Posted by seldomseen on January 16, 2009, at 18:17:14
In reply to Re: Gene link: schizophrenia + Bipolar Disorder?, posted by Trans-Human on January 16, 2009, at 15:05:17
"Geneticists have conceded that no one Gene is the cause of Schizophrenia & they have been looking at how multiple genetic factors may combine to produce the condition. Despite stories of how they may have found this or that; & very loose anecdotal evidence - nothing ever does get found.
Does it not strike anyone else as odd - considering the vast amount of resources & time that has gone into this - that the chemical imbalance theory is still a theory & genetic cause is as elusive as it always has been?"
No, this doesn't strike me as odd at all. Well, no more odd than the fact that we still haven't cured cancer. What we have learned about cancer is that there a multiple types of cancer, that no one gene causes all types, and in some, no genetic basis for it exists at all - it mainly environmental.
Now also consider that cancer is a very simple disease. It's just a bunch of abnormally dividing cells. Yet, even to this day, we know surprisingly little about it in real, applicable, clinical terms, despite the fact that volumes upon volumes of literature is devoted to describing it. Compared to the brain, a dividing cell is almost puerile.
When one compares the billions of dollars and hours spent describing cancer to the trickle of funds and effort devoted to mental illness, it's perhaps even less of an oddity that we don't know that much about it.
To me, lack of evidence is proof of only lack of evidence.
Seldom
poster:seldomseen
thread:874305
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090104/msgs/874386.html