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From: "Alan J. Robinson" <robin073@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Biologically plausible networks
Message-ID: <46012.robin073@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
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Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 14:57:08 GMT
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After further investigation it turned out that I had fallen into a 
trap which I should have been prepared for.  One has to be very wary 
reading the scientific literature in biology and the related 
behavioral and brain sciences.

Though many might find it hard to believe, information in scientific 
articles and books can be as much as 100 years out of date.  It 
doesn't matter how famous the name of the scientist writing the 
article, whether the article has been peer reviewed, or how 
prestigious the journal or publisher.  I had already come across 
this problem in researching the literature relating to medical 
disorders of the brain, which has been bedeviled by erroneous theories 
of human thought and behavior such as Freudianism and behaviorism.

I thought that the basic neuroscience literature would be more 
reliable - WRONG - some of this material is just exactly as Golgi and 
Cajal presented it 100 years ago!  It also has become pretty obvious 
that many scientists do not keep up-to-date in their own field, let 
alone related fields, and are not above omiting references to the 
work of competing scientists.

Based on my previous experience, I would say that to obtain the best 
possible current information it is necessary to read extensively in 
the literature, determine what information is current and what is 
obsolete, separate fact from speculation, and synthesize the current 
material.  This task requires access to a full biomedical library, 
such as at a major university.  Anything short of this such as only 
reading abstracts from Medline or ordering individual review articles 
isn't going to work.

Hopefully I should come up with something by the end of the 
year.

                            Alan J. Robinson
Golden Hind International - Computer Graphics, Artificial Intelligence
                       robin073@maroon.tc.umn.edu
