Conversation with Veronica Palladino, M.D. on Family, Molise, Naturalness, Women, and Religious Faith: Member, Glia Society (2)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/07/15

Abstract

Veronica Palladino, M.D., is a Medical Doctor, Co-Champion of the LexIQ Contest, an author of four books, and a member of a number of High-I.Q. societies. She discusses: the main teachings; family a physical and social nourishment; the parts of nature and types of ancient traditions one can find in Molise; an acceptance one’s true self and nature; a medical doctor; I.Q. scores; individuals self-promoting at various levels; the friend; a genius; the factors involved in genius; the uniqueness of each genius; strength; determination; creativity; originality; innovation; the medical system in Italy; reasonable working hours; the idea of neurodiversity; religious faith and science; science; patients will die; physicians translate innovations in science into ethical practice; Italy working towards integration ethics and politics with “environmentalism”; ultimate moral decision-making; and the principles of Catholicism.

Keywords: Catholicism, environmentalism, family, genius, Italy, Molise, moral decision-making, neurodiversity, patients, religious faith, science, Veronica Palladino.

Conversation with Veronica Palladino, M.D. on Family, Molise, Naturalness, Women, and Religious Faith: Member, Glia Society (2)

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What were the main teachings provided by your father to your sister and you?

Veronica Palladino[1],[2]*: My dad’s teachings were very pragmatic. Few words and many facts. It doesn’t matter what you tell but what you do with passion and dedication. My father was a tireless worker, a strong and determined man. He said: “Do not cry but fight every moment of life”.

Jacobsen: Is family a physical and social nourishment and renewal, or more of a distant memory to recall for strength and revival, or both?

Palladino: According to me family is nourishment and renewal. When family is healthy it is a source of strength. It is a propellant towards infinite potential but when it is sick it generates traumas and torments from which it is difficult to heal. Every day there is a news case that remembers it. Therefore governments must invest in the well-being and social integration of families.

Jacobsen: What are some of the parts of nature and types of ancient traditions one can find in Molise?

Palladino: Molise shows a rich heritage of traditional festivals that highlight ancient and religious values and a deep cultural identity. There are the WWF Nature Reserve Guardiaregia-Campochiaro, the oasis The Mortine, the LIPU reserve Casacalenda, the Matese, the botanical garden Capracotta, the reserve Collemeluccio.
Lucky people may have the chance to see wild animals as the brown bears, deers, chamois, wolves.

Jacobsen: How does a naturalness, an acceptance one’s true self and nature, lead to a more fulfilling life, knowing “that I am what I am, simply”?

Palladino: The pursuit of self knowledge, key element in Socrates philosophy is: γνώθι σαυτόν. It is inscribed over the portico at Apollo’s Temple at Delphi. It is the fundamental undertakings of psychology. Everybody has a hidden part of the Universe’s truth inside the mind.

Jacobsen: As a medical doctor, what were the inspirations for each text: “Il diario del Martedì, Un mondo altro, La Morte delle Afroditi bionde and Persone e lacrime”? Because I like the combination of M.D. plus writer. I may, or may not, be biased towards writers, dear Veronica.

Palladino: Il diario del Martedì is a research about being who you want to be. Un mondo altro is a novel based on fantasy, love of literature and personal growth. La Morte delle Afroditi bionde is a book that centers on a series of mysterious murders. What it looks like is not. Finally Persone e lacrime is a collection of poems. Poems are particles of oxygen that caress my lungs and ignite my synapses.

Jacobsen: What happens when the I.Q. scores are taken too seriously?

Palladino: I.Q. tests are good ways to improve thinking, mental power and ability but tests are not scientifically validated parameters for definition of intelligence. It is only a start point of orientation.

Jacobsen: Of those individuals self-promoting at various levels, most are men in the high-I.Q. communities. Why?

Palladino: I do not know why but women’s IQ scores are extraordinary. I know brilliant and precious women’s minds. I hope greater consideration of their skill and professional ability will be the prevalent situation in the future.

Women (My poem for women)

Wicked fibers

Intertwine in the pulsating core of the world.

Kaleidoscopic faces and cutouts of figures they result

From algorithms

Apparently indecipherable.

Bigots, puritans, prostitutes, rebels,

guilty, wagtails, nightingales, innocents.

Beauty crashes into the minds eager

To possess her and imprison her but not it bends,

advances and expands in

sincere heart that gives passion and rejects servility.

Strength is not sapped

By humiliations

Of the mephitic crapula.

Women, spirits drunk with

Burning emotion.

Women, lovable profile e vibrant with existence.

Women pure and abundant

Source of new

Life.

Jacobsen: Was the friend discovered as similarly gifted when testing around 20?

Palladino: No, but it was a good experience.

Jacobsen: Do you consider yourself a genius?

Palladino: Absolutely no. I love knowledge but there is nothing of a genius in me.

Jacobsen: In some manner, are the factors involved in genius in interaction with the wider world too manifold to make precise or even generic predictions about who, when, and what will be recognized as such, e.g., a person of genius, a period of genius, or a discovery or creation of genius? Terence Tao seems like a person who was known since a young age for prodigious mathematical talents and who, unlike others who went off the tracks, became highly successful.

Palladino: There must be a time, a place, an urgency, a convergence of factors that affect the birth of genius. Literary genius is a multi-layered aptitude that consists of many unique cognitive, affective, perceptual, motivational, interpersonal, and state-dependent attributes, including the challenging of orthodox thinking, fertility of ideas, compulsive discipline and hard work, tolerance of ambiguity, innocence of perception, immersion in the present moment, intellectual diversity, an internal locus of evaluation, and sensitivity to nuances.

Jacobsen: Maybe, the uniqueness of each genius, e.g., “Bohr, Leibniz, Goethe, Bach, Ramanujan, Wittgenstein, Aeschylus,” makes comparison or ranking necessarily moot. I don’t know. While, at the same time, do you think common themes might mark them? Something educational in an attempt at drawing threads through times and cultures, and minds. Cooijmans likes to point to a particular creative capacity in factors, for example.

Palladino: Creativity is a common factor to genial talents certainly. A genius is a curious, stubborn, reckless discoverer of diversity.

Jacobsen: Which genius best exemplifies strength to you?

Palladino: Rosalind Franklin.

Jacobsen: Which genius best exemplifies determination to you?

Palladino: Marie Curie.

Jacobsen: Which genius best exemplifies creativity to you?

Palladino: Leonardo da Vinci.

Jacobsen: Which genius best exemplifies originality to you?

Palladino: Rita Levi Montalcini.

Jacobsen: Which genius best exemplifies innovation to you?

Palladino: Barbara McClintock.

Jacobsen: How is the medical system in Italy compared to other Western European nations? How is this compared to societies with much different values and preferences, e.g., the United States?

Palladino: The medical culture provided by the Italian study system is undoubtedly valid and comprehensive of all important aspects but there are problems relating to job’s organization so young doctors decide to work abroad sometimes.

Jacobsen: Do you have reasonable working hours as a resident to balance writing endeavours and medicine?

Palladino: Unfortunately I don’t have much time to combine my two natures and I have stopped writing novels.

Jacobsen: How helpful is the idea of neurodiversity to place a positive emphasis on differences in aptitudes and outputs of someone’s neurology?

Palladino: Neurodiversity is a power inside every person, a light of special trait that opens every own path. Lack of awareness, and lack of appropriate infrastructure (such as office setup or staffing structures) can cause exclusion of people with neurodevelopmental differences. Understanding and embracing neurodiversity in communities, schools, healthcare settings, and workplaces can improve inclusivity for all people. It is important for all of us to foster an environment that is conducive to neurodiversity, and to recognize and emphasize each person’s individual strengths and talents while also providing support for their differences and needs.

Jacobsen: This ineffable quality, is this more an intuitive sense of the Divine rather than a rational enquiry into the state of nature? This seems like a common theme amongst highly intelligent individuals who adhere to a belief in transcendental sentiments and structures beyond the senses and analytical, when I discourse with them. Something incredibly profound, personal, and rock bottom true. An instinct of something that can’t not be; where, God simply, purely, exists as ontic universality, as the ground of Being, of Good, of Love, of Justice, of Beauty, of a means by which reality coheres and in which reality remains inhered with – God, of all that is, was, and will be, to them.

Palladino: Religious faith and science cannot be merged. They are two wonderful dimensions, parallel but not confusing.

Jacobsen: When does our science simply not have the answers that matter to us?

Palladino: Until a new genius will find the right answers.

Jacobsen: How do you cope with knowing some unknown number of patients will die with you, around you?

Palladino: “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built of a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touches some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.”~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. Death is the last point of life and we have to accept it.

Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed E+S⇄ ES→ E+P

Jacobsen: How do physicians translate innovations in science into ethical practice mentioned in commentary of Weinstein and Stehr?

Palladino: Innovative practice occurs when a clinician provides something new, untested, or nonstandard in the course of clinical care. Weinstein, Jay and Nico Stehr wrote “The power of knowledge: race science, race policy, and the Holocaust,”Social Epistemology” The authors take a comparative and historical perspective and refer to well-known theoretical frameworks, These cases cover a number of countries and different time periods. They see a close link between ‘knowledge producers’ and political decision-makers, but show that the effectiveness of the policies varies dramatically.

Jacobsen: Is Italy working towards integration ethics and politics with “environmentalism”? What obligations and responsibilities come with the rights and privileges of human beings living in society and living in nature as part of Nature?

Palladino: The key environmental legislation is the Environmental Consolidated Act (Norme in materia ambientale or Codice dell’Ambiente) (Legislative Decree no 152/2006). The state has exclusive competence in environmental regulation (Italian Constitution). The principal national authority is the Ministry of Ecological Transition (Ministero della Transizione Ecologica) (MET) (formerly the Ministry of the Environment and Protection of Land and Sea (Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare) (Law Decree no 22/2021 converted into law no 55/2021.The regime pays particular attention to projects and activities that: 1Could directly impact the environment. 2 Affect the quality of life and conservation of species and natural habitats. 3Affect the biodiversity of the environment.

Nature is around and inside people. Nature is our mouths, our lungs, our eyes. We can not kill ourselves.

Jacobsen: Sometimes, even often, there can be statements and proposals by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, while, simultaneously, by and large, an ignoring of these by the laity. It may be different in Italian society than, for example, Canadian society. However, these differences can create confusion about the investment of authority within the minds of the hierarchs and the various cultures of the laity. With values inclusive of “life and dignity of the human person, solidarity, subsidiarity and respect,” is it the conscience of the individual believer, various hierarchs of the Church, or something else, in which the authority for ultimate moral decision-making must be held to account within Catholicism?

Palladino: Each doctrine has interpretative differences especially considering the cultural, environmental and social aspects that characterize nations, however the founding pillars of Catholicism always remain the same. The foundations or pillars of an authentic Catholic life are summarized in the traditional four pillars of Catholic catechisms: faith, liturgy/sacraments, life in Christ, and prayer.

Jacobsen: You spoke of the principles of Catholicism. What about the doctrines and warnings in Catholicism, e.g., belief in the Devil in the former and warnings against association with/involvement in freemasonry? Do these come into personal consideration for personal living, too?

Palladino: Faith must be a reason of improvement, growth and resolution. Honesty, sincerity, humility, acceptance of one’s limits, kindness and fairness are the principles I follow. Freemasonry is a distorted concept of cohesion and I disagree.

Footnotes

[1] Medical Doctor; Co-Champion, LexIQ Contest; Full Member, CHIN; Member, Leviathan;Member, The One Society; Member, Hochste IQ Society; Member, Profundus Society; Member, Synaptiq Society; Member, WGD; Member, Gifted High IQ Network; Prospective Member, Sidis Society; Full Member of other High-I.Q. Societies; Author: “Il diario del Martedì” (2008), “Un mondo altro” (2009), “La Morte delle Afroditi bionde” (2019) and “Persone e lacrime” (poems) (2018).

[2] Individual Publication Date: July 15, 2022: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/palladino-2; Full Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2022: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

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