Why would Starfleet have such scant knowledge on Vulcan concepts like mind melds, pon farr, etc?

[Jedi_Master]

Humans - after over a century of observation - are unable to answer with any certainty how/where/when the largest animal to ever live on this planet (the blue whale) mates, gives birth, what it's courtship routines are, etc. They can make measured guesses and reasonable assumptions, but they don't KNOW.

Blue whales aren't purposefully trying to keep secrets. I imagine the Vulcans might be better at it than a blue whale.

 

[Tenacity]

We saw during Journey to Babel that the members of the Federation didn't universally get along, there no indication that a century later anything had changed.

 

[BillJ]

Humans - after over a century of observation - are unable to answer with any certainty how/where/when the largest animal to ever live on this planet (the blue whale) mates, gives birth, what it's courtship routines are, etc. They can make measured guesses and reasonable assumptions, but they don't KNOW.

Blue whales aren't purposefully trying to keep secrets. I imagine the Vulcans might be better at it than a blue whale.

We can't sit down and have lunch with those whales or read their literature or actually live and work with them. Like humans can with Vulcans in the Trek universe.

 

[The Wormhole]

There must be a lot of rumours though. Even species 8472 knows about Pon Farr. In in the flesh, "Archer" invites Chakotay to Pon farr night in the Vulcan nightclub ... one wonders how accurate that 8472 recreation was ....

All that means is that they know about a nightclub in San Francisco at which "Ponn Farr Night" is a thing. That does not necessarily mean they know about ponn farr. After all, Species 8472 also thought there were multiple Ferengi serving in Starfleet and that Boothby was in charge of Starfleet Command. They also somehow missed the fact that their Starfleet officers were wearing outdated uniforms or that Voyager was stranded in the Delta Quadrant as opposed to being officially assigned there.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

You would expect any doctor on a ship deployed to deep space to know at least something about Vulcan biology.

In Spock's time, Starfleet was portrayed as more exclusively human so it made more sense for nobody to know anything about Vulcans, but in the 24th century you'd expect more widespread knowledge especially in a world where academy cadets are supposed to know to be confrontational just because a guy has webbed fingers.

It's possible Vulcans themselves have chosen never to study the biology of it too closely. They are so desperate to remain perfectly logical they choose not to dwell on the one aspect of themselves that is inherently illogical. It's something so personal that no Vulcan would ever agree to have blood samples and such taken during his pon farr, and no Vulcan researcher would ever ask.

 

[UnknownSample]

Some good points here. We make some mistakes by taking it so much for granted that we in our time are sensible enough, therefore in the future they will approach things the same way. I think there are limitations on published knowledge of Vulcan biology, and that people know enough to mind their own business, and not pry too deeply. The fact that this sometimes creates problems does not mean Vulcan privacy can just be swept aside. Normally, a request might be made of Vulcan to send relevant information in a crisis. Or a Vulcan-manned Federation ship. That wasn't possible for Voyager.
==========
Basically, they wing it. They piece together a compromise between privacy and medical need for information.

Why would Vulcans all think alike? Why would North Koreans, for that matter? No group thinks alike. There is room for variation within a particular philosophy.

 

[at Quark's]

All that means is that they know about a nightclub in San Francisco at which "Ponn Farr Night" is a thing. That does not necessarily mean they know about ponn farr.

True. However, that alternative would mean that there probably is such a night club in San Fransisco advertising with it. So at least some of the knowledge about Pon Farr would be in the public domain.

...
I think there are limitations on published knowledge of Vulcan biology, and that people know enough to mind their own business, and not pry too deeply. The fact that this sometimes creates problems does not mean Vulcan privacy can just be swept aside. Normally, a request might be made of Vulcan to send relevant information in a crisis. Or a Vulcan-manned Federation ship. That wasn't possible for Voyager.
==========
Basically, they wing it. They piece together a compromise between privacy and medical need for information.
...

Sounds sensible as well, given what we see on screen. So, the conclusion would be that knowledge that Vulcans have something like a Pon Farr (and that it has something to do with the mating process) is somewhat generally known, at least in the 24th century, but not too much beyond that?

 

[The Old Mixer]

I think it makes sense that there wouldn't be much medical information about mind melds. The Vulcans probably don't deal with them via medical means, they deal with them by mind melding. Fat lot of good a text on that is gonna do the EMH.

 

[Timo]

You would expect any doctor on a ship deployed to deep space to know at least something about Vulcan biology.

This may well turn out to be utterly impossible, though. I mean, he'd be expected to know at least something about pretty much everything - Vulcans, Andorians, Klingons. Humans can't do that - it's impossible for an MD to know "at least something" about all the important aspects of the human body even today, and things are getting worse by the day. Might well be it takes seven specialists working together to emulate one "general practitioner" on medicine, pick your species (but only pick one), and Starfleet can't afford fourteen MDs on Kirk's ship.

That McCoy is halfway as competent with Spock's species (whatever that species is - certainly it isn't human or Vulcan) is a miracle in itself. This must come at a price already. And dropping "Vulcan procreation idiosyncracies" from the curriculum might help a bit especially if Vulcans politely asked.

It's possible Vulcans themselves have chosen never to study the biology of it too closely. They are so desperate to remain perfectly logical they choose not to dwell on the one aspect of themselves that is inherently illogical. It's something so personal that no Vulcan would ever agree to have blood samples and such taken during his pon farr, and no Vulcan researcher would ever ask.

We have to remember that pon farr might never manifest on a Starfleet officer. No, not simply because all real Vulcans would have their schedules worked out so that they'd never be caught with their pants down, so to speak. There's a more fundamental reason inherent in the phenomenon. Supposedly, pon farr is related to the finding of a mate. And Vulcans of service age could be assumed to have found their mates already.

Spock was a freak who probably had hoped to avoid marriage for the very reason. And Tuvok was so far away from his wife that his telepathic wossat couldn't tell she existed. Vorik, too, already was married, even if he was bent on remarrying while Tuvok was not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

At least, any competent physician would know the basics of the most common species and the species of any race assigned to their ship. I agree it'd be difficult for one physician to amass that amount of knowledge, that's why those postings are so difficult to get.

You need to be first or second in your class to be considered for a lead role in prime deep space assignments.

 

[Timo]

Are they, though? We never hear of anybody facing any competition as such. McCoy, Crusher and Pulaski just got assigned there, for assorted and unknown reasons. Elizabeth Lense considered service aboard the big Lexington a reward for her study prowess, but all the others from her class ended up somewhere, too, and there was no suggestion that all those other assignments would have been non-starship ones.

The unofficial backstory of McCoy is that he's an old country doctor. The 2009 movie confirms much of that as the literal truth. And McCoy is already an important shipboard medic of LtCmdr rank three years after first entering the Academy, while Kirk the Wunderkind remains a cadet (even if apparently on the verge of getting Lt(jg?) commission as per that transporter graphic) - how much extra medicine could McCoy have studied in that time, as opposed to getting his general space credentials and then some field practice for the supposed multiple promotions (Starfleet doctors start out at Lt(jg) rank if not lower still, as per Bashir and Lense)?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[maneth]

It wasn't shown on TOS for obvious reasons, but I think that doctors in the 24th century, especially those dealing with multiple species, will be heavily reliant on AI to assist in diagnosis. There's effectively no limit to the amount of knowledge AIs can handle, and even today AI assistance is used in the diagnosis of some cancers, such as breast cancer, where the AI has a lower rate of false positives than human doctors do.

 

[Tim Thomason]

It wasn't shown on TOS for obvious reasons, but I think that doctors in the 24th century, especially those dealing with multiple species, will be heavily reliant on AI to assist in diagnosis. There's effectively no limit to the amount of knowledge AIs can handle, and even today AI assistance is used in the diagnosis of some cancers, such as breast cancer, where the AI has a lower rate of false positives than human doctors do.

There is an issue that it makes sense for famed medical genius McCoy not to know offhand Vulcan physiological idiosyncrasies, or even Augment Bashir not to have learned the medical history of the Klingon species, but the EMH on Voyager is an AI. When he says something, that should be the sum of all the records in Voyager's Federation database.

Enterprise told us that mind melders were relatively rare amongst Vulcans. Perhaps Pon farr sufferers were even rarer still. Tuvok and coincidentally Vorik both would come from these rare pon farr families. Perhaps Vorik picked up the pon farr "virus" from Tuvok (who was stated to have pon farr when he left Excelsior).

Most pon farr types would remain on Vulcan (Spock believing himself immune, Tuvok controlling them with age), and the issue would usually sort itself out over tea or port.

Basically, pon farr would be a rare telepathic disorder (one of thousands?) that most Vulcans would not even be aware of outside of affected families. T'Pol lived in a time when telepathy was shunned and the Teachings of Surak incomplete for hundreds of years. It was T'Pau who brought about the Vulcan Reformation in 2154 that may have allowed the "acceptance" of telepathic bonding rituals and the like.

 

[at Quark's]

... the EMH on Voyager is an AI. When he says something, that should be the sum of all the records in Voyager's Federation database.

I believe even the EMH had to consult with the medical texts/database every now and then. Or for example consult with the Crell Mosett hologram. Granted, that was Cardassian research and not the Federation's, but still. Perhaps there wasn't enough space in his 'holomatrix' (whatever that may be) to hold all data all the time.

EDIT:
In fact, I just found a reference saying exactly that in that very episode (Nothing Human).

EMH: ...If I'm to have any hope of devising a treatment I'll need to brush up on my exobiology.
PARIS: What do you mean, brush up? Don't you have all this information in your database?
EMH: I may be a walking medical encyclopaedia, but even I don't know everything. My matrix simply isn't large enough.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

It wasn't shown on TOS for obvious reasons, but I think that doctors in the 24th century, especially those dealing with multiple species, will be heavily reliant on AI to assist in diagnosis. There's effectively no limit to the amount of knowledge AIs can handle, and even today AI assistance is used in the diagnosis of some cancers, such as breast cancer, where the AI has a lower rate of false positives than human doctors do.

I say that this kind of thing you've mentioned is also the same for lawyers as well (with the possible exception of Sam Cogely).

 

[The Wormhole]

Enterprise told us that mind melders were relatively rare amongst Vulcans.

Well, not exactly, By season 4 that was retconned to that anyone could learn to mind-meld, indeed there is an episode where Archer is teaching T'Pol to mind meld, and successfully at that.

Perhaps Pon farr sufferers were even rarer still.

Except, T'Pol did suffer an artificially induced ponn farr in season 2's Bounty, and even in season 1 we had multiple references to ponn farr.

Tuvok controlling them with age

It was from Tuvok we learned the Vulcan libido increases with age and that the older a Vulcan gets the more difficult it is to deal with ponn farr.

 

[Hunter Zolomon]

Humans - after over a century of observation - are unable to answer with any certainty how/where/when the largest animal to ever live on this planet (the blue whale) mates, gives birth, what it's courtship routines are, etc. They can make measured guesses and reasonable assumptions, but they don't KNOW.

Blue whales aren't purposefully trying to keep secrets. I imagine the Vulcans might be better at it than a blue whale.

yet somehow i can tell you about the cultures of other people living on earth, they are documentaries about other societies and cultures just on our earth.
On average why would humanity care about animal mating but i am expected to believe that starfleet has limited knowledge on the sometimes dangerous mating rituals of a founding species. Hard to believe, that we know enough about different species to make the enviroment of star ships to match their physiology yet somehow vulcans are keeping something so important and dangerous about their physiology from starfleet. Due to what, embarrassment? lives are on the line, keeping it a secret is as illogical as it gets.

 

[Timo]

And "Amok Time" admits to as much. So what? Illogic is not rare on Earth, and dying rather than being embarrassed by having to yell for help is relatively common, too...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hunter Zolomon]

And "Amok Time" admits to as much. So what? Illogic is not rare on Earth, and dying rather than being embarrassed by having to yell for help is relatively common, too...

Timo Saloniemi

true but star fleet is an organisation that caters to the needs of a multitude of different species and cultures. Something as important as Pon Farr is a major oversight on their part.
Besides if the federation is a free society as we have been led to believe i am sure other species live on vulcan and vice versa. Hell we have mixed with vulcans to the point that they are marquis colonists that are vulcans and even vulcan human hybrids, yet despite all the advance medical care and research Pon farr was a big mystery.

 

[Timo]

Something as important as Pon Farr is a major oversight on their part.

And they'd only feel a need to do something about that if they knew it existed. But they don't. Or agree to pretending that they don't, perhaps because that's what it takes to be friends with Vulcans.

Besides if the federation is a free society as we have been led to believe i am sure other species live on vulcan and vice versa.

Vulcan isn't a free society, though - it's apparently forbidden to speak of pon farr. This would no doubt be a condition placed upon all those living on Vulcan, too. One doesn't get all that far in the US by insisting that kids are valid sex partners or cocaine is good for your brain - there are certain limits to freedom that a multicultural entity like the UFP would be constantly banging its head against, and by definition many of those would appear absurd to parties other than the one involved.

Timo Saloniemi