Sunday, October 16, 2011

Illustration of normal ear over ruffled ear


Several folks in the comments yesterday said they did not see what I saw concerning correspondences between the normal ear vs the "ruffled" ear. Take a look at the composite below.


We see the ruffled ear on the far left; then the normal ear from yesterday rotated forward, turned bluish and made somewhat transparent; then the bluish ear slid partway over the ruffled ear; and finally the blue ear on top of the ruffled ear.


Note the the areas of correspondence that I mentioned yesterday: the Y-shapes near the tops of the two ears align, the trapezoidal shapes in the middle align, and the batwing shapes near the bottom align – in truth, I was amazed at how well they all aligned. The ear lobes do not line up, but that could be due to the malformation or simply because the white blanket is pushing the ear lobe forward or covering part of it.


Now, again, I think the ear to the left shows uncorrected cryptotia, with the top of the ear curving downward and being buried under the scalp just above the batwing shape. The "fix," as I picture it, would involve releasing the buried section of the ear, which I'm guessing might require a slight snip, then using tape or "earforms" like Earbuddies (see yesterday's post) to hold the ears in their proper shape. (Recall how Palin used the word "earforms" when she meant "earmarks" in the fall of 2008.) I do think that the ruffled ear must have rotated counter-clockwise a bit after the buried part was released. I had to rotate the blue ear forward before I could get the ear parts aligned.

11 comments:

  1. Thanks, BBT. If you think it's right, then it's probably right!

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  3. Holy crap. This is extremely persuasive, Brad.

    I do believe that SP could (and would) get a plastic surgeon to "fix" an infant's ear deformity, despite standard medical practice.

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  4. Actually, VN, fix the ears in infancy is common now.

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  5. Prof. Scharlott, thanks for the new blog!

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  6. Could a confirmation bias be at work here?

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  7. JV: I incorporated the theory of the two Trigs in my rewrite of my spiral of silence paper. In other words, my bias would have been NOT to find that the ears are the same. I sent that manuscript to editors all over the country. I"M EATING CROW IN SAYING TRIG AND RUFFLES ARE THE SAME! So, I'm impressed you know what confirmation bias is. And no, you can be sure it was not at work here.

    In asking that, are you suggesting my evidence or logic is wanting? If so, please say why.

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  8. Brad, I am simply curious, because I don't "see" the same baby by looking at the ears, even after you've superimposed one ear over the other.

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  10. Then approach the question scientifically, JV. (I teach a senior-level research methods class in college.) The question, it seems to me, is this: Can the striking correspondence of the overlapping Y-shapes, trapezoids, and batwing shapes that are shown in the overlay be due to chance? How can that be answered?

    Here are 30 male ears, presumably selected at random, all looking different from each other:

    http://www.shawnfeeney.com/wordpress/2008/05/30-male-ears/

    Do any of them have the three corresponding elements? Not even close, by my view of them. But you be the judge. Now if you agree that none match up in those elements, what does that tell us of the likelihood that chance alone accounts for the striking similarities? Well, that the odds are less than 1 in 30, or less than 3 percent, or that we can be at least 97 percent confident that the ears belong to the same child. And 95 percent is the normal threshold in the social sciences for accepting an hypothesis.

    I don't expect you to agree with every aspect of the above analysis. But note that I am bringing evidence and logic and a systematic methodology to bear on the question. That's how science proceeds. I am not merely saying, "Well, I 'see' it, even if you don't."

    Do you have a better way to logically, and with evidence, try to answer the question?

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