12.01.2005

if you could see my thought bubbles...

a friend sent this link to her email list:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article330215.ece
A survey of creative professionals found that on average they had about twice the number of sexual liaisons as non-artists, scientists said ... The scientists asked 425 men and women about their sexual partners, including one-night stands. The study found the average number of partners for professional artists and poets to be between four and 10 compared with just three for non-creative people.
4-10 is the high number?
huh. i must know a lot of slutty people.
Dr Nettle also suggests that the findings may help to explain a connection between schizophrenia, which affects about 1 per cent of people, and serious artists, who share many of the same personality traits as schizophrenics. "These personality traits can manifest themselves in negative ways, in that a person with them is likely to be prone to the shadows of full-blown mental illness such as depression and suicidal thoughts."
"i'm not moody baby, i'm just a sensitive artist..."
hey wait, how did we get from sex to schizophrenia?
and i think someone needs to get this guy a copy of the dsm-iv.
It is possible that the same genetic factors responsible for predisposing someone to creativity could also, under slightly different environmental conditions, lead to schizophrenia, Dr Nettle said. "If these genetic factors have been chosen by successive generations as attractive features in a potential mate, this could explain why schizophrenia is so common today," he said.
oh my god we're breeding schizophrenia now?
there's an argument for not having children.

so, to sum up:
1. creative people are more depressey
2. depression is a mental illness
3. so is schizophrenia
4. maybe creative people are mostly schizophrenics
5. creative people have more sex
6. more sex = more kids
7. we are all the product of attraction to insanity

airtight argument there.
nice going, steve connor science editor.

8. MENTAL ILLNESS!