Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!UHUPVM1.BITNET!EPSYNET From: EPSYNET@UHUPVM1.BITNET (Psychnet Newsletter and Bulletin Board) Newsgroups: sci.psychology Subject: Psychnet Message-ID: <8805050408.AA10430@jade.berkeley.edu> Date: 4 May 88 19:19:13 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: Psychnet Distribution list Organization: The Internet Lines: 16 From: "Steven R. Brown" One can only express deep sympathy for Nora and her situation. Having lost someone close in recent months, I can appreciate, if only en petit, the distress she feels, compounded in her case by professionals who treat her as if all she is is another professional. "How can this be?" she asks, to which one might offer the response that it has been this way predominantly in Western civilization since the development of modern science, with its accompanying tendency to to view all studyable things from a mechanical standpoint, as if humans were like Buicks. The complaint is registered most forcefully by Julius A. Roth, "Care of the Sick: Professionalism vs Love," SCIENCE, MEDICINE & MAN, 1974, 1, 173-180, whereas the tie to modern science, going back to the debate between the Newtonians and Cartesians, is addressed by William Stephenson, "The Shame of Science," ETHICS IN SCIENCE & MEDICINE, 1978, 5, 25-38.