Emile comments on Science: Do It Yourself - Less Wrong

53 Post author: alyssavance 13 February 2011 04:47AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (205)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Emile 13 February 2011 08:09:14PM *  2 points [-]

For all we know, it's not that unlikely that they were right, or at least that cuddling isn't strictly better than not cuddling (either it doesn't make a difference, or each has consequences we would consider as beneficial and consequences we would consider harmful).

(disclaimer: I cuddle my baby. So far he hasn't killed millions of jews, but he's only a few months old, so it may not be a significant datapoint)

Comment author: [deleted] 13 February 2011 08:37:14PM 8 points [-]

For all we know, it's not that unlikely that they were right, or at least that cuddling isn't strictly better than not cuddling (either it doesn't make a difference, or each has consequences we would consider as beneficial and consequences we would consider harmful).

No, actually, we have substantial evidence now that babies need skin-to-skin contact to thrive. Because the maternal instinct is very strong in this direction (for a good reason) the data about what happens to babies who are not cuddled mostly comes from orphanages. It's a very sad answer.

Comment author: Emile 13 February 2011 08:40:36PM 3 points [-]

OK, that probably should have been "for all I know" :P

Comment author: Alicorn 13 February 2011 08:18:20PM 2 points [-]

Well, not touching babies will cause serious issues; I don't know if cuddling per se is required.