Charity is not neuroscience, but it isn't stupidity as well

Anyways, saw this forum article on The Straits Times a few days back. Evidently, the writer was sort of berating the directors of the Centre Neuroscience in Singapore for pointing out in an earlier article that the treatments that the Nepalanese and Yishun twins were receiving were dubious and hinted that the parents of these twins could be out to con Singaporeans out of their sympathy money. The writer took the moralistic man-in-the-street perspective by pointing out that:


"The man in the street would not have, before making his donation, the exclusive information that Prof Lee had. He would not be able to confirm with Ms Angella Cheng, the Nepalese twins' guardian in Singapore, that the motive of the twins' parents in coming to Singapore was to get more sympathy money.

He would not know that the Gurkha contingent in Singapore had turned them down because the contingent had already donated to the twins on the first occasion.

He would also not be able to assess if a shunt operation, Botox and intensive physiotherapy will have permanent effect on leg deformity or the ability to walk because he is not as medically proficient as Prof Lee.
As for the Yishun siblings, the man in the street would also not know that the deep-brain stimulation could have been performed at the Singapore General Hospital or the National Neuroscience Institute at a fraction of the cost incurred in Taiwan."

And he concluded with this paragraph:

"I would rather live in a country where my fellow citizens are compassionate and sympathetic than where they are critical and demanding.

Charity is not a neuroscience."

My thoughts? Hmmm, I wonder what this guy has to say when he knew the NKF funds were not properly used. Did he display moral outrage? Or did he say something like: Oh, never mind that we were conned, it was the compassion and sympathy that counts. Heck, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he took the former stance. And what? The take-home message is that it is okay for people to con us out of our sympathy money, as long as they are not some big-evil organisation???

Lest I come across to readers as an evil bastard with no compassion, let me set the record straight by stating that I believe in welfare for the less fortunate. It is just that I also believe in something known as efficiency and utility as well. Okay, so the average man on the street doesn't have the necessary information, so that is why the directors from the Neuroscience Centre are providing you with this information, so as to enable you to make a better judgement. If the reaction to this kind of information is the kind of moralistic high-ground in which the writer adopts by saying that oh-I-didn't-want-to-know-that-because-it-is-my-kindness-that-counts-even-though-I-may-be-gullible, then so be it.

Stupidity kills.