pictures” in 3D space. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Accordingly, the events and documents listed below can serve, in part, as an informal survey of the development of these fundamental ideas in various industries and various parts of the world over nearly three decades. (For some of the best examples of how these changes were recognized, adopted and promoted by organizations such as MIT, NASA Ames, GCHQ in the UK, the Max Planck Institutes and related institutions, see especially items 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 22 and 25.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">______________________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Overview -- Time of Change -- Context Outlined in Recent Commencement Address<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Dear friends, I thought some of you might be interested in the talk I gave six months ago at a nearby high school for college bound dyslexic students. I had agreed to do the talk long before the virus changed everything. The students and teachers put together a nearly complete graduation experience via Zoom -- even including throwing caps in the air at the end. Very impressive. Again, showing talents for creative solutions in adversity. Now, in mid December, with vaccine programs started and a new government, we all may hope to show resilience and new hopes for the future. -- TGW<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Commencement Address -- Siena School -- June 9, 2020 -- Thomas G. West<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Thank you Sophie for your kind introduction. I also want to thank Jilly and all the staff of Siena School -- and especially the class of 2020. I am greatly honored to be your speaker today. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Initially, I puzzled about what to say to you today -- the first “virtual” commencement -- at a time of many difficulties and dangers. I realize that I must fully acknowledge that what you are seeing now is indeed, in so many ways, <i>The Worst of Times</i>. But I hope to be able to show that this, in some ways, may also be seen as <i>The Best of Times</i> -- for you and your class. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">In <i>The Worst of Times</i> -- it is, indeed, a time for resilience and fortitude. You are having to deal with a global pandemic. You have been locked in, away from school and your friends, having to continue classes virtually, facing an uncertain future. In recent months, all over America a great many have lost their jobs. In recent days there have been protests and demonstrations in DC and all around the country -- and, indeed, all around the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">After a long wait, some places are slowly “reopening” -- but even this has many hazards and dangers. In spite of all of this, I’m going to be bold to say that these could be seen also, in some ways, as <i>The Best of Times</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">In the long history of human kind, we are told, dyslexics seem to have had a special role. According to some researchers, dyslexics sometimes seem unusually well suited to big changes and to being able to see opportunities inside of adversity. They are particularly good at rethinking situations in an original way. They are good at not being stuck with conventional views and conventional solutions. They have trouble reading and memorizing old knowledge -- but they are often really good at creating new knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">My own story is that I came into this field (as is so often the case) with the testing of our two sons -- who started having dyslexia-related problems in school in the earliest grades. As a worried parent, I got myself tested. I did not learn to read until about the fourth grade -- and have always read very slowly -- but I had been totally unaware of the larger pattern of dyslexic traits.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">I soon realized that our family included at least three generations of dyslexics. My father was a brilliant and highly skilled artist and teacher -- but with many classic dyslexic traits. My mother was also a highly skilled artist who won top prizes. They had met in art school. Both had great visual talents.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">When I began my own serious study of dyslexia -- I immediately looked to the dyslexics who were successful in various fields. I was less interested in fixing the problems. Rather, I was more interested in understanding areas of distinctive strength and talent. I wanted to look at the fields where dyslexics were successful. I wanted to see what we could learn from them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">First I saw that many things have been changing in fundamental ways -- many that favor dyslexics. All the things that dyslexics have difficulty with are becoming less and less important in the world of work. And the things that dyslexics are good at are becoming more and more important. Shortly, my interest in strengths and talents led me to meet some extraordinarily amazing people and directed me to looking into some new and exciting areas of work. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">One of the first places I looked was computer graphics (including simulators, film animation, video games, 3-D structures and data visualization) -- the remarkable melding of ancient forms of art and story telling -- with the newest high-speed computer graphic technologies. I attended the conferences -- and there were major technical advances every year. Right away the people I met in the computer graphics conferences explained to me that probably half the people in the industry were dyslexic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">I met a woman who was responsible for the computer graphics in major films like <i>Titanic</i> and The <i>Fifth Element</i>. She told me that she had assembled a small group of the most talented computer graphic artists and technologists. They dealt with the most difficult problems in the films. She had hired them for their extreme talents based on samples of their work. She had ignored their paper credentials. Soon, she discovered that entire team was dyslexic, one hundred percent. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">This taught me a lesson -- that dyslexics can be super stars when they find their special areas of talent -- and when they find the right industry to put their talents to use. This also taught me that one of the most important things is to be able to retain one’s spirit -- one’s resilience -- and not be beaten down by many early failures -- and not be convinced that you can’t move on to higher levels of accomplishment -- sometimes very high levels. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Indeed, when I talked to highly creative and successful dyslexic people in the sciences and business and elsewhere, they say the higher up you go in an area of strength, the easier it gets. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">A wonderful example of great success after repeated failures is Jack Horner -- the famous paleontologist who has been advisor to Stephen Spielberg for his four <i>Jurassic Park</i> films. I got to know Jack over the years at several conferences and I have visited him twice at his digs in northern Montana. Jack was mostly a failure in lower school and high school. His high school English teacher gave him a grade of “D minus, minus, minus.” The teacher said you barely passed but “I never want to see you again.” Jack said he sent this teacher a copy of his first book (written with help from a co-writer, of course). Indeed, Jack says he has written more books than he has read. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Although Jack had failed a lot, he never felt a failure. Why? Because he won all the science fair prizes. He built a Tesla coil -- and he also built a rocket. When he first told me this I just assumed he used a small model rocket. But he said, “Oh no, it wasn’t a small model rocket. It was 5 feet tall and it blasted to 27,000 feet.” I said, “Jack you could have shot down an airliner!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">In Montana, if you have graduated from high school you could start college. Jack failed in college 7 times but he never gave up. He took a low-level job cleaning and preparing fossils. He kept searching the dry wilds of Montana. He could not get funding from professional grants. But he asked a local beer company and got the funding he needed -- to eventually make important discoveries. In time, his work was respected and he became famous. He designed the dinosaur museum exhibits in Bozeman, received honorary degrees and started teaching paleontology.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">He would have his 19 graduate students write their papers and put them in the computer so Jack could have his computer read the papers to him. He said that his mission was to get these graduate students to think like a dyslexic. You didn’t want them to clutter their minds with “other people’s thoughts,” he said. He wanted them to observe nature directly and see what was there in front of them in the fossil evidence. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">He tried to teach them how to think “out of the box.” He said that normally dyslexics think “out of the box” -- because “they have never been in the box.” I think Jack’s example is a great one because it shows that he is definitely not suited to conventional academic studies. But he was very well suited to understanding nature and science -- seeing clearly what the fossil evidence showed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Another great example is Mary Schweitzer, one of Jack’s grad students -- who is also dyslexic. One year Jack and his team had found a very large set of fossil bones from a Tyrannosaurus Rex at the face of a cliff in northern Montana. It was in a remote area so it was hard to get people and equipment in and out. They found that the fossil femur (that is, the upper leg bone) of the T Rex (when covered with protective plaster of Paris) was so big and heavy that the loaned helicopter couldn’t lift it. So they had to cut this femur in half. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">They sent one half to Mary. They didn’t treat it with any chemicals as they normally do. Mary looked inside this bone and what she saw immediately was a deposit of calcium inside the bone -- like the deposits of calcium found inside bird bones when they are ready to make egg shells. So Mary knew right away that the T Rex had been a pregnant female. But there was more. Inside the bone Mary also found tiny flexible blood vessels and the remnants of red blood cells. Mary and her assistant said they could not sleep for weeks because they thought they would never be believed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">She published her findings in <i>Science</i> magazine and indeed she was attacked. The critics said it is not possible for such things to survive for more that 60 million years. However, later, other scientists repeated her discoveries and admitted that her work was legitimate. So, Mary Schweitzer, Jack’s dyslexic grad student, started a whole new subfield -- molecular paleontology -- never imagined possible.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Another amazing story is about William J. Dreyer, a dyslexic molecular biologist at the California Institute of Technology, “Caltech.” Some years ago Bill contacted me and said he had read my book and thought that I understood how he thinks (“no one else does,” he said). He suggested, “Next time you’re in the Los Angeles area come and visit. I want to tell you my story.” Turns out that Bill’s story was very interesting indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Bill started off as a dyslexic ski bum. But he took some tests and realized he had some areas of special ability, especially in visual thinking. So he started studying biology and he soon realized that he could understand what was going on in the laboratory better than others. Because he could use his powerful dyslexic imagination to see how the molecules fit together in various ways, he developed a new theory related to the human immune system. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">He told his professors which experiments they should do and what the results would be. They helped him write his papers, based on his new theories. For 12 years, he gave talks about these new theories. Many professionals in the field were angered by these talks; it was all so new that they could not understand; they thought it was heresy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Later, another scientist, working in Switzerland doing experiments that were illegal in United States at the time, proved that Bill’s new theories were correct. And this other scientist received a Nobel Prize. Bill told me, I think honestly, he did not resent not receiving the Nobel Prize. He told me that once you receive the prize your life is not your own -- everybody wants a piece of you. Bill said that he was happy to be vindicated and to know that his theory was correct and was eventually accepted by everyone in the field.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">But there’s still more to Bill’s story. Bill had a dyslexic grandson named Brandon King. Brandon was in high school flunking everything, depressed, taking medication, fighting with his parents, feeling very low. So his grandfather asked him to come and visit and help with his research using Brandon’s computer skills. Each day Bill talked to Brandon and said this is what I want you to do today. Since you are good with computers, I want you to write this little search program -- but before that you need to know this biology . . . <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Shortly, Brandon started to help in the laboratory at Caltech as a volunteer. Then he was part-time employee. Eventually he was a full-time employee helping with the computer side of the biology laboratory at the Caltech. Soon, according to Bill, Brandon was doing “post doc” level work at the laboratory -- and he still hadn’t graduated from high school. Eventually Brandon went on to college at Berkeley (because they had the best LD support program) and was able to graduate with honors and start his own business. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Because of my books and talks, many stories of successful dyslexics have come my way. The field is full of paradoxes and surprises. Great writers who cannot spell. High level mathematicians who don’t know their math facts. A Nobel Prize winning biologist who had been in “special ed” and thought she was stupid. It is important for educators and test designers to understand that there are whole areas of talent that they do not know how to measure or comprehend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Over many years stories of dyslexic entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Charles Schwab have been written about in the business press. This is not new. However, what is new is that in the last couple of years there have been formal reports written by major management consultant firms. A report by one of the big four management consultant companies (EY -- formerly Ernst and Young) states the case that what businesses want in the future are the skills and talents and strengths that are common among dyslexics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">With the new fast, powerful computers many of the clerical tasks that our educational system trains human beings to do are now being done faster and more cheaply by machines -- especially with massive data available in the cloud along with “deep learning” and artificial intelligence (AI). Businesses realize that what they now need from their human employees is the innovation, creativity, big picture thinking and other abilities that are common among dyslexics (but seem to be rare among certain non-dyslexics). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">These are the kinds of things that some of us been saying for many years. But it is wonderful indeed to hear these from established management consulting companies. I think it is important for you, the class of 2020, to acknowledge, of course, the many great problems and stresses of our time. But along with all your own difficulties with dyslexia, remember that you have many advantages in ways of thinking that others do not have. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">So I want you to see that it may be possible to view the problems as opportunities as well -- to show the world -- and to show yourselves -- what you really can do.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Thank you<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">______________________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Selected Significant Events and Documents</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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, 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 was 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(2) An annual meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany. See chapter in the book compiled from the proceedings of this conference: </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking,” <i>Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft</i>, 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 <i>Computers and Physics</i>. (The article in English and the German language proceedings volume have already been donated to the archive collection.) During informal discussions, West was told of dyslexia and other learning differences within the families of famous German physicists. It is noteworthy that this large high-level meeting in November 1993 was dominated by conventional “main frame thinking” and remarkably antiquated technologies. For example, we had to move to a small conference room to show video clips on a TV. (This is, in fact, shown in one of the photographs provided in the printed proceedings book.) In dramatic contrast, in the conference in Amsterdam in October of that same year the designers, artists, architects and computer professionals had already adopted and were using the latest technologies in all the presentations. (See item 4 below.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(3) The New York Branch of The Orton Dyslexia Society, Twentieth Anniversary Conference, Language & Medical Symposia on Dyslexia, March 18-20, 1993. As the economy moves from a primarily verbal orientation to one that is visual-spatial, the talents of dyslexics will be increasingly 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 national conference of the Orton Dyslexia Society (that later became the International Dyslexia Association). Many of the major figures in the field spoke at this three-day meeting. This included Patience Thomson, Head of Fairley House School, London, England -- who Thomas West and his wife later came to know 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. (Full program listing to be provided.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(4) Invited speaker. The Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Doors of Perception,” October 30-31, 1993, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, organized by The Netherlands Design Institute and <i>Mediamatic</i> 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 <i>Wired</i> magazine (published 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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(5) Invited to be the 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 highly secret intelligence for Winston Churchill), in Cheltenham, England. See section on GCHQ, pp. 147-150, in <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See,</i> 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. [More to be provided about this most important meeting -- and a subsequent informal gathering during a nearby village walk and pub lunch -- where one teen-aged son said, “Now I finally begin to understand my father.” Of course, GCHQ would be an excellent place to investigate extraordinarily high performance and seek positive links with visual thinking, dyslexia, autism and other forms of different thinking. To avoid lengthy reviews and clearance, West’s section on GCHQ in <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i> is based on publicly available sources.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(6) Scientists and artists at Green College within the University of Oxford, England [Much more information to be provided, here and for the named-only listings below. -- TGW]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(7) The Royal College of Art in London<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(8) The Glasgow School of Art in Scotland<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(9) A conference at the University of Uppsala before the Queen of Sweden<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(10) T</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">he University of California at Berkeley<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(11) An education conference sponsored by Harvard and MIT<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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 seen as signature indictors of the work of a classic visually-oriented dyslexic approach. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(13) Invited to participate in a</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> (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 representing varied fields and institutions, including: Larry Gonick (<i>The Cartoon History of the Universe</i>), Antonio Damasio (<i>Descartes’ Error</i>, U. Iowa), Donna Cox (National Center for Supercomputing Applications, ACM-SIGGRAPH), Ellen Winner (<i>Gifted Children</i>, 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 (<i>Scientific American</i>), and Thomas G. West (<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(14) The Arts Dyslexia Trust in London, invited presentations at 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. [More to come. -- TGW.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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 of the talk. 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, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, into Chinese. This book is to be provided to the archive along with the Japanese and Korean translations.) Discussions of dyslexia in Taiwan are especially interesting since the culture puts extreme pressure on students. They should look pale and sleep deprived -- or they are not studying hard enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(16) The international conference of computer graphic artists and technologists (ACM-SIGGRAPH) in Vancouver, BC, Canada. One of several 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 <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> (2004). (To be provided, the book <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> plus three sample copies of the in-house magazine <i>Computer Graphics</i>.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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 at the time.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(18) The U.S. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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 Board of Regents meeting. [Three 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.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(20) Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. Five visits, two talks. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> 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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(21) Scientists, researchers and advocates </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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). [More info to come. -- TGW]</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(22) 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). </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(23) In November 2014, West was invited to give five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore as part of a country-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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(24) Markle Scholars in Academic Medicine, Fifty-Year Reunion, September 17-19, 1998, Arizona Biltmore Resort and Villas. Speakers included, among others: Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, National Library of Medicine; 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, as it turned out, 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. -- TGW) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(25) “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 pieces of 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 UK trips and talks for art, business and scientific groups over the following years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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. Remarkably, dyslexics are said to have the “great eye” to see what others do not see -- in radiology and in art forgery. A high-quality handmade leather-bound fundraising book for ADT, <i>Art Works</i>, 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(26) 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 (<i>Dyslexic Advantage</i>) and Thomas West. An historian from the Nobel Prize Foundation 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.)</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(27) “The Global Summit, Made By Dyslexia, Programme: 15th October, 2018, BAFTA, London, UK.” Sponsored by Microsoft and others. Admission by invitation. 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 <i>Dyslexi + Styrkor = SANT</i> (<i>Dyslexia plus Talent equals Truth</i>). 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(28) 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: <i>Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates</i>, Drake D. Duane, MD, editor, York Press, 1999. West’s talk is Chapter 11, “Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(29) To be provided, information on four 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. -- TGW)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(30) The Confederation of British Industry, Centre Point, at 103 New Oxford Street, London. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“A Future of Reversals: The Changing Skills Needs</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> 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 <i>Financial Times</i> (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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(31) Stories about dyslexia and innovation have appeared in varied media. </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">The story below was posted on West’s Facebook page in March 2020 -- also intended for West’s blog: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“Dyslexic Physician Discovers ARDS”<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">However, in the last few days, and the last week especially, the coronavirus (Covid-19) has begun to dominate all other topics and considerations.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> . . . <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">ARDS Discovery Rejected by Three US Medical Journals<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">He was buying a copy my book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Later, they sent their paper to the British medical journal, <i>The Lancet</i>. 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 --<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“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 <i>New England Journal of Medicine</i>, which promptly rejected it as documentation of inappropriate and dangerous ventilator management. A revision submitted to the <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i> was similarly rejected, as was a subsequent version sent to the <i>American Journal of Surgery</i>. Somewhat in desperation, the authors finally submitted the manuscript to <i>The Lancet</i>. 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. <i>Respiratory Care</i>, August 2014, vol. 59, no. 8, p. 1293.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">See also a book given to West by Thomas L. Petty, MD. (To be provided separately.) <i><u>Frontline Update in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease</u></i>, Co-editors, James T. Good, Jr., MD, Thomas L. Petty, MD. 2004, Snowdrift Pulmonary Conference, 899 Logan Street, Denver, Colorado 80203. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(32) 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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(33) <i>Forgotten Letters: An Anthology of Literature by Dyslexic Writers</i>, 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 <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i> titled “Amazing Shortcomings, Amazing Gifts.” The inside cover of this book has this lone quotation from West: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The truth-talking commentator who is not caught up in the race.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“They have felt the otherness from the start.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(34) </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(35) 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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">The program for this Boston conference included an article by West reprinted with permission from <i>Computer Graphics</i>, 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 <i>Computer Graphics</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">[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 <i>Faust</i>, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“ ‘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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“ ‘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.’ (<i>Eight Little Piggies</i>, Norton, 1993).”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">”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.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(36) 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 state 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 of mission programs to be provided.) West was invited to speak by the Head of the Center, a virologist, who he met at a dinner of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine. The visit included an extensive tour of the Center facilities, programs and missions -- along with several Q&A discussions with Center staff. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(37) “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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(38)</span> Excerpt from <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>: Appendix B, Dyslexic Advantage, Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide. “In March 2011, I received an advance uncorrected manuscript for a new book that was to be published that August. I was asked to provide a recommendation. This is what I wrote: “Here I insert my recommendation for <i>The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain</i> by Brock L. Eide, MD, and Fernette F. Eide, MD, Hudson Street Press, publication date, August 18, 2011. This book is destined to become a classic. After my many years studying the talents of dyslexics, I was pleased to gain from the Eides’ systematic investigation a deeper understanding of how and why dyslexics often have a major advantage, working at high levels in many different fields -- and why there is so much misunderstanding among conventional educators and employers. Linking their broad clinical experience with the newest brain research, they illuminate many puzzles -- such as why there are so many dyslexic entrepreneurs, why so many dyslexics choose to study engineering or philosophy, why dyslexics often see the big picture and see linkages that others do not see, why they often think in stories or analogies, and why some of the most successful authors are dyslexic. They explain why reading impairments should be seen as only a small part of a larger pattern -- that dyslexia is not simply a reading problem, but a different form of brain organization, yielding remarkable strengths along with surprising difficulties. With new technologies and new business models, we can now see how the often remarkable talents of dyslexics will be in greater demand over time while their difficulties will be increasingly seen as comparatively unimportant. I am enormously grateful to the Eides for explaining why and how this is so.” -- Thomas G. West, author of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> and <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i>. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“These words still reflect my basic approach to this wonderful book, which I continue to re-read. With this book, and their previous book <i>The Mislabeled Child</i>, the Eides have continued to provide an important public service with the non-profit they founded, their websites, their conferences and their energetic advocacy. They are both physicians and have vast clinical experience. This experience is coupled with a willingness to listen at length to the stories of their patients and their families. By listening, rather than merely administering standardized tests, often they have uncovered extensive giftedness (sometimes in several generations) -- where many practitioners would only see pathologies and abnormalities that require repair and remediation. Their approach to these matters is, of course, very close to my own high interest in talents and their development. (In full disclosure, I should say that I have been working closely with the Eides for several years -- and I am currently a member the Board of Trustees for the non-profit organization they established “Dyslexic Advantage” -- along with the blog at DyslexicAdvantage.org.)”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(39) “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.) Also to come: the story of how two speakers during the same week at Chautauqua that summer had the same name: ‘Thomas G. West’ -- the other one an art historian and author from New York City -- who said he would display on his own coffee table the book <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, to be seen by visiting friends, for fun, without comment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(40) Transcripts of interviews and presentations conducted by highly successful dyslexics -- having received high awards for innovations and discoveries in their fields: William J. Dreyer, PhD, and Marc I. Rowe, MD. [To be provided. -- TGW]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(41) </span>Noted from West: “In my continuing sorting of old papers, I recently found a journal reprint that had been quite popular and was distributed widely during the 1990s. Brief excerpts are provided below. Today I would not change a word. This piece may show how advanced my thinking was at the time -- or how I have learned nothing new in the last 28 years. -- TGW”<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">“A Future of Reversals:<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">Dyslexic Talents in a World of Computer Visualization”<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">by Thomas G West, Washington, DC<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">The Reprint Series, The Orton Dyslexia Society. <o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">From the <i>Annals of Dyslexia</i>, Vol. 42, 1992. ISSN 0736 –9387, pp.124-139.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">[Excerpt:] With the recent revival of visual approaches at the forefront of several scientific, mathematical, and technological developments, this paper proposes that visually oriented dyslexics may be in an increasingly favorable position in future years. The same set of traits which have caused them so much difficulty in traditional verbally-oriented educational systems, may confer special advantages <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">in emerging new fields which may rely heavily on visual methods of analysis –- fields which employ powerful graphic workstations and supercomputers to visualize complex scientific data. Recent trends have also led some technical professionals to become aware that their own special talents seem to be closely associated with certain dyslexic traits. It is argued that similarly mixed talents have been major factors in the accomplishments of a number of important historical figures. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Overview<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">New technologies and techniques currently being developed in computer graphics, medical imaging, and what is now called “scientific visualization” are already having important effects on our society and will in time have profound consequences for education and work at all levels. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">A side effect of these advances may be that certain visual-spatial abilities often found among dyslexics may come to confer special advantages in those fields that are coming to rely more heavily on visual approaches and techniques. Ironically, these special advantages may result from the same pattern of traits that has long caused so much difficulty for visually oriented dyslexics in traditional verbally oriented educational systems. Thus, it is proposed that many dyslexics will find themselves on the right side of a major set of trend reversals -- ones that could dramatically affect their lives in the lives of their children.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Historically, some of the most original thinkers in the physical sciences, engineering, mathematics, and other areas have relied heavily on visual modes of thought, employing images instead of words or numbers. Some of these thinkers have shown evidence of a striking range of learning difficulties, including problems with the reading, spelling, writing, calculation, attention, speaking, and memory. In recent years, neurological research has suggested that some forms of early brain growth and development tend to produce verbal and other difficulties the same time they produce a variety of exceptional visual and spatial talents (Geschwind and Behan 1982; Geschwind and Galaburda 1985). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">* * * * *<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Implications<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">The consequences of the coming changes maybe far greater than we can easily imagine. We need to realize that for some 400 or 500 years our schools essentially have been teaching the skills of a Medieval clerk –- reading, writing, counting, and memorizing texts. With the more pervasive influence of increasingly powerful computers of all kinds, we could be on the verge of a new era when we will be required to develop a very different set of talents and skills, those of a Renaissance man such as Leonardo da Vinci rather than those of the clerk or lay scholar of the Middle Ages.<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">* * * * * <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">In the future, instead of the qualities desired in a well-trained clerk, we may find far more desirable talents and traits similar to those associated with Leonardo da Vinci: a facility with visual-spatial approaches and modes of analysis instead of mainly verbal (or numerical or symbolic) fluency; a propensity to learn directly through experience (or simulated experience) rather than primarily from lectures books; a habit of continuous investigation in many different areas of study through ceaseless curiosity (perhaps with occasional but transient specialization); the more integrated perspective of the global generalist rather than the increasingly narrow specialist; a predisposition to innovation by making connections among many diverse fields; an ability to rapidly progress through many phases of research, development and design using imagination and “intuitive” mental models, now incorporating modern three-dimensional computer-aided design systems. (Aaron, Phillips and Larson, 1988; Ritchie-Calder, 1970; Sartori, 1987).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Leonardo da Vinci’s predisposition to investigation and analysis through visualization may come to serve us as well as it served him, providing innovative results well in advance of those competing groups which follow other more conventional approaches. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Thus, in the foreseeable future, we may come full circle, using the most advanced technologies and techniques to draw on some of the most old-fashioned approaches and capacities to simulate reality rather than describe it in words or numbers. To learn, once again, by doing, rather than by reading. To learn, once again, by seeing and experimenting, rather than by following memorized algorithms and routines. In so doing, all of us will learn greater respect for abilities and intelligences that were always vitally important, but were generally eclipsed by a disproportionate emphasis on the traits and skills most valued by traditional schoolmen and scholars. Sometimes, the oldest pathways and most primitive patterns can be the best guides into uncharted waters. [End of excerpt.]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(42) Several books to be listed here along with letters and informal recorded memories, most received as personal gifts from Patience Bragg Thomson and David Thomson to Thomas West -- as well as books and articles by (and about) their adult children, Hugh Thomson, Ben Thomson, Alice Thomson and others. Also to be included, a DVD of a talk by Patience Thomson during the conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico (a conference built around ideas from West’s book, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>). (See also reference to this family with four Nobel Prize winners and many visual thinkers and dyslexics, mentioned in item 3 above.) Interest in how dyslexia and major visual thinking trait is manifested over five generations, often exhibiting creativity, entrepreneurial innovation, or work leading to important discoveries (such as the use of x-ray crystallography to discover the structure of DNA). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Preliminary notes about the stories and materials to be provided: Quotation about WWI German guns (from the book <i>Crystal Clear</i> below). Books about the Thomson and Bragg parents and grandparents. The Royal Institution, headed by Sir Lawrence Bragg, with the RI <i>Lecturing Guide</i>, including RI heads Faraday and Bragg. Four Nobel Prizes -- especially for x-ray crystallography and the fundamental beginnings of modern molecular biology. Rejected proposal for further research concerning this family (a sadly missed opportunity to fully document and develop insights based on a remarkable case study that could have shed light on the links over generations between high level creativity, professional accomplishment, visual thinking and dyslexia). The BBC documentary on the Nobel award to Sir Lawrence Bragg (years afterward because of WWI). (“Why no Darwins invited to this party? Separate party for Darwins because so many in that family.”) Noted in study by Bragg (senior), political leaders at time of WWI took pride in knowing no science; top schools then taught mainly or only Greek and Latin texts (which Churchill noted that he was unable to do); this little known adverse selection factor should be studied as well. Students stamping feet at new ideas in physics. Early Nobel Prize was awarded to J.J. Thomson, the grandfather, instead of Edison or Tesla (who were on the short list). Members did not want the Athenaeum Club to have reciprocal access with other London clubs -- but very happy to have joint access with the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC. Science from observations in the real world to provide analogies and insights of significance: privy and WWI guns; soap bubbles observed in ‘washing up’ behave like atoms; oil and petrol mixed for lawn mower seen to behave like metals. Oxford book club story: Roger Bannister was host when West, as visitor to Bragg Thomsons, was asked to join the group that night. President of the BDA conference story. By family members, to be provided (some below): Hugh, Peru discoveries. Alice, origins of “Alice Springs,” Australia, <i>Telegraph</i> Friday newspaper column, Sue Parkinson obit. Ben, innovative entrepreneur in Scotland.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">The Bragg-Thomson books (Most are currently in use by West. To be provided to NLM-HOM much later, if there is interest.) Several examples: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Caroe, G. M., 1978. <i>William Henry Bragg, 1862-1942, Man and Scientist</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. An excerpt: “The research work of 1913– 14 had brought the joint award to father and son the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915. . . . WL [the son] got the news in France. The old curé on whom he was billeted got up a bottle of wine cellar to celebrate with. The Prize, and the sharing of it, was instantly gratifying and encouraging; but WHB [the father] had no more time for his own research work. . . . War work was claiming him.” (Caroe, p. 81.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Glazer, A. M. and Patience [Bragg] Thomson, 2015. <i>Crystal Clear, The Autobiography of Sir Lawrence & Lady Bragg</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press. An excerpt: “In consequence of the excellent sound ranging of the English. I forbid any battery to fire alone when the whole sector is quiet, especially in east wind. Should there be any occasion to fire, the adjoining battery must always be called upon, either directly or through the Group, to fire for a few rounds.” June 23, 1917. Captured order of the day, German Army, WWI, referencing the wartime scientific work of Sir Lawrence Bragg, quoted in <i>Crystal Clear</i>, p. 92. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Thomas, John M., FRS, and Sir David Phillips, KBE, FRS, editors, 1990. <i>Selections and Reflections: The Legacy of Sir Lawrence Bragg,</i> <i>Including contributions by Nobel Laureates: Linus Pauling, Lord Todd, Dorothy Hodgkin, Max Perutz, Francis Crick, Sir Nevill Mott, Sir Aaron Klug, James D. Watson, Lord Porter and Sir John Kendrew. </i>London: The Royal Institution of Great Britain<i>. <o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Thomson, Alice, 1999. <i>The Singing Line</i>. London: Chatto & Windus. “The Story of the Man who Strung the Telegraph across Australia, and the Woman who gave her Name to Alice Springs.” Written by Alice, the daughter of David Thomson and Patience Bragg Thompson -- the great-great-granddaughter of the original Alice. An account of a modern journey across Australia, from Adelaide to Darwin, following the track of the first telegraph line laid down by Charles Todd in the 1870s, the husband of the original Alice. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Thomson, Hugh, 2003. T<i>he White Rock; An Exploration of the Inca Heartland</i>. Woodstock & New York: The Overlook Press. Written by Hugh, the son of David Thomson and Patience Bragg Thompson. A review excerpt: “It is a measure of Hugh Thompson’s skill as a writer, historian, and explorer that <i>The White Rock</i> is such a pleasure. . . . This is a moving and meticulously researched account of the Inca people’s rise, conquest of a continent, and tragic annihilation by the conquistadors of the 16th century.” – <i>The Spectator</i>, London<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">_______________________________________________________________________</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments with Biographical Sketch -- T. G. West <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Foreword to the Second Edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">by Oliver Sacks, M.D.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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, <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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’ [defective in visual thinking]. 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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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 <i>Thinking in Pictures</i>), she was taken aback when I said I could hardly visualize anything: ‘How <i>do</i> you think?’ she asked. Grandin herself has very heightened spatial and visual imagination, and thinks in very concrete images.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i>“In the Mind's Eye</i> 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 <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Oliver Sacks, M.D., January 2, 2009. Dr. Sacks, a British neurologist residing in the US, is most widely known for his book <i>Awakenings</i> (1973) that was made into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Also well known are his books <i>An Anthropologist from Mars</i> (1995), <i>Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf</i> (1989) and <i>The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat</i> (1985). His most recent book is titled <i>The Mind’s Eye</i>(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 <i>New York Times</i> said that Sacks “has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- 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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“Since he first published <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> 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."<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- 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 <i>The Mislabeled Child </i>(Hyperion, 2006) and <i>The Dyslexic Advantage</i> (Hudson Street Press, 2011). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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 <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. . . . 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.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Jim Romeo, New York Academy of Sciences, <i>Update Magazine</i>, April/May 2004, “Getting Scientific about Why Johnny Can’t Read--Understanding Dyslexia.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.’ <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> 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<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Blurb above sent to Thomas G. West by Dr. Oliver Sacks for use with the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, October 23, 2008. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> “Unfortunately, I did not discover this wonderful book [<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> by Thomas G. West] before I wrote <i>Thinking in Pictures</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Temple Grandin, “The List,” <i>The Week</i> magazine, March 3, 2006, describing why she has included <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> on her list of six favorite books. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“Dear Tom: Thanks for sending me your epilogue [to the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>]. 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”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Email of August 17, 2009. Dr. Grandin is a professor of animal science and is author of the memoir <i>Thinking in Pictures</i> (dealing with her life with autism) and the best-selling book <i>Animals in Translation</i>. 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Howard Gardner, PhD, letter of October 15, 1996. Dr. Gardner is author of many books, including <i>Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences</i> (BasicBooks, 1983) and <i>Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century</i> (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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Additional Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- 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 <i>Tin Toy</i>, the first 3-dimensional computer animation ever to win an Academy Award. This team later produced the first completely computer-generated motion picture, <i>Toy Story</i>. 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> . . . [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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Loren Pope, “The Learning Disabled of Today Will Be the Gifted of Tomorrow,” in <i>Colleges That Change Lives</i>(Penguin, New York, 2000 and 2006).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“. . . I entirely agree with [Dr. Doris Kelly] when she says that [<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>] 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.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- T.R. Miles, Ph.D., in <i>Dyslexia Contact</i>, June 1993, pp. 14-15. Dr. Miles, Professor Emeritus, University College of North Wales, and Vice President of the British Dyslexia Association.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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 <i>CALCULUS&</i> <i>Mathematica</i>, 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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- 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<i>&Mathematica</i> (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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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. . . .”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- 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 <i>Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science</i>, Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1993. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Review by Joan Freeman, <i>European Journal for High Ability</i>, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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 -- <i>now</i>.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Susan Parkinson, editor, newsletter of The Arts Dyslexia Trust (United Kingdom), November 1992.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Lord Renwick, Chairman, European Informatics Market (EURIM), Vice-President, Past Chairman, The British Dyslexia Association. Electronic mail of October 30, 1996. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“The original title is <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. The Japanese title <i>Geniuses Who Hated School</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Review in <i>Kagaku Asahi</i>, the monthly Japanese science magazine, August 1994, p. 92. Review translated by Yoshiko G. Doherty.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one’s thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i>-- Roeper Review</i>, Vol. 15, No. 1, September 1992, p. 54.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">_____________________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">More on the American Library Association Award<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">In January 1999<i>, In the Mind’s Eye</i> by Thomas G. West was selected for the <i>Choice</i> 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). <i>Choice</i> 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<i> Choice </i>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. (<i>Choice</i>, Jan. 1999, p. 801.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Other books receiving the <i>Choice</i> gold seal award for “best of the best” in 1998 included: Lynn Margulis, <i>Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth</i> (Freeman); Steven Pinker, <i>How the Mind Works</i> (Norton); Richard Mabey, <i>Flora</i> <i>Britannica</i> (Chatto and Windus); Richard Feynman, <i>The Meaning of It All</i> (Addison-Wesley); Martin Gardner, <i>The Last Recreations: Hydras, Eggs, and Other Mathematical Mystifications</i> (Copernicus, Springer-Verlag); Per F. Dahl, <i>Flash of the Cathode Ray: A</i> <i>History of J.J. Thomson’s Electron</i> (Institute of Physics); Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau, <i>Privacy On Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption</i> (MIT Press); Victor M. Spitzer and David G. Whitlock, <i>Atlas of the Visible Human Male:</i> <i>Reverse Engineering of the Human</i> <i>Body</i> (Jones and Bartlett). (<i>Choice</i>, Jan. 1999, pp. 823-841)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Following is the full text of the original review of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> as it appeared in the April 1998 issue of <i>Choice</i>(p. 1458): “West, Thomas G. <b>In the mind’s eye: visual thinkers, gifted people with dyslexia and other learning difficulties, computer images and the ironies of creativity</b>. 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” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">_____________________________________________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Selected Videos Online<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">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 videos are 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. Each with the same middle initial (G for Gifford) but different middle names. For example, one writes on politics in Texas, another is an art historian in New York City.) -- TGW<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">(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. 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">(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. On YouTube.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">(3) “A New World Shaped By Dysexics.” Video of one of five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS), November 2014. On YouTube.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">(4) “The Power of Dyslexic Visual thinkers with Computer Data Visuaization.” DAS, Singapore, November 2014. On YouTube.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">(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: West’s personal experience and the early role of the kindly reading teacher when dyslexia was unknown; no diagnosis as dyslexic until he was 41 years old; late blooming pattern was apparent during late high school and early college; early memorization education was very difficut, but higher concept-based education becomes increasingly easy (or, early school was 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 become some of the best writers with clear and simple writing of substance with vivid sound of language and imagery; that it is now recognized that time is on the side of dyslexics because their strengths are more valued by employers for their creativity and big picture thinking while low level reading and clerical tasks are now being done extremely fast and extremely cheaply by the newest powerful computer systems, with “deep learning” and AI. On YouTube.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Thomas G. West, author of <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>, <i>Thinking Like Einstein </i>and<i> Seeing What Others Cannot See.</i> Blog: http://inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Emails: thomasgwest@gmail.com and thomasgwest@aol.com. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Revised and updated, December 19, 2020. <o:p></o:p></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-38681103326792007362020-11-30T22:07:00.001-05:002020-11-30T22:07:40.937-05:00A Future of Reversals<p><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Note: In my continuing sorting of old papers and documents, I recently found a journal reprint that had been quite popular and was distributed widely during the early 1990s. Brief excerpts are provided below. Today I would not change a word. This piece may show how advanced my thinking was at the time -- or how I have learned nothing new in the last 28 years. -- TGW</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">“A Future of Reversals:<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">Dyslexic Talents in a World of Computer Visualization”<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">by Thomas G West, Washington, DC<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">The Reprint Series, The Orton Dyslexia Society. <o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">From the <i>Annals of Dyslexia</i>, Vol. 42, 1992. ISSN 0736 –9387, pp.124-139.<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">[Excerpt:] With the recent revival of visual approaches at the forefront of several scientific, mathematical, and technological developments, this paper proposes that visually oriented dyslexics may be in an increasingly favorable position in future years. The same set of traits which have caused them so much difficulty in traditional verbally-oriented educational systems, may confer special advantages <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">in emerging new fields which may rely heavily on visual methods of analysis –- fields which employ powerful graphic workstations and supercomputers to visualize complex scientific data. Recent trends have also led some technical professionals to become aware that their own special talents seem to be closely associated with certain dyslexic traits. It is argued that similarly mixed talents have been major factors in the accomplishments of a number of important historical figures. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Overview<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">New technologies and techniques currently being developed in computer graphics, medical imaging, and what is now called “scientific visualization” are already having important effects on our society and will in time have profound consequences for education and work at all levels. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">A side effect of these advances may be that certain visual-spatial abilities often found among dyslexics may come to confer special advantages in those fields which are coming to rely more heavily on visual approaches and techniques. Ironically, these special advantages may result from the same pattern of traits that has long caused so much difficulty for visually oriented dyslexics in traditional verbally oriented educational systems. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Thus, it is proposed that many dyslexics will find themselves on the right side of a major set of trend reversals -- ones that could dramatically affect their lives in the lives of their children.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Historically, some of the most original thinkers in the physical sciences, engineering, mathematics, and other areas have relied heavily on visual modes of thought, employing images instead of words or numbers. Some of these thinkers have shown evidence of a striking range of learning difficulties, including problems with the reading, spelling, writing, calculation, attention, speaking, and memory. In recent years, neurological research has suggested that some forms of early brain growth and development tend to produce verbal and other difficulties the same time they produce a variety of exceptional visual and spatial talents (Geschwind and Behan 1982; Geschwind and Galaburda 1985). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">* * * * *<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Implications<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">The consequences of the coming changes maybe far greater than we can easily imagine. We need to realize that for some 400 or 500 years our schools essentially have been teaching the skills of a Medieval clerk –- reading, writing, counting, and memorizing texts. With the more pervasive influence of increasingly powerful computers of all kinds, we could be on the verge of a new era when we will be required to develop a very different set of talents and skills, those of a Renaissance man such as Leonardo da Vinci rather than those of the clerk or lay scholar of the Middle Ages.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">* * * * * <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">In the future, instead of the qualities desired in a well-trained clerk, we may find far more desirable talents and traits similar to those associated with Leonardo da Vinci: a facility with visual-spatial approaches and modes of analysis instead of mainly verbal (or numerical or symbolic) fluency; a propensity to learn directly through experience (or simulated experience) rather than primarily from lectures books; a habit of continuous investigation in many different areas of study through ceaseless curiosity (perhaps with occasional but transient specialization); the more integrated perspective of the global generalist rather than the increasingly narrow specialist; a predisposition to innovation by making connections among many diverse fields; an ability to rapidly progress through many phases of research, development and design using imagination and “intuitive” mental models, now incorporating modern three-dimensional computer-aided design systems. (Aaron, Phillips and Larson, 1988; Ritchie-Calder, 1970; Sartori, 1987).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Leonardo da Vinci’s predisposition to investigation and analysis through visualization may come to serve us as well as it served him, providing innovative results well in advance of those competing groups which follow other more conventional approaches. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Thus, in the foreseeable future, we may come full circle, using the most advanced technologies and techniques to draw on some of the most old-fashioned approaches and capacities to simulate reality rather than describe it in words or numbers. To learn, once again, by doing, rather than by reading. To learn, once again, by seeing and experimenting, rather than by following memorized algorithms and routines. In so doing, all of us will learn greater respect for abilities and intelligences that were always vitally important, but were generally eclipsed by a disproportionate emphasis on the traits and skills most valued by traditional schoolmen and scholars. Sometimes, the oldest pathways and most primitive patterns can be the best guides into uncharted waters. [End of excerpt.]<o:p></o:p></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-9066160743994412582020-11-08T22:50:00.002-05:002020-11-08T23:04:30.790-05:00Selected Significant Events and Documents for the West Archive at NLM, NIH<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Selected Significant Events and Documents for the West Archive<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Updated Listing for History of Medicine, NLM, NIH <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Draft, in Process -- November 8, 2020<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West is the author of three books, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> (1991, 1997, 2009, 2020), <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> (2004) and <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See </i>(2017). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">The first book,<i> In the Mind’s Eye,</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">The second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> includes a Foreword by the late Oliver Sacks, MD, who said </span><i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often overlooked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"></span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">According to one early reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Over the years, West’s investigations have led him to look beyond dyslexia to a wider range of learning differences. In his third book, <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i>, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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 (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt;">inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com</span></u>) </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">has already been in</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">corporated 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.)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">_____________________<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(2) An annual meeting of 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany. See chapter in the book compiled for the proceedings of this conference: </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">West, Thomas G., 1994. “A Return to Visual Thinking,” <i>Proceedings, Science and Scientific Computing: Visions of a Creative Symbiosis. Symposium of Computer Users in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft</i>, 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 <i>Computers and Physics</i>. (The short article in English and the German language proceedings volume have already been donated to the archive collection.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(4) Invited speaker. The Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam: “</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">Doors of Perception,” October 30-31, 1993, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, organized by The Netherlands Design Institute and <i>Mediamatic</i> 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 <i>Wired</i> 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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <i>In the Minds Eye</i> 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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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 <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See,</i> 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(7) The Royal College of Art in London<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(8) The Glasgow School of Art in Scotland<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(9) A conference at the University of Uppsala before the Queen of Sweden<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(10) T</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">he University of California at Berkeley<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(11) An education conference sponsored by Harvard and MIT<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(13) Invited to participate in a</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> (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 (<i>The Cartoon History of the Universe</i>), Antonio Damasio (<i>Descartes Error</i>, U. Iowa), Donna Cox (NCSA, SIGGRAPH), Ellen Winner (<i>Gifted Children</i>, 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 (<i>Scientific American</i>), and Thomas G. West (<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, into Chinese. This book is to be provided to the archive along with the Japanese and Korean translations.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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 <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i> (2004).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(18) The U.S. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(20) Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. Five visits, two talks. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> 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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(21) Scientists, researchers and advocates </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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, <i>Art Works</i>, 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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 (<i>Dyslexic Advantage</i>), 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.)</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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 <i>Dyslexi + Styrkor = SANT</i> (<i>Dyslexia plus Talent equals Truth</i>). 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). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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: <i>Reading and Attention Disorders: Neurobiological Correlates</i>, Drake D. Duane, MD, editor, York Press, 1999. West’s talk is Chapter 11, “Focusing on the Talents of People with Dyslexia.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(29) The Confederation of British Industry, Centre Point, at 103 New Oxford Street, London. </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“A Future of Reversals: The Changing Skills Needs</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> 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 <i>Financial Times</i> (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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(30) Stories about dyslexia and innovation have appeared in varied media. </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">The story below was posted on West’s Facebook page in March 2020 -- also intended for West’s blog: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“Dyslexic Physician Discovers ARDS”<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">However, in the last few days, and the last week especially, the coronavirus (Covid-19) has begun to dominate all other topics and considerations.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> . . . <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">ARDS Discovery Rejected by Three US Medical Journals<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">He was buying a copy my book, <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i>. 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">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.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Later, they sent their paper to the British medical journal, <i>The Lancet</i>. 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 --<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“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 <i>New England Journal of Medicine</i>, which promptly rejected it as documentation of inappropriate and dangerous ventilator management. A revision submitted to the <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i> was similarly rejected, as was a subsequent version sent to the <i>American Journal of Surgery</i>. Somewhat in desperation, the authors finally submitted the manuscript to <i>The Lancet</i>. 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. <i>Respiratory Care</i>, August 2014, vol. 59, no. 8, p. 1293.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 4.5pt 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">See also a book given to West by Thomas L. Petty, MD. (To be provided separately.) <i><u>Frontline Update in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease</u></i>, Co-editors, James T. Good, Jr., MD, Thomas L. Petty, MD. 2004, Snowdrift Pulmonary Conference, 899 Logan Street, Denver, Colorado 80203. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(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.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(32) <i>Forgotten Letters: An Anthology of Literature by Dyslexic Writers</i>, 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 <i>In The Mind’s Eye</i> titled “Amazing Shortcomings, Amazing Gifts.” The inside cover of this book has this lone quotation from West: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The truth-talking commentator who is not caught up in the race.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“They have felt the otherness from the start.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(33) </span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">The program for this Boston conference included an article by West reprinted with permission from <i>Computer Graphics</i>, 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 <i>Computer Graphics</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">[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 <i>Faust</i>, 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“ ‘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.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">“ ‘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.’ (<i>Eight Little Piggies</i>, Norton, 1993).”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">”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.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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.’ ”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";">(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).</span><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">_____________________</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments with Biographical Sketch -- T. G. West <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Foreword to the Second Edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">by Oliver Sacks, M.D.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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, <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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 <i>Thinking in Pictures</i>), she was taken aback when I said I could hardly visualize anything: ‘How <i>do</i> you think?’ she asked. Grandin herself has very heightened spatial and visual imagination, and thinks in very concrete images.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i>“In the Mind's Eye</i> 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 <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Oliver Sacks, M.D., January 2, 2009. Dr. Sacks, a British neurologist residing in the US, is most widely known for his book <i>Awakenings</i> (1973) that was made into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Also well known are his books <i>An Anthropologist from Mars</i> (1995), <i>Seeing Voices: A Journey into the Land of the Deaf</i> (1989) and <i>The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat</i> (1985). His most recent book is titled <i>The Mind’s Eye</i>(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 <i>New York Times</i> said that Sacks “has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Selected Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“Since he first published <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> 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."<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">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 <i>The Mislabeled Child </i>(Hyperion, 2006) and <i>The Dyslexic Advantage</i> (Hudson Street Press, 2011). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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 <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. . . . 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.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Jim Romeo, New York Academy of Sciences, <i>Update Magazine</i>, April/May 2004, “Getting Scientific about Why Johnny Can’t Read--Understanding Dyslexia.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.’ <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> 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<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Blurb above sent to Thomas G. West by Dr. Oliver Sacks for use with the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, October 23, 2008. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> “Unfortunately, I did not discover this wonderful book [<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> by Thomas G. West] before I wrote <i>Thinking in Pictures</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Temple Grandin, “The List,” <i>The Week</i> magazine, March 3, 2006, describing why she has included <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>on her list of six favorite books. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“Dear Tom: Thanks for sending me your epilogue [to the second edition of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>]. 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”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Email of August 17, 2009. Dr. Grandin is a professor of animal science and is author of the memoir <i>Thinking in Pictures</i> (dealing with her life with autism) and the best-selling book <i>Animals in Translation</i>. 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Howard Gardner, PhD, letter of October 15, 1996. Dr. Gardner is author of many books, including <i>Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences</i> (BasicBooks, 1983) and <i>Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century</i> (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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Additional Reviews and Comments -- <i>In the Mind’s Eye<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- 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 <i>Tin Toy</i>, the first 3-dimensional computer animation ever to win an Academy Award. This team later produced the first completely computer-generated motion picture, <i>Toy Story</i>. 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> . . . [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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Loren Pope, “The Learning Disabled of Today Will Be the Gifted of Tomorrow,” in <i>Colleges That Change Lives</i>(Penguin, New York, 2000 and 2006).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“. . . I entirely agree with [Dr. Doris Kelly] when she says that [<i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>] 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.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- T.R. Miles, Ph.D., in <i>Dyslexia Contact</i>, June 1993, pp. 14-15. Dr. Miles, Professor Emeritus, University College of North Wales, and Vice President of the British Dyslexia Association.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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 <i>CALCULUS&</i> <i>Mathematica</i>, 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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- 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<i>&Mathematica</i> (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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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. . . .”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- 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 <i>Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science</i>, Scientific American Library, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1993. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Review by Joan Freeman, <i>European Journal for High Ability</i>, vol. 4, no. 2, 1993. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- 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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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 -- <i>now</i>.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Susan Parkinson, editor, newsletter of The Arts Dyslexia Trust (United Kingdom), November 1992.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Lord Renwick, Chairman, European Informatics Market (EURIM), Vice-President, Past Chairman, The British Dyslexia Association. Electronic mail of October 30, 1996. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“The original title is <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>. The Japanese title <i>Geniuses Who Hated School</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">-- Review in <i>Kagaku Asahi</i>, the monthly Japanese science magazine, August 1994, p. 92. Review translated by Yoshiko G. Doherty.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">“Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one’s thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> 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.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i>-- Roeper Review</i>, Vol. 15, No. 1, September 1992, p. 54.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">_________________<o:p></o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">More on the American Library Association Award<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">In January 1999<i>, In the Mind’s Eye</i> by Thomas G. West was selected for the <i>Choice</i> 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). <i>Choice</i> 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<i> Choice </i>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. (<i>Choice</i>, Jan. 1999, p. 801.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Other books receiving the <i>Choice</i> gold seal award for “best of the best” in 1998 included: Lynn Margulis, <i>Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth</i> (Freeman); Steven Pinker, <i>How the Mind Works</i> (Norton); Richard Mabey, <i>Flora</i> <i>Britannica</i> (Chatto and Windus); Richard Feynman, <i>The Meaning of It All</i> (Addison-Wesley); Martin Gardner, <i>The Last Recreations: Hydras, Eggs, and Other Mathematical Mystifications</i> (Copernicus, Springer-Verlag); Per F. Dahl, <i>Flash of the Cathode Ray: A</i> <i>History of J.J. Thomson’s Electron</i> (Institute of Physics); Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau, <i>Privacy On Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption</i> (MIT Press); Victor M. Spitzer and David G. Whitlock, <i>Atlas of the Visible Human Male:</i> <i>Reverse Engineering of the Human</i> <i>Body</i> (Jones and Bartlett). (<i>Choice</i>, Jan. 1999, pp. 823-841)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Following is the full text of the original review of <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i> as it appeared in the April 1998 issue of <i>Choice</i>(p. 1458): “West, Thomas G. <b>In the mind’s eye: visual thinkers, gifted people with dyslexia and other learning difficulties, computer images and the ironies of creativity</b>. 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” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">____________________<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Videos and Contact Information<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">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]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">(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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">(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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">(3) “A New World Shaped By Dysexics.” Video of one of five talks for the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS), November 2014. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">(4) “The Power of Dyslexic Visual thinkers with Computer Data Visuaization.” DAS, Singapore, November 2014.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoEndnoteText" style="font-family: Times, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">(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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Thomas G. West, author of <i>In the Mind's Eye</i>, <i>Thinking Like Einstein </i>and<i> Seeing What Others Cannot See.</i> Blog: http://inthemindseyedyslexicrenaissance.blogspot.com.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Emails: thomasgwest@gmail.com and thomasgwest@aol.com. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Revised and updated, November 8, 2020. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times Roman";"> </span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-22042316866233490862020-11-06T23:13:00.001-05:002020-11-06T23:24:21.199-05:00"When the World Plague Was Stopped by a Digital Artist” <p><span style="font-family: Cambria;">In recent days of election turmoil along with new extreme spikes of the pandemic, I am moved to post the story below once again (on Facebook and my blog) -- first written in November 2000 and posted on Facebook in January 2020. Now, ten months later, I am outraged to hear it said that no one could have predicted this pandemic. Many have known all along and provided ample warning. But others refused to listen -- and did not care. They did not want to know. We now see the results. -- TGW</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/thomasgwest?__cft__%5B0%5D=AZUnIS_zMwZyaB4UP9FYgNEx2RYUIjzkzLoaN7sIFCLta8qpXDYDAm2OsY6ZAikK1eGOm0iSJQ8AvZ9QWZBn6GYNcDkcp5czcnvo11y5if-cPe74AOxfDRNO-FYalcGRDGg&__tn__=-UC%2CP-R"><b><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none;">Thomas G West</span></b></a><span style="color: #525458; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/thomasgwest/posts/10158258037672474?__cft__%5B0%5D=AZUnIS_zMwZyaB4UP9FYgNEx2RYUIjzkzLoaN7sIFCLta8qpXDYDAm2OsY6ZAikK1eGOm0iSJQ8AvZ9QWZBn6GYNcDkcp5czcnvo11y5if-cPe74AOxfDRNO-FYalcGRDGg&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R"><b><span style="color: #525458; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none;">January 30</span></b></a><span style="color: #525458; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #525458; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #525458; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shared with Public on Facebook, January 2020<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #151719; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Recently, I came across a short piece I had written years ago. Sadly, it is obviously relevant to our interests once again as the world deals with another new disease in January 2020. The story fragment below is fiction, but it holds some valuable lessons -- as we begin to understand the great value of visual technologies and people who think visually -- as they “see what others cannot see.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">“When the World Plague Was Stopped by a Digital Artist” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">by Thomas G. West <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Originally published in ACM-SIGGRAPH’s <i>Computer Graphics</i> magazine, November 2000.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The future of humanity and microbes likely will unfold as episodes of a suspense thriller that could be titled Our Wits Versus Their Genes.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">-- Dr. Joshua Lederberg, <i>Science</i> magazine, 2000<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">The story:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Our initial hope was to find some weakness in [the] Mao [plague virus] that we could exploit. But what we found scared the living daylights out of us. . . . What we discovered [was that] . . . in hours, it converted the entire immune system into an ally. We were devastated. [But in time we realized that] we had the human genome nailed, and we had the Mao genome nailed. And we had that marvelous [broadband Internet virtual reality] system for communicating among scientific minds. We used the system to design a new human killer T-cell -- the Mao [plague virus] Killer T. . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">“How did you do that?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Actually, it wasn't me; that was Javier's idea.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">“But I thought Javier was a graphic designer, not a scientist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Which is probably why he cracked it, and we didn't. He worked out the simulation routines that showed how [the] Mao [virus] did the cell intrusion and subversion. And he became fascinated with membrane geometry, not knowing anything about protein electrochemistry or synthesis. For him it was just a graphics puzzle, and he played around with the simulations until he found a surface that would turn the probe back on itself. All we'd asked him to do was modify the program. . . . We thought . . . he would just create a simple command. Instead, he solved the problem of armoring, because if you can simulate it, you can order it up in wetware. When we saw the demo, the [lab] went silent. Absolute silence for perhaps 30 seconds. Then everybody started talking frantically.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">-- Interview excerpt from the fictional story “Savior of the Plague Years 1996-2020,” <i>Wired</i> Scenarios, 1995<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our Wits Versus Their Genes<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is our wits against their genes--and their fast evolution. And it will always be so. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">We now understand that we can never live without the microbes. We used to think they were the enemy. Now we can see clearly that they are essential supports for our lives and our world. Finally, we have learned to think more in terms of ecology than warfare, interdependence rather than elimination. Yet we now also know that we can never stop finding new ways to protect ourselves from their occasional pathological outbreaks (and, worse, our own stupidity). We can never adapt through our own genes as quickly as they can -- so, we must find other ways. We must use our wits and we must learn to use all the different kinds of cleverness and inventiveness that we have among us. And we can never stop. (1)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">When I read Joshua Lederberg's wonderful short essay in <i>Science</i> on how we have come to understand the fundamental nature of infectious disease, I was immediately reminded of the <i>Wired</i> short science fiction story excerpted above. This story has stayed with me, recurring to mind from time to time, since I first read it years ago. A good test of a good piece. I thought there might be a special connection between the two that would be of interest to those who know something about the near-term and longer-term prospects for computer graphics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Initially, it is a bold and almost silly idea -- the world being saved by a digital artist -- during a fictional time of global plague where small surviving colonies were linked by a diminished but still functioning Internet. Yet, the way the story is told, the idea gained unexpected credibility. And behind the story there is a greater question and possibly a deeper understanding -- one that we have been dealing with for some time in its various aspects. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">That is, of course, does the skill, the technology, the kind of mind and the special experience of the digital artist actually lend itself distinctly to solving certain kinds of problems better than others? And might these solutions (one day) have unexpectedly broad impact? Perhaps we have a short story here that could be making a statement that has greater weight than many volumes of science or policy or procedure. Considering the enduring importance of the topic, it would appear that it could be of special interest to many beyond the comparatively small world of computer graphics. And, considering the more recent history since 2000 of global threats from SARS, anthrax, mad cow disease and bird flu, it would seem that all of us would have a deeper and more enduring interest. (2) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Just a Graphics Puzzle<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">I had long admired the <i>Wired</i> Scenarios story because it seemed to capture in a few words (and provocatively doctored photographs), my own long-held belief -- that the visual approach has a special power for seeing patterns and solving problems which is not properly or fully appreciated. Too often, it is assumed that what is wanted is to know a lot of facts and to recall them quickly and accurately, on demand. The training and selection for most of our professions, from law to medicine, is based mainly on this narrow idea. (3)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">However, the literature on creativity has long observed that the most important thing is seeing the big patterns and seeing the unexpected connections and novel solutions. For this, it is often the outsider who has the advantage of seeing the unexpected pattern what the well-trained professionals within the narrow field somehow miss. The story of the less than fully trained and less than fully informed outsider making the big discovery is in fact a commonplace in the history of science. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">By his own report, Albert Einstein relied more on his mental images than the kinds of mathematics used by his associates. Indeed, as Einstein became a better mathematician, several have argued that his creativity became considerably diminished, as his approach became more mathematical (more conventional) and less visual (less original). It is striking that this pattern was noted separately both by the physicist Richard Feynman and the scientist and author Abraham Pais. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">One mathematician of Einstein’s own era, David Hilbert, a great admirer of Einstein's work, came close himself to some of the early basic insights involved in general relativity. Yet Hilbert did not claim any share of Einstein's major accomplishment. However, he did make clear, with no small amount of exaggeration, that Einstein's ideas came from other places than his mathematical skill. “Every boy on the streets of Göttingen,” he said, “understands more about four-dimensional geometry than Einstein. Yet, in spite of that, Einstein did the work and not the mathematicians.” (4)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">I was pleased to see the authors of the <i>Wired</i> story acknowledge these powers. But I was even more pleased to see them focus on the skills and approach of a computer graphics artist -- one who saw the solution to the disease process as “just a graphics puzzle” involving “membrane geometry.” Since (in the story) they were all using virtual reality (VR) simulations of the microbes, he could visualize directly the various structures. Because of the VR images, he did not have to rely on years of training and experience to build a crude personal mental image of what was going on at the surface of the molecule. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is quite easy to imagine that someday soon discoveries such as this may be routinely expected with powerful graphic computers and as that high-quality VR and high bandwidth Internet connections have become more and more widely available. With such technological developments, a lot of previously unrecognized talent could come quickly and unexpectedly into play. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the end, of course, you need both the experts and the outsiders. You also need a large and varied team with many kinds of training and native talents in order to find solutions as well as implement remediation programs. In the not too distant future, with the widespread use of new visualization technologies, perhaps we will all grow to have a greater appreciation of what each person, and each kind of brain, can bring to such a problem, whether in medicine or other areas. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Around the World in 80 Hours<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">In his <i>Science</i> essay, Dr. Lederberg, pointed out that in our competition with microbes many of our recent technical and economic advances play right into the strengths of the fast-adapting, tiny creatures. We live longer and world population grows, doubling twice in the last century, fostering “new vulnerabilities.” There is greater crowding, making disease transmission between individuals easier. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Continued destruction of forests brings greater contact with disease-carrying animals and insects. Increased freedom in travel and trade further compound these problems. “Travel around the world,” he says, “can be completed in less than 80 hours (compared to the 80 days of Jules Verne's 19th-century fantasy), constituting a historic new experience.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Everywhere this long-distance travel has become frequent and routine: “Well over a million passengers, each one a potential carrier of pathogens, travel daily by aircraft to international destinations. International commerce, especially in foodstuffs, only adds to the global traffic of potential pathogens and vectors [carriers]. Because the transit times of people and goods are now so short compared to the incubation times of disease, carriers of disease can arrive at their destination before the danger they harbor is detectable, reducing health quarantine to a near absurdity.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dr. Lederberg also points out that when it comes to the pathological development of microbes, we may be our own worst enemies. He observes that “the darker corner of microbiological research is the abyss of maliciously designed biological warfare (BW) agents and systems to deliver them. What a nightmare for the next millennium! What's worse, for the near future, technology is likely to favor offensive BW weaponry. . . .” The events of years since 2000 have, of course, made Dr. Lederberg’s words even more troubling. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brilliant Flashes<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Consequently, in the long run as well as the short run, we can see that it is indeed our wits against their genes. And it will always be so. Mostly, as Dr. Lederberg explains, we now see that microbes are essential supports for our lives and our world. They are everywhere -- and mostly they are on our side, more or less. However, we do need to be aware that in spite of medical successes and a wiser understanding of ecological perspectives, that serious problems probably lie ahead. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">We know more, but our economic and political successes may create enormous future problems. However, we may take some heart in expecting that the spread of new visualization technologies (among other things) may help to promote a more comprehensive view of our whole situation -- promoting strong visual thinkers to make wiser decisions about the future for us all. And, with some luck, we may learn to explicitly appreciate the full value of digital artists (and those like them) -- and their real life potential to be true global heroes if the worst were to happen. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">While we have learned to think more in terms of ecology than warfare, we all now know that we can never stop searching for new ways to protect ourselves. We can never adapt through our own genes as quickly as the microbes can. We must find other ways. So, we have to use our wits and we must learn to use all the different kinds of cleverness and inventiveness that we have among us -- especially among those who might be best suited to seeing patterns and structures that might be missed by the experts. We need to search a broader field with greater success -- because we can never stop.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">References<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (1) Joshua Lederberg, “Infectious History,” in <i>Science</i> magazine, April 14, 2000, pp. 287-293. Part of series, “Pathways of Discovery.” Dr. Lederberg headed the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Informatics at the Rockefeller University in New York City. He received a Nobel Prize in 1958 for his research on genetic mechanisms in bacteria. This piece was first written as one in my series of columns for the ACM-SIGGRAPH in-house publication for association members, Computer Graphics. Subsequently, it was included in my book Thinking Like Einstein.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (2) Since this column first appeared in <i>Computer Graphics</i> in November 2000, much has happened since then to underscore the relevance of Dr. Lederberg’s essay and the <i>Wired</i> fictional story. Of course, it is even more relevant now that the date really is, in fact, January of 2020. It also should be noted that major early warnings have been provided by Laurie Garrett and others. Her books: <i>The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance</i> (1995), and <i>Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health</i> (2001). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">(3) <i>Wired</i>, “Savior of the Plague Years 1996-2020,” in <i>Wired</i> Scenarios: 1.01, special supplement to <i>Wired</i> magazine, Fall 1995, pp. 84-148. By the staff of <i>Wired</i> magazine. Image manipulation by Eric Rodenbeck (not shown here). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">(4) Quoted in West, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, 1997, p. 122.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #060606; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Note: I now see I have re-posted this story before. I will let it stand. I think it is important -- even when repeated -- especially when I encounter those who claim the pandemic could not have been predicted. Also, I added the note above on the books by Laurie Garrett, way ahead of many -- for which we are grateful. -- TGW</span></p>Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-6644374966217722022020-08-03T22:42:00.000-04:002020-08-03T22:43:50.346-04:00Short Bio -- Thomas G. West<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
I am meeting some new people lately -- so wanted a short one-page bio here to give them an idea of what I have been trying to do over the years. Saving a lot of slow two-finger typing. -- TGW</div>
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Biographical Sketch -- Thomas G. West<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thomas Gifford West is the author of three books. His first book <i>-- In the Mind’s Eye: Creative Visual Thinkers, Gifted Dyslexics and The Rise of Visual Technologies -- </i>was released in a paperback edition July 1, 2020. <span style="font-family: "times roman";">The book includes a Foreword by Oliver Sacks, MD, who says </span><i><span style="font-family: "times roman";">“In the Mind's Eye</span></i><span style="font-family: "times roman";"> brings out the special problems of people with dyslexia, but also their strengths, which are so often over looked. . . . It stands alongside Howard Gardner's <i>Frames of Mind</i> as a testament to the range of human talent and possibility.” </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Awarded a gold seal by the Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association, the book was recognized as one of the “best of the best” for the year (in their broad psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience category). According to one reviewer: “Every once in a while a book comes along that turns one's thinking upside down. <i>In the Mind's Eye</i> is just such a book.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times roman";">In the Mind’s Eye </span></i><span style="font-family: "times roman";">was published in Japanese translation as <i>Geniuses Who Hated School</i>. The book has also been translated into Chinese and Korean.</span> Mr. West has been invited to provide presentations for scientific, medical, art, design, computer and business groups in the U.S. and 19 other countries, including groups in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Dubai-UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and twelve European countries.<o:p></o:p></div>
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West’s second book is <i>Thinking Like Einstein -- Returning to Our Visual Roots with the Emerging Revolution in Computer Information Visualization. </i>This book is based on five years of regular columns that he wrote for the in-house members’ publication of ACM-SIGGRAPH -- the international computer graphics association with conferences attracting up to 60,000 artists and technical professionals including animators, mathematicians, astronomers, surgeons, and makers of feature films. <o:p></o:p></div>
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West’s third book is <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See -- The Hidden Advantages of Visual Thinkers and Differently Wired Brains.</i> <span style="font-family: "times roman";">In this book, he investigates how different kinds of brains and different ways of thinking can help to make discoveries and solve problems in innovative and unexpected ways. West focuses on what he has learned over the years from a group of extraordinarily creative people -- strong visual thinkers and those with dyslexia, Asperger’s syndrome, and other different ways of thinking, learning and working. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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West has organized conferences and given presentations for organizations such as a meeting of some 50 Max Planck Institutes in Göttingen, Germany, the Italian Dyslexia Association in Rome, the Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam, Magdalen College within Oxford University and the Royal College of Art in London.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">In recognition of the value of West’s research and writing, his books and papers have recently been deposited in a permanent archive in the National Library of Medicine, NIH. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Contact: thomasgwest@gmail.com.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-1181565322621107172020-07-30T00:28:00.001-04:002020-07-30T00:30:31.177-04:00World Plague Fictional Story Reposted<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 4.5pt;">
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">After the first news of the virus from China in December 2019, the piece below was posted on Face Book in January 2020. Based on Dr. Joshua Lederberg in <i>Science</i> magazine April 2000 and West in <i>Computer Graphics</i> magazine November 2000. West met with Dr. Lederberg several times through the NLM Board of Regents meetings and the dinners of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine. The piece seems too close to reality as it describes: “a fictional time of global plague where small surviving colonies were linked by a diminished but still functioning Internet.” -- TGW<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Recently, I came across a short piece I had written years ago. Sadly, it is obviously relevant to our interests once again as the world deals with another new disease in January 2020. The story fragment below is fiction, but it holds some valuable lessons -- as we begin to understand the great value of visual technologies and people who think visually -- as they “see what others cannot see.”<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“When the World Plague Was Stopped by a Digital Artist”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">by Thomas G. West<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“The future of humanity and microbes likely will unfold as episodes of a suspense thriller that could be titled Our Wits Versus Their Genes.” -- Dr. Joshua Lederberg, <i>Science</i> magazine, 2000.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“Our initial hope was to find some weakness in [the] Mao [plague virus] that we could exploit. But what we found scared the living daylights out of us. . . . What we discovered [was that] . . . in hours, it converted the entire immune system into an ally. We were devastated. [But in time we realized that] we had the human genome nailed, and we had the Mao genome nailed. And we had that marvelous [broadband Internet virtual reality] system for communicating among scientific minds. We used the system to design a new human killer T-cell -- the Mao [plague virus] Killer T. . . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“How did you do that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“Actually, it wasn't me; that was Javier's idea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“But I thought Javier was a graphic designer, not a scientist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">“Which is probably why he cracked it, and we didn't. He worked out the simulation routines that showed how [the] Mao [virus] did the cell intrusion and subversion. And he became fascinated with membrane geometry, not knowing anything about protein electrochemistry or synthesis. For him it was just a graphics puzzle, and he played around with the simulations until he found a surface that would turn the probe back on itself. All we'd asked him to do was modify the program. . . . We thought . . . he would just create a simple command. Instead, he solved the problem of armoring, because if you can simulate it, you can order it up in wetware. When we saw the demo, the [lab] went silent. Absolute silence for perhaps 30 seconds. Then everybody started talking frantically.”<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">-- Interview excerpt from the fictional story “Savior of the Plague Years 1996-2020,” <i>Wired</i> Scenarios, 1995<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Our Wits Versus Their Genes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">It is our wits against their genes -- and their fast evolution. And it will always be so.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">We now understand that we can never live without the microbes. We used to think they were the enemy. Now we can see clearly that they are essential supports for our lives and our world. Finally, we have learned to think more in terms of ecology than warfare, interdependence rather than elimination. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Yet we now also know that we can never stop finding new ways to protect ourselves from their occasional pathological outbreaks (and, worse, our own stupidity). We can never adapt through our own genes as quickly as they can -- so, we must find other ways. We must use our wits and we must learn to use all the different kinds of cleverness and inventiveness that we have among us. And we can never stop. (1)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">When I read Joshua Lederberg's wonderful short essay in<i> Science</i> on how we have come to understand the fundamental nature of infectious disease, I was immediately reminded of the <i>Wired</i> short science fiction story excerpted above. This story has stayed with me, recurring to mind from time to time, since I first read it years ago. A good test of a good piece. I thought there might be a special connection between the two that would be of interest to those who know something about the near-term and longer-term prospects for computer graphics.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Initially, it is a bold and almost silly idea -- the world being saved by a digital artist -- during a fictional time of global plague where small surviving colonies were linked by a diminished but still functioning Internet. Yet, the way the story is told, the idea gained unexpected credibility. And behind the story there is a greater question and possibly a deeper understanding -- one that we have been dealing with for some time in its various aspects.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">That is, of course, does the skill, the technology, the kind of mind and the special experience of the digital artist actually lend itself distinctly to solving certain kinds of problems better than others? And might these solutions (one day) have unexpectedly broad impact? Perhaps we have a short story here that could be making a statement that has greater weight than many volumes of science or policy or procedure. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Considering the enduring importance of the topic, it would appear that it could be of special interest to many beyond the comparatively small world of computer graphics. And, considering the more recent history since 2000 of global threats from SARS, anthrax, mad cow disease and bird flu, it would seem that all of us would have a deeper and more enduring interest. (2)<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Just a Graphics Puzzle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">I had long admired the <i>Wired</i> Scenarios story because it seemed to capture in a few words (and provocatively doctored photographs), my own long-held belief -- that the visual approach has a special power for seeing patterns and solving problems which is not properly or fully appreciated. Too often, it is assumed that what is wanted is to know a lot of facts and to recall them quickly and accurately, on demand. The training and selection for most of our professions, from law to medicine, is based mainly on this narrow idea. (3)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">However, the literature on creativity has long observed that the most important thing is seeing the big patterns and seeing the unexpected connections and novel solutions. For this, it is often the outsider who has the advantage of seeing the unexpected pattern what the well-trained professionals within the narrow field somehow miss. The story of the less than fully trained and less than fully informed outsider making the big discovery is in fact a commonplace in the history of science.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">By his own report, Albert Einstein relied more on his mental images than the kinds of mathematics used by his associates. Indeed, as Einstein became a better mathematician, several have argued that his creativity became considerably diminished, as his approach became more mathematical (more conventional) and less visual (less original). It is striking that this pattern was noted separately both by the physicist Richard Feynman and the scientist and author Abraham Pais.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">One mathematician of Einstein’s own era, David Hilbert, a great admirer of Einstein's work, came close himself to some of the early basic insights involved in general relativity. Yet Hilbert did not claim any share of Einstein's major accomplishment. However, he did make clear, with no small amount of exaggeration, that Einstein's ideas came from other places than his mathematical skill. “Every boy on the streets of Göttingen,” he said, “understands more about four-dimensional geometry than Einstein. Yet, in spite of that, Einstein did the work and not the mathematicians.” (4)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">I was pleased to see the authors of the <i>Wired</i> story acknowledge these powers. But I was even more pleased to see them focus on the skills and approach of a computer graphics artist -- one who saw the solution to the disease process as “just a graphics puzzle” involving “membrane geometry.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Since (in the story) they were all using virtual reality (VR) simulations of the microbes, he could visualize directly the various structures. Because of the VR images, he did not have to rely on years of training and experience to build a crude personal mental image of what was going on at the surface of the molecule.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">It is quite easy to imagine that some day soon discoveries such as this may be routinely expected with powerful graphic computers and as that high-quality VR and high bandwidth Internet connections have become more and more widely available. With such technological developments, a lot of previously unrecognized talent could come quickly and unexpectedly into play.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">In the end, of course, you need both the experts and the outsiders. You also need a large and varied team with many kinds of training and native talents in order to find solutions as well as implement remediation programs. In the not too distant future, with the widespread use of new visualization technologies, perhaps we will all grow to have a greater appreciation of what each person, and each kind of brain, can bring to such a problem, whether in medicine or other areas.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Around the World in 80 Hours<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">In his <i>Science</i> essay, Dr. Lederberg, pointed out that in our competition with microbes many of our recent technical and economic advances play right into the strengths of the fast-adapting, tiny creatures. We live longer and world population grows, doubling twice in the last century, fostering “new vulnerabilities.” There is greater crowding, making disease transmission between individuals easier.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Continued destruction of forests brings greater contact with disease-carrying animals and insects. Increased freedom in travel and trade further compound these problems. “Travel around the world,” he says, “can be completed in less than 80 hours (compared to the 80 days of Jules Verne's 19th-century fantasy), constituting a historic new experience.”<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Everywhere this long-distance travel has become frequent and routine: “Well over a million passengers, each one a potential carrier of pathogens, travel daily by aircraft to international destinations. International commerce, especially in foodstuffs, only adds to the global traffic of potential pathogens and vectors [carriers]. Because the transit times of people and goods are now so short compared to the incubation times of disease, carriers of disease can arrive at their destination before the danger they harbor is detectable, reducing health quarantine to a near absurdity.”<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Dr. Lederberg also points out that when it comes to the pathological development of microbes, we may be our own worst enemies. He observes that “the darker corner of microbiological research is the abyss of maliciously designed biological warfare (BW) agents and systems to deliver them. What a nightmare for the next millennium! What's worse, for the near future, technology is likely to favor offensive BW weaponry. . . .” The events of years since 2000 have, of course, made Dr. Lederberg’s words even more troubling.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Brilliant Flashes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">Consequently, in the long run as well as the short run, we can see that it is indeed our wits against their genes. And it will always be so. Mostly, as Dr. Lederberg explains, we now see that microbes are essential supports for our lives and our world. They are everywhere -- and mostly they are on our side, more or less. However, we do need to be aware that in spite of medical successes and a wiser understanding of ecological perspectives, that serious problems probably lie ahead.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">We know more, but our economic and political successes may create enormous future problems. However, we may take some heart in expecting that the spread of new visualization technologies (among other things) may help to promote a more comprehensive view of our whole situation -- promoting strong visual thinkers to make wiser decisions about the future for us all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">And, with some luck, we may learn to explicitly appreciate the full value of digital artists (and those like them) -- and their real life potential to be true global heroes if the worst were to happen.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">While we have learned to think more in terms of ecology than warfare, we all now know that we can never stop searching for new ways to protect ourselves. We can never adapt through our own genes as quickly as the microbes can. We must find other ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">So, we have to use our wits and we must learn to use all the different kinds of cleverness and inventiveness that we have among us -- especially among those who might be best suited to seeing patterns and structures that might be missed by the experts. We need to search a broader field with greater success -- because we can never stop.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">References<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">(1) Joshua Lederberg, “Infectious History,” in <i>Science</i> magazine, April 14, 2000, pp. 287-293. Part of series, “Pathways of Discovery.” Dr. Lederberg headed the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Informatics at the Rockefeller University in New York City. He received a Nobel Prize in 1958 for his research on genetic mechanisms in bacteria. This piece was first written as one in my series of columns for the ACM-SIGGRAPH in-house publication for association members, <i>Computer Graphics</i>. Subsequently, it was included in my book <i>Thinking Like Einstein</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">(2) Since this column first appeared in <i>Computer Graphics</i> in November 2000, much has happened since then to underscore the relevance of Dr. Lederberg’s essay and the <i>Wired</i> fictional story. Of course, it is even more relevant now that the date really is now January of 2020.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">(3) <i>Wired</i>, “Savior of the Plague Years 1996-2020,” in <i>Wired</i> Scenarios: 1.01, special supplement to <i>Wired</i> magazine, Fall 1995, pp. 84-148. By the staff of <i>Wired</i> magazine. Image manipulation by Eric Rodenbeck (not shown here).<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 12pt;">(4) Quoted in West, <i>In the Mind’s Eye</i>, 1997, p. 122.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-16544127289616515912020-07-11T14:19:00.001-04:002020-07-24T23:04:56.448-04:00Commencement Address, June 9, 2020<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times roman"; font-size: medium;">Dear blog readers, </span><span style="font-family: "times roman"; font-size: medium;">I thought some of you might be interested in the talk I gave last month at nearby high school for college bound dyslexic students. I agreed to do the talk long before the virus changed everything. I was impressed that the students and teachers put together a nearly complete graduation experience via Zoom -- even including caps in the air at the end. Again, showing their talent for creative solutions in adversity. -- TGW</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Commencement Address -- Siena School</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times roman"; font-size: 14pt;">June 9, 2020 -- Thomas G. West</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman"; font-size: 14pt;">Final Draft -- June 7, 2020<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Thank you Sophie for your kind introduction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">I also want to thank Jilly and all the staff of Siena School -- and especially the class of 2020. I am greatly honored to be your speaker today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Initially, I puzzled about what to say to you today -- the first “virtual” commencement -- at a time of many difficulties and dangers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">I realize that I must fully acknowledge that what you are seeing now is indeed, in so many ways, <i>The Worst of Times</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">But I hope to be able to show that this, in some ways, may also be seen as <i>The Best of Times </i>-- for you and your class. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">In <i>The Worst of Times</i> -- it is, indeed, a time for resilience and fortitude. You are having to deal with a global pandemic. You have been locked in, away from school and your friends, having to continue classes virtually, facing an uncertain future. In recent months, all over America a great many have lost their jobs. In recent days there have been protests and demonstrations in DC and all around the country -- and, indeed, all around the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">After a long wait, some places are slowly “reopening” -- but even this has many hazards and dangers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">In spite of all of this, I’m going to be bold to say that these could be seen also, in some ways, as <i>The Best of Times</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">In the long history of human kind, we are told, dyslexics seem to have had a special role. According to some researchers, dyslexics sometimes seem unusually well suited to big changes and to being able to see opportunities inside of adversity. They are particularly good at rethinking situations in an original way. They are good at not being stuck with conventional views and conventional solutions. They have trouble reading and memorizing old knowledge -- but they are often really good at creating new knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">My own story is that I came into this field (as is so often the case) with the testing of our two sons -- who started having dyslexia-related problems in school in the earliest grades. As a worried parent, I got myself tested. I did not learn to read until about the fourth grade -- and have always read very slowly -- but I had been totally unaware of the larger pattern of dyslexic traits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">I soon realized that our family included at least three generations of dyslexics. My father was a brilliant and highly skilled artist and teacher -- but with many classic dyslexic traits. My mother was also a highly skilled artist who won top prizes. They had met in art school. Both had great visual talents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">When I began my own serious study of dyslexia -- I immediately looked to the dyslexics who were successful in various fields. I was less interested in fixing the problems. Rather, I was more interested in understanding areas of distinctive strength and talent. I wanted to look at the fields where dyslexics were successful. I wanted to see what we could learn from them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">First I saw that many things have been changing in fundamental ways -- many that favor dyslexics. All the things that dyslexics have difficulty with are becoming less and less important in the world of work. And the things that dyslexics are good at are becoming more and more important.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Shortly, my interest in strengths and talents led me to meet some extraordinarily amazing people and directed me to looking into some new and exciting areas of work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">One of the first places I looked was computer graphics (including simulators and video games) -- the remarkable melding of ancient forms of art and story telling -- with the newest high-speed computer graphic technologies. I attended the conferences -- and there were major technical advances every year. Right away the people I met in the computer graphics conferences explained to me that probably half the people in the industry were dyslexic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">I met a woman who was responsible for the computer graphics in major films like <i>Titanic</i> and <i>The Fifth Element</i>. She told me that she had assembled a small group of the most talented computer graphic artists and technologists. They dealt with the most difficult problems in the films. She had hired them for their extreme talents based on samples of their work. She had ignored their paper credentials. Soon, she discovered that entire team was dyslexic, one hundred percent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">This taught me a lesson -- that dyslexics can be stars when they find their special areas of talent -- and when they find the right industry to put their talents to use.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">This also taught me that one of the most important things is to be able to retain one’s spirit -- one’s resilience -- and not be beaten down by many early failures -- and not be convinced that you can’t move on to higher levels of accomplishment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Indeed, when I talked to highly creative and successful dyslexic people in the sciences and business and elsewhere, they say the higher up you go the easier it gets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">A wonderful example of great success after repeated failures is Jack Horner -- the famous paleontologist who has been advisor to Stephen Spielberg for his four <i>Jurassic Park</i> films. I got to know Jack over the years at several conferences and I have visited him twice at his digs in northern Montana.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Jack was mostly a failure in lower school and high school. His high school English teacher gave him a grade of D minus, minus, minus. The teacher said you barely passed but “I never want to see you again.” Jack said he sent this teacher a copy of his first book (written with help from a co-writer, of course). Indeed, Jack says he has written more books than he has read. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Although Jack had failed a lot, he never felt a failure. Why? Because he won all the science fair prizes. He built a Tesla coil -- and he also built a rocket. When he first told me this I just assumed he used a small model rocket. But he said, “Oh no, it wasn’t a small model rocket. It was 5 feet tall and it blasted to 27,000 feet.” I said, “Jack you could have shot down an airliner!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">In Montana, if you have graduated from high school you could start college. Jack failed in college 7 times but he never gave up. He took a low-level job cleaning and preparing fossils. He kept searching the dry wilds of Montana. He could not get funding from professional grants. But he asked a local beer company and got the funding he needed -- to eventually make important discoveries. In time, his work was respected and he became famous. He designed the dinosaur museum exhibits in Bozeman, received honorary degrees and started teaching paleontology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">He would have his 19 graduate students write their papers and put them in the computer so Jack could have his computer read the papers to him. He said that his mission was to get these graduate students to think like a dyslexic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">You didn’t want them to clutter their minds with “other people’s thoughts,” he said. He wanted them to observe nature directly and see what was there in front of them in the fossil evidence. He tried to teach them how to think “out of the box.” He said that normally dyslexics think “out of the box” -- because “they have never been in the box.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";"> I think Jack’s example is a great one because it shows that he is definitely not suited to conventional academic studies. But he was very well suited to understanding nature and science -- seeing clearly what the fossil evidence showed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Another great example is Mary Schweitzer, one of Jack’s grad students -- who is also dyslexic. One year Jack and his team had found a very large set of fossil bones from a Tyrannosaurus Rex at the face of a cliff in Montana. It was in a remote area so it was hard to get people and equipment in and out. They found that the fossil femur (that is the upper leg bone) of the T Rex (when covered with protective plaster of Paris) was so big and heavy that the loaned helicopter couldn’t lift it. So they had to cut this femur in half. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">They sent one half to Mary. They didn’t treat it with any chemicals as they normally do. Mary looked inside this bone and what she saw immediately was a deposit of calcium inside the bone -- like the deposits of calcium found inside bird bones when they are ready to make egg shells. So Mary knew right away that the T Rex had been a pregnant female. But there was more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Inside the bone Mary also found tiny flexible blood vessels and the remnants of red blood cells. Mary and her assistant said they could not sleep for weeks because they thought they would never be believed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">She published her findings in <i>Science</i> magazine and indeed she was attacked. The critics said it is not possible for such things to survive for more that 60 million years. However, later, other scientists repeated her discoveries and admitted that her work was legitimate. So, Mary Schweitzer, Jack’s dyslexic grad student, started a whole new subfield -- molecular paleontology. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Another amazing story is about William J. Dreyer, a dyslexic molecular biologist at the California Institute of Technology, “Caltech.” Some years ago Bill contacted me and said he had read my book and thought that I understood how he thinks (“no one else does,” he said). He suggested, “Next time you’re in the Los Angeles area come and visit. I want to tell you my story.” Turns out that Bill’s story was very interesting indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Bill started off as a dyslexic ski bum. But he took some tests and realized he had some areas of special ability. So he started studying biology and he soon realized that he could understand what was going on in the laboratory better than others. Because he could use his powerful dyslexic imagination to see how the molecules fit together in various ways, he developed a new theory related to the human immune system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">He told his professors which experiments they should do and what the results would be. They helped him write his papers, based on his new theories. For 12 years, he gave talks about these new theories. Many professionals in the field were angered by these talks; it was all so new that they could not understand; they thought it was heresy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Later, another scientist, working in Switzerland doing experiments that were illegal in United States at the time, proved that Bill’s new theories were correct. And this other scientist received a Nobel Prize. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Bill told me, I think honestly, he did not resent not receiving the Nobel Prize. He told me that once you receive the prize your life is not your own -- everybody wants a piece of you. Bill said that he was happy to be vindicated and to know that his theory was correct and was eventually accepted by everyone in the field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">But there’s still more to Bill’s story. Bill had a dyslexic grandson named Brandon King. Brandon was in high school flunking everything, depressed, taking medication, fighting with his parents, feeling very low. So his grandfather asked him to come and visit and help with his research using Brandon’s computer skills. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Each day Bill talked to Brandon and said this is what I want you to do today. Since you are good with computers, I want you to write this little search program -- but before that you need to know this biology . . . <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Shortly, Brandon started to help in the laboratory at Caltech as a volunteer. Then he was part-time employee. Eventually he was a full-time employee helping with the computer side of the biology laboratory at the Caltech. Soon, according to Bill, Brandon was doing “post doc” level work at the laboratory -- and he still hadn’t graduated from high school. Eventually Brandon went on to college at Berkeley (because they had a good LD program) and was be able to graduate with honors and start his own business. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Because of my books and talks, many stories of successful dyslexics have come my way. The field is full of paradoxes. Great writers who cannot spell. High level mathematicians who don’t know their math facts. A Nobel Prize winning biologist who been in “special ed” and thought she was stupid. It is important for educators and test designers to understand that there are whole areas of talent that they do not know how to measure or comprehend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Over many years stories of dyslexic entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Charles Schwab have been written about in the business press. This is not new. However, what is new is that in the last couple of years there have been formal reports written by major management consultant firms. A report by one of the big four management consultant companies (EY -- formerly Ernst and Young) states the case that what businesses want in the future are the skills and talents and strengths that are common among dyslexics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">With the new fast, powerful computers many of the clerical tasks that our educational system trains human beings to do are now being done faster and more cheaply by machines -- especially with massive data available in the cloud along with “deep learning” and artificial intelligence (AI). Businesses realize that what they now need from their human employees is the innovation, creativity, big picture thinking and other abilities that are common among dyslexics (but may be rare among certain non-dyslexics). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">These are the kinds of things that some of us been saying for many years, but it is wonderful indeed to hear these from established management consulting companies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">I think it is important for you, the class of 2020, to acknowledge, of course, the many great problems and stresses of our time. But along with all your own difficulties with dyslexia, remember that you have many advantages in ways of thinking that others do not have. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">So I want you to see that it may be possible to view the problems as opportunities as well -- to show the world -- and to show yourselves -- <i>what you</i> <i>really can do.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times roman";">Thank you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3234217080406475267.post-49457863509053543422020-06-14T14:49:00.000-04:002020-06-14T14:49:22.401-04:00False Positives with Covid-19 Tests<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
False Positives with Covid-19 Tests<o:p></o:p></div>
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A story by Richard Harris on NPR, June 14, 2020 -- titled, “What Mussels Can Teach Us About False Positive COVID-19 Tests.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The stories I have been collecting relating to scientific discoveries and dyslexic talents can sometimes appear in major news stories in unexpected ways. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In recent months stories on Covid-19 have dealt with the importance in the disease of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). At a dyslexia conference in Denver years ago, I met a physician who introduced me to the dyslexic doctor who was the first to identify ARDS and he set up an interview. It turned out that the first paper on ARDS by the dyslexic doctor (Thomas Petty, MD) was rejected by three major US medical journals, but was accepted and featured by the UK medical journal, <i>The Lancet</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The <i>Lancet</i> article was read by US doctors in Viet Nam, who saw the great importance of recognizing and understanding proper treatment of ARDS. They said, “This is what is killing our troops.” (A sidelight of this story is that one cannot always trust a “peer review.” Sometimes the current “expert” in the relevant field hates the new idea or misunderstands the new discovery -- and repeatedly tells the major US journals not to publish the paper.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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A somewhat similar story appeared today in an NPR report by Richard Harris concerning false positives for Covid-19 with tests that involve PCR. This is a story that shows how a great advantage can turn out, under certain conditions, to be a great disadvantage. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was discovered by Kary B. Mullis, who received a Nobel Prize in 1993 for the discovery. According to the Nobel Prize presentation at the Royal Swedish Academy of sciences: “Using this method it is possible to amplify and isolate in a test tube a specific DNA segment within a background of a complex gene pool. In this repetitive process the number of copies of the specific DNA segment doubles during each cycle. In a few hours it is possible to achieve more than 20 cycles, which produces over a million copies.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Mullis made the discovery, but he was not the first. The PCR process was in fact observed much earlier in a laboratory accident years before. The researcher and her laboratory associates are still embarrassed that they did not realize what was unfolding in their lab at the time. They were trying to destroy DNA -- but, instead, with each try they were creating more DNA. This happened several times. The associates tried to help the main researcher. But the experiment repeatedly failed -- so they gave up and walked away from it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This story was told to me by a friend who was a cancer researcher at the University of Colorado. I provided a longer version of this story in my book <i>Seeing What Others Cannot See</i> (Prometheus Books, 2017, pp. 69-71). My comment: “Of course this story is so upsetting [to the researcher] because she had the discovery right there in front of her, but she was so focused on her seemingly failed project that she could not see the value of her experiment’s results. Such stories teach us. Sometimes a gift is seen only as a problem, something that would be quickly wished away had we the power. Sometimes the most important thing is to be able to recognize the gift for what it is, even though it was not requested or desired. For this to be possible, it is helpful (in spite of one’s training) not to be wholly focused on the narrow interests of the moment -- no matter how serious the task, no matter how large the grant, no matter how urgent the deadline. One has to be open to new possibilities, to looking at things in a different way, to being able to see what you have been given, even when it is not what you asked for.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the story by Richard Harris, a scientist who is a specialist on marine organisms had noticed false positives with tests using PCR when he was looking in certain waters for evidence of a specific type of mussel shellfish. The CPR tests had picked up a tiny contaminant that had been increased many times by the CPR, forming a false positive. The test said the shellfish was there, but the scientist knew this was not possible. Harris quotes an expert who said that tests for Covid-19 that employ PCR as part of the test might, in similar fashion, sometimes pick up a tiny contaminant and increase it many times to create a false positive for Covid-19 in human beings -- of course, thereby, creating many obvious problems. -- TGW<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thomas G. Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10855090489818164673noreply@blogger.com0