Evolutionary Psychology and the Public Media: Rekindling the Romance
David Sloan Wilson
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The Never-Ending Misconceptions About Evolutionary Psychology.
The anti-EP dragon is slain repeatedly and yet it always resurfaces, emboldened by its blind and prideful ignorance of the facts. Unfortunately, it would take several posts for me to provide a point-by-point retort to the endless number of falsehoods that appear in her article. Instead, I will focus on a few key ones that were central to her critique. (Psychology Today)
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Can We Blame Our Bad Behavior on Stone-Age Genes? | Newsweek Newsweek Culture | Newsweek.com
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Brain Cells for Socializing
Allman was searching for a peculiar kind of brain cell that he suspects is a key to how the African elephant—like a human being—manages to stay attuned to the ever-shifting nuances of social interplay. These spindle-shaped brain cells, called von Economo neurons—named for the man who first described them—are found only in human beings, great apes and a handful of other notably gregarious creatures. Allman, 66, compares the brains of people and other animals to gain insight into the evolution of human behavior.
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Interpreting hybrid images
How the brain interprets complex visual scenes is an enduring mystery for researchers. This process occurs extremely rapidly - the "meaning" of a scene is interpreted within 1/20th of a second, and, even though the information processed by the brain may be incomplete, the interpretation is usually correct.
Occasionally, however, visual stimuli are open to interpretation. This is the case with ambiguous figures - images which can be interpreted in more than one way. When an ambiguous image is viewed, a single image impinges upon the retina, but higher order processing in the visual cortex leads to a number of different interpretations of that image. (Neurophilosophy)
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Brain Enhancement
How should we deal with cognitive-enhancing drugs?
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Found: the brain’s centre of wisdom
SCIENTISTS have identified the seat of human wisdom by pinpointing parts of the brain that guide us when we face difficult moral dilemmas. (Times Online)
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Phasic Firing Of Dopamine Neurons Is Key To Brain's Prediction Of Rewards
Researchers are one step closer to understanding the neurobiology that allows people to successfully learn motivated behaviors by associating environmental cues with rewarding outcomes
more fromwww.sciencedaily.com
Feeling our way to right and wrong
Whatever role one believes emotions should play in moral judgment, new research demonstrates that the influence of these low-level passions is profound. In fact, a study published in Science earlier this month suggests that many moral judgments are mediated by the same emotional mechanism that is activated by rotten leftovers and dirty socks. (Olivia Scheck)
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Unconscious decisions
Benjamin Libet’s experimental finding that decisions had in effect already been made before the conscious mind became aware of making them is both famous and controversial; now new research (published in a ‘Brief Communication’ in Nature Neuroscience by Chun Siong Soon, Marcel Brass, Hans-Jochen Heinze and John-Dylan Haynes) goes beyond it. Whereas the delay between decision and awareness detected by Libet lasted 500 milliseconds, the new research seems to show that decisions can be predicted up to ten seconds before the deciders are aware of having made up their minds. (Conscious Entities)
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Benjamin Libet - Libet's short delay.
The experiments carried out by Benjamin Libet into the timing of conscious awareness (briefly described here ) have provoked, and go on provoking, a vast amount of discussion. His own theory of consciousness as a kind of field has received somewhat less attention; and the strange brain-cutting experiment he proposed to test it seems likely to remain unperformed for the foreseeable future. A large number of papers and discussions have been published: in 2004, Libet finally summarised his own account in the book 'Mind Time'. (consciousentities.com)
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Adult stem cell lies - everything old is new again
It's come time to lie about science again - this time about the reality of embryonic stem cell pluripotency - and some of the old lies are coming back out of the storage shed. For instance, Andrew Breitbart on Real Time last night, and in a video from (liar for Jesus) Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, I've heard about how adult stem cells have cured or treated 72 diseases. Oh and embryonic stem cells, they've cured none. It's been a while since we've seen this adult stem cell nonsense. (denialism blog)
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Different neuron networks control fear of different threats
If you wanted to turn a rat into a fearless critter, unfazed by cats or bigger rats, the best way would be to neutralise a small pair of tiny structures in its brain called the dorsal premammillary nuclei, orPMD. According to new research by Simone Motta at the University of Sao Paolo, these small regions, nestled within a rat's hypothalamus, control its defensive instincts to both predators and other rats. (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
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Babies and Morality
humans evolved a powerful set of moral instincts - a set of instincts that far exceed those of our primate relatives - because we depend on others to help us rear our helpless infants (The Frontal Cortex)
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Joe the Plumber by Samuel Wurzelbacher & Thomas Tabback
Ultimately, I was able to sympathize with Wurzelbacher just a little bit because of the apparent way the Obama and McCain campaigns used and abused his name and the symbolism it afforded them to reach out to key voting demographics. But, my limited support for Wurzelbacher is trumped by how aghast I am at this book’s publication. If Joe the Plumber is indeed the future face of America, than echoing Wurzelbacher, God help us all.
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Where is my mind?
There is a gap between the mind and the world, and (as far as anybody knows) you need to posit internal representations if you are to have a hope of getting across it. Mind the gap. You’ll regret it if you don’t. (Jerry Fodor review of Clark)
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