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The Young and the Neuro
The hard sciences are interpenetrating the social sciences. This isn’t dehumanizing. It shines attention on the things poets have traditionally cared about: the power of human attachments. It may even help policy wonks someday see people as they really are. (Brooks - NYTimes.com)
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social cognitive neuroscience
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Matthew Lieberman of U.C.L.A
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Kwame Anthony Appiah - Experiments in Ethics (Review)
Reviewed by John M. Doris, Washington University in St. Louis and Jesse J. Prinz, City University of New York Graduate Center
Two Monkeys Get the Gift of Color
The Neitzes, with Katherine Mancuso and other colleagues, used the technique of gene therapy to introduce the gene for the missing red pigment into the cone cells of the monkeys’ retinas. Several months after the therapy, Dalton and Sam were able to see a world in which red hues were visible and oranges no longer looked like lemons, the researchers say in the current issue of Nature.
Philosophical Temperament
Many philosophers have worried about what philosophy is. Often they have looked for answers by considering what it is that philosophers do. Given the diversity of topics and methods found in philosophy, however, we propose a different approach. In this article we consider the philosophical temperament, asking an alternative question: What are philosophers like? Our answer is that one important aspect of the philosophical temperament is that philosophers are especially reflective. This claim is supported by a study of more than 5,000 philosophers and non-philosophers, the results of which indicate that even when we control for overall education level, philosophers tend to be significantly more reflective than their peers. We then illustrate this tendency by considering what we know about the philosophizing of a few prominent philosophers. Recognizing this aspect of the philosophical temperament, it is natural to wonder how philosophers came to be this way: Does philosophical training teach reflectivity or do more reflective people tend to gravitate to philosophy? We consider the limitations of our data with respect to this question and suggest that a longitudinal study be conducted.
A debate in Nature on Darwin and the mind
Last April, Johan J. Bolhuis and Clive D. L. Wynne published in Nature (458(7240), 832-833) a paper entitled "Can evolution explain how minds work?" doubting the use and usefulness of evolutionary analysis in understanding cognitive mechanisms. In response, Lewis Wolpert ("Cognition: evolution does help to explain how minds work" in Nature, 459(7246), 506-50), Sara J. Shettleworth ("Cognition: theories of mind in animals and humans." in Nature, 459(7246), 506-506) and Frans B. M. de Waal ("Darwin's last laugh." in Nature 460, 175 (9 July 2009) freely available here) separately defended the use of evolutionary theory, and in particular comparative analysis, in the study of cognition.
Is free will an illusion?
This debate has focused on humans and 'conscious free will'. Yet when it comes to understanding how we initiate behaviour, we can learn a lot by looking at animals. Although we do not credit animals with anything like the consciousness in humans, researchers have found that animal behaviour is not as involuntary as it may appear. The idea that animals act only in response to external stimuli has long been abandoned, and it is well established that they initiate behaviour on the basis of their internal states, as we do. (Nature)
Evolutionary Psychology Under Fire
Recently the doubts and questions plaguing the theory of evolutionary psychology have boiled up to the mainstream press. Christie Nicholson reports. (Scientific American Podcast)
Learning is social, computational, supported by neural systems linking people
Education is on the cusp of a transformation because of recent scientific findings in neuroscience, psychology, and machine learning that are converging to create foundations for a new science of learning.
The Domestication of the Savage Mind
James Flynn is best known for having discovered a stubborn fact. In a series of papers culminating in the classic 1987 article “Massive IQ Gains in 14 Nations: What IQ Tests Really Measure,” he established that in every country where consistent IQ tests have been given to large numbers of people over time, scores have been rising as far back as the records go, in some cases to the early 20th century. What Is Intelligence? is Flynn’s attempt to explain this phenomenon, now known as the Flynn effect. (American Scientist)
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in every country where consistent IQ tests have been given to large numbers of people over time, scores have been rising as far back as the records go, in some cases to the early 20th century.
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He claims the Flynn effect is a consequence of changes in the way people live and the skills they cultivate—changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
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HOW DID HUMANS COME DOWN FROM THE TREES AND WHY DID NO ONE FOLLOW? By Vanessa Woods & Brian Hare
Edge: OUT OF OUR MINDS:
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Bonobos share more DNA (98.7 percent) with us than they do with gorillas
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A theory of mind allows for complex social behaviors, such as military strategies, and the formation of institutions, such as governments.
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Brains, Computers, and Minds
Harvard Mind/Brain/Behavior - 2009 Distinguished Lecture Series with Professor Daniel Dennett (video)
Personal Robotics Group
- We are developing a team of 4 small mobile humanoid robots that possess a novel combination of mobility, moderate dexterity, and human-centric communication and interaction abilities. Our collaborators include Xitome Design and UMASS Amherst. We refer to this class of robots as "MDS" for Mobile/Dexterous/Social.
Percontations: Explaining and Appraising Moral Intuition
Percontations: Explaining and Appraising Moral Intuition (Bloggingheads.tv)
Evolutionary origins of the nervous system
THE HUMAN BRAIN is a true marvel of nature. This jelly-like 1.5kg mass inside our skulls, containing hundreds of billions of cells which between them form something like a quadrillion connections, is responsible for our every action, emotion and thought. How did this remarkable and extraordinarily complex structure evolve?
Moral Sentiments in the Brain
Recent research at the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies (CNS) has not only found that moral sentiments are real and measurable, but we have been able to manipulate these mechanisms in human brains to cause people to be moral in the lab. (Psychology Today)
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