1. pharyngula
  2. Really? This guy is conscious?

Really? This guy is conscious?

By pharyngula on November 24, 2009.

You may have heard the recent news about a Belgian man who was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state after an accident, but who now has been miraculously discovered to have actually been conscious for the last 23 years, trapped in a partially paralyzed body. How horrific, and how frightening that the doctors could have made such a ghastly error.

Until you watch this video. How did they figure out that the poor man was actually alert and mentally competent beneath his deeply damaged exterior? They're using facilitated communication: somebody holds his hand and moves it around to tap out messages on a computer. Look at the fellow, sitting there slack and grimacing and drooling, and the staffer deftly and quickly using his finger to peck out lucid and grammatical sentences. How does anyone fall for this?

I'd like to see how well Mr Houben communicates when his 'facilitator' is blindfolded, or when he is asked questions about objects in his line of sight but hidden from hers.

Tags
Skepticism

More like this

Another contender for the worst medical reporting ever: "Coma man"
Remember how I nominated a truly execrable local news report about Desiree Jennings as a serious contender for the worst reporting of the year, perhaps even of the decade? It had everything, and I seriously doubted that anything would challenge it for credulous supremacy any time soon. How wrong I…
Update on the case of "Coma Man" Rom Houben: Facilitated communication is still woo
A couple of months ago, I wrote about a case that demonstrated conclusively just how easily even respected researchers can be taken in by psuedoscience. Of course, I was not alone. A number of others, including Steve Novella, James Randi, bioethicist Art Caplan, Hank Schlinger, and myself,…
Belgian skeptics and the Rom Houben case: Showing the world that facilitated communication is bogus
The news is finally filtering out to the rest of the world. As I pointed out a few days ago Dr. Steven Laureys admitted that Rom Houben, the unfortunate victim of a car crash that left him in what had been diagnosed as a persistent vegetative state, was in fact not able to communicate through the…
Update on "coma man" Rom Houben: Dr. Steven Laureys still just doesn't get it
The day before the Thanksgiving holiday, I wrote about a serious contender for the worst medical reporting of the year, if not the decade, specifically how credulous reporters had swarmed all over the case of a Belgian man named Rom Houben. If you don't remember or haven't heard about the details…