Dr. Zacharko can be called a neuroscientist because any professor of psychology can be called a neuroscientist. But I don’t think a “professor of psychology” is what pops into someone’s mind when you say “neuroscientist”.
As the Carleton University website says:
Neuroscience is an emerging academic discipline that includes physiological, anatomical, biochemical, and behavioural studies of the nervous system
There are 4 disciplines that neuroscience covers:
1. Physiological studies.
2. Anatomical studies.
3. Biochemical studies.
4. Behavioral studies.
Of the four, Behavioral studies is the least useful field of study on forming an opinion of the neuromuscular spasm hypothesis.
So, yes, while by convention, a professor of psychology is considered to be a “neuroscientist”, he is not really the appropriate type of scientist to go to for getting an answer to this question.
It seems you go to extreme lengths to salvage errant claims, rather than just admit you were wrong. I notice you said nothing about all the articles that Dr. Zacharko had published on neuroscience, many of which dealt with brain functions, brain anatomy, neural responses to stimuli, biochemical processes in the brain, etc., etc. You just skipped over that fact.
When Dr. Zacharko was a professor at The Carleton Institute of Neuroscience, here are some of the classes that were offered that were classified as psychology classes:
Psychology 49.520T2 (PSY6201)
Basics of Neuroscience
A comprehensive neuroscience course from membrane and cellular levels to neural systems and behaviour. Lectures and tutorials will cover such aspects of neuroscience as neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, behavioural neuroscience, and neuropharmacology.
Psychology 49.620T2
Advanced Seminar in Neuroscience
A comprehensive proseminar covering specialized topics in neuroscience and biopsychology. The presentations will focus on the active research areas and interests of faculty members and will provide an in-depth coverage of research strategies, methods and results. Graduate student presentations of current research projects will be an integral part of the course.
These two biology classes were also offered as psychology classes:
Biology 61.623F1
Neuroscience Techniques I
Completion of a research project carried out under the supervision of a neuroscience faculty member. Students may carry out their project in any department participating in the neuroscience specialization provided they have approval from the administrative head of their particular program. For example, students in the neuroscience specialization must obtain approval from the neuroscience committee. Students in the biopsychology concentration must obtain approval from the Department of Psychology. The purpose of the course is to grant credit for learning new research techniques.
(
Also offered as Psychology 49.624)
Biology 61.624W1
Neuroscience Techniques II
Completion of a research project carried out under the supervision of a neuroscience faculty member. Students may carry out their project in any department participating in the neuroscience specialization provided they have approval from the administrative head of their particular program. For example, students in the neuroscience specialization must obtain approval from the neuroscience committee. Students in the biopsychology concentration must obtain approval from the Department of Psychology. The purpose of the course is to grant credit for learning new research techniques.
(
Also offered as Psychology 49.625)
See:
http://www3.carleton.ca/calendars/archives/grad/9798/SCIENCE/Institute_of_Neuroscience.htmA urologist is also a real medical doctor. He has the full training any other medical doctors has in treating all sorts of problems, including wounds. And so, even though he was a “urologist”, he was drafted by the U. S. Army, served a doctor with the Third army and treated many casualties, many, no doubt from bullet wounds.
The Kennedy family chose him to make the first nongovernmental examination of the Kennedy autopsy material. No doubt, in part, due to his extensive experience in treating bullet wounds. He had more experience with this than most non-urologist doctors.
Lattimer was a fraud who was repeatedly caught misrepresenting his findings and experiments, misrepresenting his sources, rigging his experiments, making erroneous statements, and in a few cases simply making up stuff out of thin air, e.g., his hoax about the Thorburn position.
http://www.assassinationweb.com/milam-thor.htmhttps://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/john-lattimer-never-quit-the-thorburn-businesshttps://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/thomas-lattimer-and-reality-a-study-in-contrastshttps://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/BigLieSmallWound/BigLieSmallWound.htmhttp://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/L%20Disk/Lattimer%20John%20Dr/Item%2003.pdfhttp://22november1963.org.uk/governor-john-connally-lapel-flapI wouldn’t have a problem with Dr. Zacharko if he had just observed film of animals being shot in the brain with rifle bullets. But as far as I can tell, he did none of those things.
Dr. Zacharko didn't need to watch the goat films because they are irrelevant to the assassination, because human brains are not goat brains, because human anatomy is different from goat anatomy, and because JFK's reaction to the head shot looks nothing like the goat's reaction to its head shot. Why do you keep ignoring these facts?
Dr. Zacharko analyzed Kennedy's reaction based on his knowledge of how the human brain functions and on his knowledge of what physical responses the human brain would and would not cause. Why do you keep ignoring this fact? He did not analyze it from a ballistics point of view, but as a neuroscientist, since he was asked about the neuromuscular-reaction theory.
Indeed, I would give more weight to a professor of psychology, who bases his opinion on observations of real animals being shot through the brain over a neurologist who specializes in Biochemical studies of nerves, but does not observe these films, but forms his opinions purely from theory.
Are you ever, ever, ever going to address the point, made by several scholars, that the goat films are irrelevant for the reasons already stated, the same reasons that have been presented to you four or five times now? Ignoring them will not make them go away.
Even the HSCA's forensic pathology panel noted that Kennedy’s reaction looked nothing like the goat’s reaction in the goat films.
Who gets his arguments from doctors, like Dr. Lattimer. On this issue, Larry Sturdivan’s opinions are those of Dr. Lattimer’s. I trust Dr. Lattimer’s opinion over that of Dr. Thomas, an entomologist, and over Dr. Zacharko, an professor of psychology.
Of course you do, because Lattimer said what you want to believe. You don't care that Lattimer and Sturdivan had no training in neuroscience, whereas Dr. Zacharko had tons of such training and also taught classes on neuroscience.
Dr. Thomas has watched all of the goat films and has explained in great detail why they are irrelevant, and he supports his explanation with research from a classic work on motor reflexes.
I notice you declined to explain why you claim that Dr. Thomas's observations in his critique of Sturdivan's claims are wrong. Will you ever explain why you claim Dr. Thomas is wrong and Sturdivan is right?
Yes, if these opinions were first developed by Mr. Sturdivan, I would say he is developing opinions way outside of his area of expertise. But there is nothing wrong with him relating to us the opinions developed by Dr. Lattimer.
A quote from Dr. Lattimer on the neuromuscular spasm:
No, the decerebrate response is the final posture an animal gets into, with certain types of brain damage. For an animal shot through the brain:
1. First the neuromuscular spasm occurs. For a quadraped:
Head pulled upward (when not locked in place)
The back arches
The forelimbs kick forward and outward.
The hindlimbs kick backwards.
2. Followed by the “decerebrate rigidity”, a certain posture an animal ends up in, caused by certain types of brain damage.
I have already quoted several scholarly sources on the fact that "decerebrate response" and "decerebrate rigidity" are synonyms. Did you miss that reply? In fact, heck, let's read those quotes again:
"Decerebrate posturing is also called decerebrate response, decerebrate rigidity, or extensor posturing. It describes the involuntary extension of the upper extremities in response to external stimuli." (
http://web.as.uky.edu/biology/faculty/cooper/bio535/chapter%2016-liz.pdf)
"In decerebrate posturing (also called decerebrate response or rigidity), the abnormal posturing is characterized by the arms extending at the sides." (
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK547687/)
"Decerebrate posturing is also called decerebrate response, decerebrate rigidity, or extensor posturing." (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abnormal_posturing)
"Also known as extensor posturing, decerebrate rigidity is a term that describes the involuntary extensor positioning of the arms, flexion of the hands, with knee extension and plantar flexion when stimulated as a result of a midbrain lesion." (
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK547687/)
Are you saying that those neuroscientific sources are wrong and that Dr. Lattimer was right? On what basis? Because you don't want to admit that Lattimer was wrong?
You keep confusing “decerebrate response” with “neuromuscular spasm”.
You know that's false, or else you can't read. As I've pointed out three or four times now, not all neuromuscular reactions are decerebrate reactions, but Sturdivan identified JFK's alleged neuromuscular reaction as a decerebrate reaction. I've already gone over this ground for you in detail and quoted Sturdivan several times in the process.
I guess you want everyone to forget that at the outset of our discussion, you did not understand that Sturdivan was saying that the neuromuscular reaction was a decerebrate reaction. You erroneously assumed that Sturdivan was describing two sets of reactions, that the decerebrate reaction was separate from the neuromuscular one, that the decerebrate reaction followed the neuromuscular one.
As Mr. Sturdivan explained, the goat went into a neuromuscular spasm starting 40 milliseconds after the impact of the bullet.
Sturdivan specified that in
"real time" the reaction took about 1 second. You can keep ignoring this fact all day and night, and you can keep citing the 40-millisecond time, but when are you going to deal with the fact that the fastest human reaction time for human movements that are even halfway equivalent to the goat's movements is 100 milliseconds?
And shall we mention again that the goat's reaction looks nothing like Kennedy's reaction? Sorry, but I'm going to just keep hammering this fact, because you keep ignoring it.
By one second after the impact, the animal was in decerebrate rigidity, which is a certain body position, its final body position now that death had occurred.
You're misreading Sturdivan again because you don't know what you're talking about, or else you're mischaracterizing him to avoid admitting error. Shall we read Sturdivan yet again? How many times do you need this explained to you? And, before I quote Sturdivan again, allow me to note that Sturdivan, unlike you, at least understood that "decerebrate rigidity" and "decerebrate reaction/response" are synonyms:
The first sequence will be a normal 24-frame-per-second view of this. This is a real time. First, we will observe the neuromuscular reaction, the goat will collapse then, and by the wiggling of his tail and the tenseness of the muscles we will see what I think has sometimes been called the decerebrate rigidity, and that takes place about a second after the shot and then slowly dissipates and you will see the goat slump, obviously dead.
The decerebrate reaction and terminus of the decerebrate reaction (1 HSCA 416).
Two paragraphs later, Sturdivan then describes this reaction again and calls it "the neuromuscular reaction
that I described." The only reaction he described is the decerebrate reaction two paragraphs earlier. Anyone reading his statements honestly and objectively can plainly see that he was saying that Kennedy's alleged neurospasm was a decerebrate reaction.
No one is claiming that the President moving his head back, moving his torso back, moving his arms up, as an example of him getting into the decerebrate rigidity position. Instead this is the first phase, the neuromuscular spasm.
You either still don't know what you're talking about or you're just not willing to admit error. Go back and read my quotes herein from several scholarly sources on the fact that "decerebrate rigidity" means the same thing as "decerebrate response" and on the fact that the two terms are used interchangeably in scientific literature.
It's bad enough that you keep ignoring documented facts, but it's even worse that you keep repeating erroneous claims that have been debunked by those documented facts.
